PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Mather Visits Pipe Spring

Stephen T. Mather's first visit to Pipe Spring was made in conjunction with his participation in the dedication of Zion National Park that took place on September 15, 1920. Among those speaking at the dedication were Senator Reed Smoot and Church President Heber J. Grant. (In the usual blurring of lines between Utah's Church and State, Grant was representing Governor Bamberger at the event). The park's new status resulted in an immediate boost in visitation, which doubled between 1919 and 1920, from 1,914 to 3,692. After attending the dedication ceremony at Zion National Park, Mather drove south to visit other southwestern monuments. During his tour he stopped at Pipe Spring and took photographs of the fort. [344] (At this time the old wagon road traveled by motorists from Hurricane to Fredonia passed right by the fort.) Mather briefly discussed the idea of making Pipe Spring a national monument with the Heatons. Not only were they receptive totheidea, they promised to furnish labor should the National Park Service (Park Service or NPS) decide to undertake a restoration. [345]

On June 6, 1921, about nine months after making his first visit to Pipe Spring the previous fall, Mather wrote to Office of Indian Affairs Commissioner Charles H. Burke that he had found "a very interesting old homestead" on the Kaibab Reservation that he wanted to acquire for the park system. [346] What transpired during the time between Mather's letter to Burke and his next visit to Pipe Spring is only sparsely documented. If he was not already aware of the legal troubles Charles C. Heaton was having in proving his Pipe Spring claim, it is quite likely that Commissioner Burke informed Mather of the facts in 1921. Consultation with Arizona's Governor Thomas E. Campbell and U.S. Senator Carl Hayden would have also been in order, but no record of such contacts have yet been located. [347]

Mather returned to Pipe Spring in the fall of 1921, this time in the company of Union Pacific's President Carl R. Gray, Senator Hampton of Montana, and possibly one or two others. [348] Mather took the group on a tour of southern Utah and northern Arizona to demonstrate the area's potential for tourism. The men left Zion early one morning in Mather's Packard heading for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. At Short Creek, Mather's automobile got stuck in the sand. In a 1991 interview, C. Leonard Heaton related the rest of the story as follows:

They were stuck there for about three or four hours in the sand, and when they come to Pipe Spring, along about one or two-o'clock, they were so famished and they didn't have any water with them. And while they were resting there he [Mather] began to look around the fort and my father [Charles Heaton] was down there riding on the range...

And then my father come up on horseback and Randall Jones was with him from Cedar City. He was promoter of tourism in southern Utah, and Dad knew Randall Jones, and he introduced him to Mather. And after Mather walked through the fort, the old fort (a lot of it was torn out then, inside of it and things like that), he asked my dad what the history of the place was. So Dad told him... about the early history of the place.

And then Randall Jones said, 'How close is it where we can get something to eat? These fellows,' he says, 'they haven't had anything since six o-clock this morning.' And my dad told him, 'You can go up to Moccasin and I think my wife can fix you a dinner.' ...And Dad told them how to get to Moccasin and he got on his horse and galloped up to here and by the time they got up here my mother had dinner about ready for them.... Mather had thought that Pipe Spring would be a good place for tourists to stop on the road from Zion to the Grand Canyon or the Grand Canyon back to Zion. And that was it. From that time it was Randall Jones and these other fellows, they decided to make Pipe Spring a national monument... [349]

Leonard Heaton was not at Pipe Spring at the time of Mather's visit, so he most likely heard this account from his father, Charles C. Heaton. The fact that Randall Jones was present with Heaton is a sure indication that this was a prearranged meeting. [350]

According to historian Robert H. Keller, Mather was sympathetic to the Church and fascinated by its history. He also could see the benefits of making the site a part of Union Pacific's tour package. He soon took direct action to acquire Pipe Spring for the National Park Service. On January 18, 1922, Mather wrote to Apostle George A. Smith, a high Church official, and asked him to approach the Heatons about selling Pipe Spring. Mather asked Smith to negotiate a purchase price and to then act as spokesman to raise the necessary funds. In his letter, Mather placed a heavy emphasis on his belief that Pipe Spring as a national monument would "be a big stimulus to the work that is now going on to develop the tourist possibilities of this southern Utah and northern Arizona country." [351] Smith and President Heber J. Grant worked together to help Mather achieve his goal, but progress was very slow. In the meantime, Mather, Union Pacific officials, and federal and state government officials began to focus on the daunting challenge of providing a road system capable of handling the tourist traffic they all dreamed of.