Coral Pink Sand Dunes was ‘Sahara Desert’ in 1943 -- And more history

 

                                A 1998 photograph of the Coral Pink Sand Dunes/

THE Coral Pink Sand Dunes is truly Utah’s mini version of the Sahara Desert.

Decades before Little Sahara Recreation Area, Coral Pink gained world-wide fame through Hollywood by actually depicting the Sahara Desert in movies as early as 1943 – all this without “Sahara” in Coral Pink’s name.

“Movie Company awaits approach of spring to resume filming ‘Battle of Africa” was a January 1, 1943 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune.

(Battle of Africa was a just a part of the movie being filmed at Coral Pink. The film was actually titled “Sahara.”)

In 1942, the State of Utah had constructed the first road off Highway 89 into the Coral Pink area. Hollywood was eager to showcase Utah’s colorful, sandy area.

                                               Kids playing at Coral Pink Sand Dunes.

“At any rate, coral pink sand dunes of southern Utah are a pride and joy of Hollywood producers,” the Tribune story stated.

Coral Pink was designated as a state park 20 years later, in 1963. It is located 27 miles northwest of Kanab in Kane County. It comprises 3,730 acres, including some 2,000 acres that are wholly sand.

(In contrast, central Utah’s Little Sahara Recreation Area, though much larger, at 60,000 acres, was not developed until 1976 and lacks such colorful sand.)

-During Utah’s Centennial of 1947, Kanab was often referred to as “Utah’s Hollywood.”

Indeed, the Piute County News of Junction, Utah, published a widely distributed graphic for the Centennial by the State of Utah that stated on June 6, 1947, “Everybody in Kanab, Garfield County, is a potential movie actor, when film companies come to use the scenic grandeur of the southern Utah country for location of movie westerns. Even businessmen close up shop to act as extras.”

(However, eventually Hollywood crews began bringing with them armies of personnel, including cowboys, for their movies, leaving most of Kanab’s 1,500 residents without much of a chance at movie work.)

-Harry Sherman, a Hollywood producer, chose the Zion National Park and Kanab area for scenes in a new movie, “Ramrod” in 1947.

 In the Salt Lake Telegram of February 6, 1947, Sherman said, “We spent weeks surveying the west by air and decided on Utah as having the greatest scenic grandeur of any area we saw.”

-How capable were some of the Hollywood actors that portrayed cowboys in actual cowboy skills? Some were really good.  “Hollywood turns actor to cowboy” was a November 16, 1942 headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner. The story reported that actors Glenn Ford and Big Boy Williams were in Kanab filming “The Desperadoes” movie, in the summer prior, and they decided to enter a local Kanab rodeo during their off time, The two actors ended up winning the “rescue race” event at the rodeo, proving some real-life rodeo skills.

 

-MORE HISTORY: The 64-mile road from Kanab, Utah to Page, Arizona was primarily constructed in the late 1950s, in conjunction with the Glen Canyon Dam project. However, this highway wasn’t always Highway 89. According to the Salt Lake Tribune on August 2, 1959, the highway’s original designation was U-259 on the Utah road section and highway number 189 in Arizona. It was on August 1, 1959 when road crews in both states began using U.S. 89 as the highway’s consistent title. At the same time, the former Highway 89 road from Kanab south to Bitter Springs in Arizona was re-designated as Alternative U.S. 89.

First Exploration of Logan Cave: 1892?

                    Logan Cave entrance, before it was gated shut, circa 1988, with Scott Thompson.


By Lynn Arave

LOGAN Cave was a tourist attraction in Logan Canyon, Utah, along Highway 89, for almost a century. The Cave was gated shut in the late 20th Century, to protect its native inhabitants, bats.
(Today, mention "Cave" and Logan Canyon and it is the Wind Caves that are more well-known and visited.)
Although Logan Cave can be spotted easily --  if you know where to look -- along today's paved Highway 89, it apparently wasn't always so.
The Brigham City Bugler newspaper of July 23, 1892, records what may be the first-ever public references to Logan Cave.
The article reports that attorney B.H. Jones had a "delightful trip through the large cave" in the summer of 1892.
"It contains a large stream of water and a lake," The Bugler article stated. "The walls of the cave are said to be so high that a man can walk upright a whole mile and not reach the end. Lanterns are used in reaching the depths of that dark cavern, as no crevices are found in the massive walls to admit light. The air is cool and refreshing at midday, when all is hot and sultry without," the 1892 article concluded.
-Today, Logan Cave is believed to be 4,290-feet long. Public access seems to be rarely permitted.
Logan Cave is located 11.9 miles up Logan Canyon on the north side of the highway, about 50 feet above the paved highway.
The cave itself varies from 5-10 feet wide with a ceiling height between 30 and 100 feet. It has three levels and in normal water years has a stream flowing out of it that can be knee-deep in spots. The cave is dry during some summers.

The cave was formed by the seepage of water through limestone and has a year-round temperature of about 50 degrees.

Most geological features in the cave have been destroyed by vandals, and litter and graffiti were cave problems over the years too.

Sardine Canyon: Utah’s Biggest Fish Story?

                       Today's Sardine Summit, looking north, along Highway 89.

By Lynn Arave

THOUSANDS of people a day motor along at 55 mph on the four-lane Highway 89/91 through what is almost always referred to as Sardine Canyon, the main passageway between Brigham City and Cache Valley/Logan. How that fishy moniker has been affixed to a mountainous area devoid of any truly narrow geography, or fishing areas begs an investigation of history.

That’s especially the case, since today’s highway does not even travel through the original Sardine Canyon of pioneer times. So, first, a true geographical sketch of the area is in order.

Although place names can eventually become what the general populace keeps calling something, today’s “Sardine Canyon” is not the original Sardine Canyon of pioneer times.

Technically speaking, Highway 89/91, an approximate 18-mile stretch from Box Elder to Cache County, traverses three separate canyons – none of them named Sardine by official U.S. Geological Survey designation, or State of Utah highway maps.

1. The highway departs Brigham City and travels east and north through Box Elder Canyon to the community of Mantua.

2.  Next, traveling steeply uphill is Dry Canyon, ending at Sardine Summit (5,899 foot elevation).

3.  After a steep downhill segment to Dry Lake, Wellsville Canyon completes the trilogy of canyons into Cache Valley.

It is today’s populace and news media who favor calling all three canyons by the one “Sardine Canyon” name that overshadows any geography lesson or official maps.

The road alignment through the area has changed significantly over the decades. The first Mormon settlers on the way to Cache County in the fall of 1856 likely traveled about the same route to Sardine Summit and to about Dry Lake as we do today. However, then – presumably because of water sources and a more gradual route – headed directly east to Sardine Spring. Then, they followed the original Sardine Canyon northeast into Cache Valley and near today’s Hyrum Reservoir and Mount Sterling Cemetery. That was the original path into Cache Valley.
The first real road in the area went through the side canyon that begins just north of Sardine Summit, following part of the original pioneer route, but then headed east along today’s Mt. Pisgah Road and into McMurdle Hollow and then into the community of Hyrum.
The first newspaper mention of the “Sardine Canyon” name, that could be located, was from Logan in the fall of 1880. A map from Sept. 4, 1878 in the Cache County Surveyor’s Office, also uses the name Sardine Canyon. (In 1878, there was a side route possible through Wellsville Canyon, instead of Sardine, but that was only considered a secondary route at the time.
A 1915 newspaper article described the experience of driving a Studebaker “light six” model through the northern section of the route south into Box Elder County. Mr. L.E. Dresbach drove the automobile, loaded with five people. It was previously “regarded as impossible” to make such a trip in an automobile.
“To Paradise and then west over the Sardine Canyon road practically in high gear and at the rate of 25 miles per hour until the top of the cutoff was reached,” it was reported in the newspaper.

          A previous version of the old road to Logan, into the true Sardine Canyon.

Later, in the 1920s, the next version of road started about 1,000 feet north of the original pioneer route. This road wound around the ridge east of Dry Lake. It is still visible while driving along U.S. 89/91 today. The road, the first alignment to be paved through the area, eventually intersected the original Sardine Canyon. Portions of this road are still paved, but weather is eroding away the asphalt and sections have been removed.
According to newspaper reports, the second version of the route to Cache Valley opened in September of 1924, was 24-feet wide and had a maximum grade of 6 percent. It cost $200,000 to construct this nine-mile section of road, between Mantua and Wellsville.
This road was also a landmark for the west, marking the completion of the last link of a highway from Grand Canyon National Park, to Zion National Park and north to Yellowstone National Park.

                    One of the old side roads off Highway 89 today.

Furthermore, the road with its compact dirt composition and lower grades, was open in winter much more often than the original highway through the area. This meant Cache Valley was not isolated for months during the snow season, but more like weeks.
“Hundreds of ‘autoists’ who already traveled over the new road are high in their praise” of the new gravel/hard dirt road, the newspaper reported.
By the following month, the county believed it had solved the snow blockage problem in Sardine Canyon by constructing a special cabin for a winter patrolman who would live there in the winter and have a ‘two-ton tractor” to plow the snow.
Despite all the initial praise for the second “Sardine” alignment, there were serious travel problems in later years. For example, in January of 1949, this road was closed for a full month. The winter of 1948-49 was northern Utah’s combined snowiest/coldest winter season on record.
(Even today’s modern “Sardine Canyon” route can be plagued by snow and ice. In fact, Sardine Canyon often makes the news, because of periodic winter accidents reported there.)
The third and final alignment is today's road, built in the 1950s and opened in 1960. It was constructed in part, because of the shortcomings that the previous road’s closures experienced in the winter of 1949. It traverses down from Sardine Summit on a straight shot to Dry Lake and offers a much shorter and smoother route to Cache Valley than its two predecessors, exiting the canyon into Wellsville.
By the early 21^st Century, this highway had been widened from two lanes to four.
Now, having established the three variations in the roads through the area, the examination can now return to the original query of the name origin of Sardine Canyon and its three possible origins:

1. In the fall of 1856 the first settlers on the way to Cache Valley stopped near a spring 1.5 miles east of what is now known as Dry Lake today. It is here that one of the legends claim these pioneers ate a sardine can lunch here and hence the name of the greater area almost 160 years later. Furthermore, some variations of this legend claim that these settlers left the sardine can, or cans by the trail near Sardine Spring and so later travelers spotted them and the name was born.

However, did cans of sardines exist in 1856? Could they have traveled west?

“I think it’s possible,” the webmaster of www.sardineking.com, out of California, stated of cans of sardines existing in Utah in 1856. “I can’t think of why a settler would not have wanted to bring a case of sardines with them if they were traveling by horse and wagon. Canned sardines keep very well.”

Furthermore, it was indicated that while tin cans were around in 1856, sardines were not canned in the USA until after that year. So, they would have had to have come from Europe and would thus be much more rare, than a few decades later.

(Also, “what if” the pioneers had eaten a different sort of lunch in the area? How does "Tuna Canyon,"  or "Steak Canyon" sound?)

Still, the railroad didn’t reach Utah until 14 years later in 1869. And so, all of the Mormon pioneers prior to the iron horse had to walk, horse and wagon or handcart some 1,300 miles to Salt Lake City. Thus, if a pioneer possessed one more cans or sardines and brought them along, would they have kept them unopened and uneaten for all 1,300 miles and even weeks or months after before a future 80-plus mile trek from Salt Lake to the Cache Valley? They might have saved them in reserve, or as a delicacy for as long as possible, though it seems that after several hard winters during the Mormon pioneers’ early years, all the canned sardines would have been used.

2. Did the first pioneer settlers headed for Cache County believe one of the canyons in the area between Brigham City and Logan was particularly tight or narrow and hence the sardine name?

Certainly today’s U.S. 89/91 highway alignment offers no unusually narrow sections. In fact, that’s the main reason why many have pondered where the sardine name came from, given the lack of geological support.

 However, while the original Sardine Canyon is narrower than today’s version, it does not appear ‘sardine’ narrow.

An approximate 1910 photograph of the original Sardine Canyon is contained in the on-line archives of Utah State University. This picture shows how the stream dominates the canyon at the time, though the canyon itself is not particularly narrow, lacking steep walls.

3. Did the presence of tiny, sardine-like fish spotted in a stream along the original Sardine Canyon inspire the canyon’s name?

Several professors of aquatic ecology at Utah State University lended support to this claim.

“I have heard anecdotally that they (Cache Valley’s first settlers) saw whitefish (“Prosopium williamsoni”), which could resemble a sardine to the general public and which were likely abundant in these areas (and still are in the Logan River),” Phaedra Budy, professor and Aqautic Research Ecologist in the Department of Ecology Center, Watershed Sciences, at Utah State University, stated.

Charles P. Hawkins, another professor in that Department at USU, agrees, especially if the water source is perennial, so that it can support naturally occurring fish.

The first pioneers might have passed by as many as three different springs in Sardine Canyon – Sardine Spring (which was the source of year-round water and spawned a stream; “The Pothole Spring” further east; and Hall Spring, a little further north. In addition, South Grove Spring is located about 1,200 feet north of Sardine Spring and feeds into Sardine Canyon.

Also, since at least 1960, there has been a manmade ditch draining Sardine Spring, with some underground piping. The original Sardine Canyon was homesteaded by James and Margaret Bradshaw in the late 1800s. They had a camp with milk cows and made butter near Sardine Spring. The land there is now owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is part of the Wellsville Stake welfare farm grazing area.

So, overall, legends No. 1 and No. 3 – appear to be the most plausible. In fact, could it be that the pioneer lunch of sardines, their discarded cans along the trail, plus later glimpses of small, sardine-size fish in streams to the east of today’s modern highway, all have combined to cement the Sardine Canyon name? That’s the most likely conclusion.

Also, it should be noted that only one other officially named “Sardine Canyon” exists in the United States. Strangely, it is also in northern Utah, located as a side canyon on the south side of Ogden Canyon, just southeast of today’s Alaskan Inn (formerly the site of the Hermitage).

This other Sardine Canyon is extremely narrow and since its beginning is elevated several dozen feet above the canyon’s paved highway, it is likely often not noticed by travelers. Since no other sardine canyon name exists in the U.S., could these two canyons be connected somehow? After all, what are the odds that both would end up in Utah and be only some 30 air miles apart?

John W. Van Cott, who authored “Utah Place Names,” cross referenced the name origin of Sardine Peak to Sardine Canyon in Cache County,  Why he did this is unknown. (Van Cott died in 2006.) Sardine Park (elevation 7,485 feet) connects to the other Sardine Canyon in Weber County, There are also two other sardine-nicknamed places in that Weber County area, Just north of Snow Basin Resort –“Little Sardine Peak” (elevation 5,970) if often referenced. Also, “Sardine Hill” (elevation 5,461) is nearby. Today, this Weber County “sardine” area has its own high popularity, with a popular mountain biking loop through the area.

SOURCES:

 “Utah Place Names”; U.S. Geological Survey, “Mount Pisgah, Utah” quadrangle map; Standard-Examiner Archives; Deseret News Archives; Logan Daily Herald Archives; Logan Leader Archives; Box Elder News Archives; Utah State History Archives.

(-Originally published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, by Lynn Arave online and in print, on May 19-20, 2015.

-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

Back when Cache Valley was isolated in winter

          Highway 89 today goes down from Sardine Summit to Dry Lake.

“The primary highway leading north through the Cache Valley to Idaho is at present a summer road, so far as through traffic is concerned , for the reason that the 10-mile section between Mantua and Wellsville is closed by winter snow,” an article in the January 1924 issue of Utah Highways Magazine stated.

“As a result the fertile and populous Cache Valley is virtually isolated, as far as travel by the highway is concerned, from the rest of the state, for approximately four months of the year. Interstate travel between Utah and points both is confined to the railroads during the winter months,” the magazine article, written by engineer K.C. Wright, concluded.

However, that seasonal isolation, which had existed for almost 70 years, finally ended in the summer of 1924 when a $200,000 new highway was constructed.

The road was completed by Sept. 9 of that year. Much of the new road was truly new and didn’t follow the former alignment.

For example, from Mantua to the Sardine Summit, a new dugway was cut out of the mountain with a maximum grade of six percent. At 24-feet wide, the new highway had ample passing room too.

Previously, the direct “pioneer route” by way of Dry Lake had been used to reach Wellsville. (Ironically, that’s also today’s highway route.)

That steep route, through what is officially named Wellsville Canyon (originally named “New Canyon”), suffered from 20-30-foot-high snow drifts, 10 to 20 percent grades, and wet clay soils at the bottom of the canyon.

                              The 1924 road alignment into the actual Sardine Canyon.

In the new 1924 alignment (that existed until about 1960), the highway curved northeast and winded through Sardine Canyon (the original version) and into Cache Valley. (Sections of the old road are still visible today from Highway 89, looking northeast shortly after Sardine Summit.)

“Sardine Canyon was finally chosen as the route of the new highway because it seemed to present the most feasible location for an all-year road,” an Aug. 15, 1924 story in the Box Elder News stated.

“Canyon road is nearly finished; Highway of crushed rock between Wellsville and Mantua, one of the best earth roads in the state,” was that story’s headline.

During the winter of 1924-25, a 10-ton caterpillar truck with a snowplow attached was used to clear snow on the new highway, a combination of gravel and rock.

In 1927, a combination of gravel and oil was used on the highway. The road was eventually paved and did work well in winter, until modern road building and snow removal came along in the 1950s.

However, the terrible winter of 1948-49 meant the road was closed for a full month during January of 1949.

                        The 1924-1960 Sardine Canyon road alignment on the hillside in the distance.

By the mid-1950s, plans were made to streamline the highway, now a popular scenic highway to Bear Lake and even Yellowstone National Park. In 1960, the revised road opened with its current alignment, abandoning the true “Sardine Canyon” and heading directly to Wellsville from the summit north of Mantua.

Technically, it is Box Elder Canyon from Brigham City to Mantua. Then, it is Wellsville Canyon from Mantua to Wellsville, though the old Sardine Canyon name is today affixed to the entire mountain road between Brigham City and Cache Valley.

The “why” the name “Sardine” for a canyon that’s not narrow is another story for another day.

(-Originally published on-line and in print on Dec. 18-19, 2014 by Lynn Arave in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.)

-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