When Devil’s Slide was really a slide and more

                                 Devil’s Slide today.

DEVIL'S Slide is a bizarre, giant-size limestone chute, located on the south side of I-84 in Weber Canyon, near Croydon, and about eight miles east of Morgan.

Composed of two parallel slabs of rock about 20 feet apart, some 40 feet high and about 200 feet long, this odd phenomenon has attracted the curious gaze of passerbys since Pioneer times.

The first pioneers through the area in the 1840s (and their maps) referred to the Croydon area of upper Weber Canyon as “Gutter Defile,” in honor of what would eventually become famous as Devil’s Slide.

Who named the rock formation Devil’s Slide?

James John Walker (1830-1896), an early resident of Croydon and a railroad worker, is very likely the first person to have called it Devil’s Slide.

A Walker family history states that James Walker was a contractor on the railroad, installing the first tracks through upper Weber Canyon. Probably around 1868, he was asked (being a local resident) by a railroad crew what to call this unusual rocky chute and his reply was Devil’s Slide and the title stuck.

The first official mention of that name for the rock formation in a newspaper was in 1875.

"Looking like a large playground slide fit only for the Devil, this site is a tilted remnant of sediments deposited in a sea that occupied Utah's distant geologic past," Carl Ege of the Utah Geological Survey explains on geology.utah.gov.

By 1904, limestone was found in abundance in the area of Devil’s Slide and soon a cement worker’s town sprung up there. Workers initially began calling the new community Portland, in honor of the Union Portland Cement Company.

However, railroad people objected to that name and insisted on a Devil’s Slide moniker instead. They won out and by 1907 the local post office was also called Devils Slide. (Note that there was no apostrophe to the town's name.)

The cement company’s packages even sported the startling image of the devil sliding down the rock chute on his pitchfork for many years. The company’s baseball team was also called the Red Devils.

The town reached its heyday in the late 1920s, before the Great Depression, when it boasted 529 residents. By the 1940s, its school closed and by the 1980s, only a few families still resided there. Soon after, the cement company closed the town and today a gravel pit and rubble mostly cover what remains of this ghost town.

      A 1947 photo of Devil’s Slide shows visitor Venice Carson Flygare of Grouse Creek/Ogden.                     Note how close the viewpoint to the Slide was back then, in the pre-freeway era.

Going back in time again, “Mystic Shriners at Devil’s Slide” was an Aug. 22, 1911 headline in the Standard, The Shriners held special ceremonies and initiations around the formation. Included was a hike to the top of Devil’s Slide, followed by an optional, daring slide downward.

Did this really happen? Perhaps, but the natural rock slide ends dozens of feet away from the Weber River, which is why a special pool of water was apparently set up at the bottom by the Shriners.

 “Devil’s Slide jinks success; El Kalah Temple Mystic Shrine holds unique ceremonial at that spot; Novices slide incline into fathomless pool” ” was a Sept. 16, 1910 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune, showing they had also used the Slide a year earlier.

Several hundred Shriners took a special train to the Slide and even set up tents in the area. Sliding down the Slide was also featured that year.

Ogden began promoting Devil’s Slide as a tourist attraction in the mid 1920s, with signs. Devil’s Gate, at the lower end of Weber Canyon, was also boasted of in numerous Standard-Examiner reports of the 1920s.

Today, there are posted turnouts to view the slide just off both directions of I-84. However, in the pre-freeway era, a 1947 picture of Devil’s Slide shows the viewing area much closer to the formation than it is today. Back then, the dirt access road (in front of Devil’s Slide today) may have been the main road before the Interstate came along.

Now, the slide’s bottom is choked with brush and some private land fronts the Slide.

Hauntingly, there are also "Witch Rocks" and the small "Goblin Slides" rock formations in the same area of upper Weber Canyon.

The Salt Lake Tribune ran a story on June 28, 1888 that told the tale of an out-of-stater fishing the Weber River in that area with an Indian guide. This Native American believed the area to be the Devil’s territory and even pointed out another nearby rock formation that was said to be the “Devil’s War Club.”

-As unusual as the Top of Utah’s Devil’s Slide may seem, it is not unique. There is a same-named and similar rock formation about five miles north of Gardiner, Mont. Just north of Yellowstone National Park, off U.S. 89, this Devil's Slide, though has a twist — a big curve in its slabs of parallel rock.

(-Originally published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on Sept. 26, 2014 by Lynn Arave.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net  

The 'Devilish' Side of Utah's Outdoors

  

       Devil's Slide in Utah.

By Lynn Arave

Never mind that the "Saints" of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, settled the Utah territory, many early explorers and pioneers saw it as a devil of a place at times.
   The region hosts some extremely rugged, inhospitable and downright infernal territory, and those inclined to give certain spots names in pioneer times weren't shy about calling them as they saw them. As a result, Utah has 61 geographical places and landmarks that contain the word "devil" — but only 11 names with the word "angel."
   Devil's Hole, Devil's Steps and Devil's Kitchen call Juab County home.
   Devil's Den, Devil's Kitchen and Devil's Twist can be found in Millard County.
   Devil's Playground is farther north, in Box Elder County.
   There's a Devil's Castle and a Devil's Dance Floor in Sevier County; Devil's Pocket and Devil's Window in San Juan County; a Devil's Peak in Sanpete County — and many more.
   "That tells you something about how hard it was here," said Linda Smith, historian for Morgan County, where Devil's Slide and Devil's Gate are to be found.
   To be fair, Zion National Park has towering Angel's Landing and Canyonlands National Park has the striking Angel Arch, but they have only nine other seraphim to keep them company in a state beset by more than five dozen devils.
   Many a pioneer traveler's diary laments the diabolic physical obstacles Utah posed. Indeed, the ill-fated Donner-Reed Party of 1846 lost several weeks of potential travel time in Utah, much of it while bogged down in the canyons northeast of Salt Lake City. That delay, perhaps more than anything, led to their tragic fate in the stormy Sierra Nevada.
   Nowhere is Utah's ghoulish side more bedeviled than Weber Canyon, home to Devil's Slide and Devil's Gate — two historic landmarks that have been noted by those traveling through the territory since pioneer and early railroad days.
   Roy Tea, a member of the Utah Crossroads Chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association, said all these devilish names reveal just how tough Utah was on pioneers.
   "They had to travel in the streams a lot of the time," he said of the canyons north and east of Salt Lake City.
   Weber Canyon is divided into two sections, an upper and a lower part. Devil's Gate, a narrow, rocky gorge only about three miles east of the canyon's mouth, was perhaps the most formidable obstacle in all the area, Smith said.
   However, it was actually some of the rugged upper canyon around Devil's Slide near Morgan that detoured pioneer wagons southwest to enter the Salt Lake Valley from Emigration Canyon.
   "This was a terribly narrow area of the canyon," Smith said.
   If not for this rugged spot, as well as torturous Devil's Gate, would Brigham Young have instead emerged from Weber Canyon to proclaim, "This is the place"?
   If so, imagine a Salt Lake City perhaps built around the present day towns of Uintah, South Weber, South Ogden, Layton and Ogden, with Temple Square in Ogden rather than Salt Lake City.
   Among the geographic features that bedeviled early Utahns was Devil's Slide, a strange, giant-size limestone chute, looks as imposing today as it probably did in the 19th century. Composed of two parallel slabs of rock about 20 feet apart, 40 feet high and some 200 feet long, this phenomenon is located about eight miles east of Morgan.
   According to a description from the late Walter R. Buss, former professor of geology and geography at Weber State University, the Devil's Slide formation originally was made up of horizontal limestone ridges formed by deposits in a shallow sea. Then, about 75 million years ago, when huge layers of rock were pushed up to form such ranges as the Rocky Mountains, the ridges were tilted to a vertical position.
   A layer of shale between the limestone ridges eroded over time because it was less resistant, and thus the chute was formed.
   Hauntingly, there are also "Witch Rocks" and the small "Goblin Slides" in the same area of upper Weber Canyon.
The devil gets a good deal of credit in Weber Canyon: About 23 miles east of Devil's Gate is a similarly named natural feature, Devil's Slide.
    Devil's Slide - more visible today than the Gate - can be reached along I-84 at a special turnout on each side of the interstate, about eight miles east of Morgan. The unusual rock formation on the highway's south side is composed of two parallel slabs of limestone, about 20 feet apart and 40 feet high.An 1846 map by T.H. Jefferson mentioned ``Gutter Defile,'' possibly the first reference to Devil's Slide. The accepted name was probably given to the site by Clarence King, a geologist working for the Army in the area during 1877. (Utah's highest mountain, King's Peak, was named in his honor). King described the formation as a set of ``bold, blade-like outcroppings.''
    Walter R. Buss, a retired professor of geology and geography at Weber State College, has written that the limestone ridges of Devil's Slide were originally horizontal, formed by deposits in a shallow sea. Then, about 75 million years ago, when huge layers of rock were pushed up to form peaks like the Rocky Mountains, the ridges were tilted to a vertical position.
    A layer of shale that originally separated the limestone ridges eroded over time, being less resistant to the erosive forces than limestone. This formed the chute.
    Many rocky features within a half mile of Devil's Slide also stand vertically. The Goblin slides, much smaller versions of Devil's Slide, are visible.
    The limestone in the Devil's Slide area is well-suited to making cement - the Ideal Cement Co. is located just across the canyon, near Croydon.
    The late Howard Wadsworth, of Magna, used to travel through Weber Canyon and remembered many years ago (probably in the 1940s or earlier), when there used to be a big, flat, shiny rock on the side of the old highway below Devil's Slide. A man named ``Robinson'' had apparently painted this inscription on the rock: ``My Native Home. Do Not Tread on Me,'' along with a sketch of a large rattlesnake - this area of Weber Canyon is indeed known for a high number of resident rattlesnakes.
    Many travelers were startled when they saw the rock, but since the original highway was quite curvy in that area, the rock was blasted out during road improvements probably made long before the route became an interstate highway.
    Today, Devil's Slide still attracts a lot of curious visitors. With huge roadside trash cans along the interstate, it makes a quick scenic/garbage stop for most travelers.
    Visitors who want a close look at the slide have to be going east on I-84, and after stopping at the turnout must walk 100 feet down the interstate across the Weber River bridge and then must cross over a barbed-wire fence. The Weber River flows between I-84 and Devil's Slide.
    The slide is indeed like a huge rock chute, and the inside shows evidence of many visitors who have climbed up it. Loose, jagged shale rocks make climbing difficult. A carefully situated piece of wood has been wedged inside the chute, about 75 feet up the slide.

                The similar Devil's Slide formation, north of Yellowstone National Park.


(The Devil's Slide formation is not unique however. A very similar natural feature exists just north of the northern entrance to Yellowstone National Park.)

-Distilled from an article by Lynn Arave, originally published in the Deseret News.

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net