PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

The Role of Union Pacific in the Parks' Transportation Network

While the railroad and National Park Service shared a common goal - to attract people to the parks and to ensure them a memorable visit - there were different reasons behind their objectives. The Park Service's primary goal was preservation-oriented. It recognized that survival of the national parks and monuments hinged on the number of people who claimed direct benefits from scenic preservation. [366] As might be expected, the railroad companies' objectives were profit-oriented. There was a long and successful history of the railroads investing in Western tourism, both in promoting the establishment of scenic preserves and in offering transportation and accommodations to tourists to the relatively remote locations of such places. The Northern Pacific promoted the 1872 creation of Yellowstone National Park; Southern Pacific campaigned for Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant reserves in the 1890s, all ultimately set aside; the south rim of Arizona's Grand Canyon was made accessible in 1901 by the Santa Fe Railway; and the Great Northern Railway's Louis W. Hill enthusiastically supported the 1910 establishment of Glacier National Park in Montana. Some of the railroad companies constructed grand hotels in the nation's parks and spent huge sums of money advertising their scenic splendors in brochures, complimentary guidebooks, and full-page magazine spreads. [367] The parks needed the railroads and the railroads needed the parks. Their alliance was well established before World War I.

Immediately after World War I ended, the United States experienced what can only be described as a transportation revolution, brought on by the invention, mass production, and rapid spread of the automobile. By 1919 the availability and popularity of motorized vehicles posed a serious financial threat to the economic well-being of the railroads as former rail passengers purchased and used their own automobiles. Trucking companies were formed, offering expeditious freight transportation service. The motor bus was developed in 1912 by C. S. Wickman of Hibbing, Minnesota, who later founded the Greyhound Corporation. Steamships using the Panama Canal, opened in 1912, increasingly diverted freight traffic away from rail transport. Along with other railroad company managers, Union Pacific President Carl Gray found himself facing a new world. Railroad historian Maury Klein wrote that in 1919, "On every side, Gray found himself hedged in by forms of competition that had scarcely existed before the war." [368] A revolution in energy sources as well as means of transportation was in progress. Pipelines now transported much of the West's oil and natural gas to market, increasingly preferred by industries over coal, a staple of Union Pacific traffic. The rapidly developing field of commercial aviation was already eating away at one of the railroad's most lucrative services, mail delivery. To survive the challenge, wrote Klein, "the railroads had to redefine their place in an expanded transportation industry." [369]

As more and more people bought automobiles, the summer vacation emerged as a national institution. Not only were vacations touted as enjoyable recreation, but as a means of bringing about wholesome family togetherness. The transportation revolution required the rapid development of a road system. The total mileage of surfaced highway doubled between 1910 and 1920, then doubled again between 1920 and 1930. [370] Ironically, a major portion of the highway system came to be constructed on right-of-ways leased from the railroads. State and federal governments poured $1.8 billion into highway construction between 1922 and 1930. [371] Until 1929, states were challenged to find sources of funding for road development. Then in 1929 a gasoline tax was imposed in every state to defray the expense of road construction and maintenance.

The impact of the new forms of transportation was immediately felt by the railroads. In 1920 rail passenger travel reached a peak of 1.27 million passengers. Over the next 10 years, the numbers steadily declined toward 707,987 passengers in 1930. [372] Passenger revenues went from $1.17 billion in 1921 to $731 million in 1930, a drop of 37 percent. [373] The railroads were forced to accept the popularity of the auto, and to find a way to integrate automotive transportation into their tourism-related plans and operations. As a result some redefined themselves as transportation companies that not only sold rail travel, but offered planned motor coach tours, complete with restaurant and lodging accommodations, as well. During the 1920s, Union Pacific pioneered the practice of operating buses along with its rail lines in southern Utah and northern Arizona parks.

The January 1922 issue of The Union Pacific Magazine, included an article entitled "Zion - Our Newest National Park - And Other Southern Utah Scenic Attractions," by UP official D. S. Spencer. The first in a series of articles on scenic attractions found along the transportation routes of the Union Pacific, the article painted a highly romantic picture of travel in the area's "undiscovered country:"

The opening of Zion National Park to tourist travel during the last few years, has resulted in directing attention to other remarkable scenic regions in southern Utah and northern Arizona, including Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, Kaibab Forest, and the North Rim Grand Canyon National Park, so that it is now impossible to think of Zion National Park without thinking of these other attractions, each of which has a distinctive geological individuality. To reach a fair estimate of them you must see each one, and as you pass from one to the other, inspiration exalts the soul, and reverence bows the head. [374]

Alluding to the Great Northern Railway's "See America First" campaign, Spencer declared "...until one has seen Zion and Southern Utah, he has not seen America." Along with the article, a map was offered to readers to assist them in their planning of future vacations.

The map herewith, based partly on actualities and partly on proposed improvements, gives an idea in tabloid of the relative locations of the features mentioned. Reference to it demonstrates that when the road plans are consummated, the schedule of the Southern Utah attractions will embrace a circle tour... [375]

What is interesting to note on this map is the 18-mile "trail" shown traversing Zion National Park toward Mt. Carmel. This trail appears to be the basis for Union Pacific's confidence that a road could be constructed that would perfect their plans for their circle tour, a multi-park trip they began to promote (at least internally by way of The Union Pacific Magazine) as early as January 1922. This approximate route would later become the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway, not to be completed until 1930. In addition, the UP map shows a 25-mile "trail" from Zion to the Hurricane-Fredonia road, terminating at about the location of Short Creek. This route approximates the Rockville cutoff road, to be constructed 1924-1925. The development of both routes was an important part of UP's plans and, when completed, would considerably shorten the travel distance between parks while improving the scenic aspects of the tour.

The Union Pacific tour outlined in this article began at Lund then went to Cedar Breaks, Zion National Park, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and then ended at Lund. While tourist camps then existed at Zion, Bryce Canyon, and the North Rim, the article promised readers,

..it is reasonable to assume that within the next few years each of the four attractions [Cedar Breaks included] will be provided with both hotels and camps and; with the completion of the necessary connecting highways, will provide accommodations corresponding in service with those in Yellowstone Park and others of our long known National Wonderlands. [376]

24. Map showing Union Pacific's future five-day "circle tour" of southern Utah parks and the Grand Canyon's North Rim, 1922
(Courtesy Union Pacific Museum).
(click on image for an enlargement in a new window - ~96K)

The map showed no planned tour routes to travel the Hurricane-Fredonia road or to go to Pipe Spring (yet to be declared a national monument) on its 464-mile circle tour. The tour route counted heavily on road improvements along the route from Mt. Carmel to Kanab and on an entirely new road, the Zion-Mt. Carmel road. With planned road developments accomplished, Spencer assured readers, the circle tour could expected to take only five days. This article is an excellent example of a marketing tactic used by Union Pacific in its southern Utah campaign throughout the 1920s: that is, creating a public desire and demand for an improved road system in Utah by having its agents paint a glowing picture of the future that lay ahead, once the new road system was in place. It was so effective a tactic, in fact, that on at least one occasion, a Utah official pleaded for them to stop promoting the region until the necessary road improvements had been completed. UP official, J. T. Hammond, Jr., reported that in a November 1923 meeting he had with State Land Commissioner John T. Oldroyd, that Oldroyd "...stated to me that he thought it would perhaps be for the best interest of the Union Pacific and for the State of Utah as well for the Union Pacific not to feature Southern Utah until the roads were made safe and convenient for handling tourist travel." [377]

Union Pacific was by no means alone in agitating those in power in Utah for improved roads. In addition to the successful Salt Lake City Governor's Conference of December 1921, Mather worked on a local level to obtain his objectives where road improvements were concerned. Correspondence of April 1922 attests that Mather personally wrote to William W. Seegmiller of Kanab and Charles B. Petty of Hurricane urging them to push through the construction of the Hurricane-Fredonia road. (Petty and Seegmiller served on the committee of the Southern Utah and Northern Arizona Road Association. The committee included representatives from a dozen towns in the two areas. Zion's Acting Superintendent Walter Ruesch represented Springdale on this committee; Dr. Edgar A. Farrow represented Moccasin.) This Hurricane-Fredonia route took travelers from Zion to the Grand Canyon, which at the time some favored over the poor road that lay between Mt. Carmel and Kanab.

While construction work on the road from the Hurricane end commenced about February 1922, Petty informed Mather that nothing had happened on the Fredonia segment. Mather expressed his appreciation to Petty and informed him, "We have had a number of inquiries about travel conditions in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, and I confidently believe that an increased number of people will visit that beautiful and interesting section during the coming year." [378] At Petty's suggestion, Mather then wrote Seegmiller, telling him of the progress in Utah under Mr. Petty while adding, "I know that you will see to it that construction on the Fredonia end of the road is carried out as soon as possible so that the whole road will be in good shape for this season. It is bound to be a great help to travel which should develop this year." [379]

During early July 1922, a party of UP traffic officials, headed by Carl Gray, H. M. Adams, and W. S. Basinger, toured the scenic areas of Utah's south. During this trip Gray reportedly offered to buy the El Escalante Hotel (designed by Randall L. Jones) in Cedar City. [380] Numerous other investigatory trips were made by UP officials in the following months, including one that consisted of a party of 10 men, with hotel and engineering experts, led by Basinger during the second week of October 1922. Accompanying the high level officials on this trip was NPS Chief Civil Engineer George E. Goodwin. The group traveled to Zion, Cedar Breaks, and Bryce Canyon studying potential sites for hotels and water sources.

The following month (November 1922) The Union Pacific Magazine touted its commitment to the development of transportation to and tourist facilities in the attractions mentioned above. It reprinted an article by D. S. Spencer previously published in the Salt Lake Tribune on October 16, 1922. [381] The article described the company's plans to construct two railroad branch lines, a 31-mile spur from Fillmore to Delta and a 32-mile spur from Lund to Cedar City, at a cost of $3 million. The company also planned to acquire and complete the El Escalante Hotel in Cedar City (which had been under construction for several years), to construct two hotels at Zion and Bryce Canyon, and to furnish a lunch station and limited hotel accommodations at Cedar Breaks, at an additional estimated cost to the company of $2 million. The Lund-Cedar City spur line would open up markets to agricultural land and enable locals to market the area's rich iron ore and coal deposits to industrial promoters. A new steel mill was planned in Provo in anticipation of access to the rich iron fields of Iron County; even automobile manufacturers had their eye on the area. The attention of railroad men, however, was first and foremost on developing the gold mine of tourism.