Flagstaff, circa 1890, Part II

We continue our trip (Part I) back to the Southwest of the late 19th century, as John L. Stoddard leaves Flagstaff by stage coach on his way to the Grand Canyon.

"One glorious September morning, leaving our train at Flagstaff, we started in stage-coaches for a drive of sixty-five miles to the Grand Canon. I had looked forward to this drive with some misgiving, dreading the heat of the sun, and the dust and sand which I had supposed we should encounter; but to my astonishment and delight it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It was only eleven hours in duration, and not only was most of the route level, but two-thirds of it lay through a section of beautifully rolling land, diversified with open glades and thousands upon thousands of tall pines and cedars entirely free from undergrowth. It is no exaggeration to say that we drove that day for miles at a time over a road carpeted with pine needles. The truth is, Arizona, though usually considered a treeless and rainless country, possesses some remarkable exceptions; and the region near Flagstaff not only abounds in stately pine, but is at certain seasons visited by rainstorms which keep it fresh and beautiful. During our stay at the Grand Canon we had a shower every night; the atmosphere was marvelously pure, and aromatic with the odors of a million pines; and so exhilarating was exercise in the open air, that however arduous it might be, we never felt inconvenienced by fatigue, and mere existence gave us joy. Decidedly, then , it will not do to condemn the whole of Arizona because of the heat of its arid, southern plains; for the northern portion of the state is a plateau, with an elevation of from five thousand to seven thousand feet. Hence, as it is not latitude, so much as altitude, that gives us healthful, pleasing temperature, in parts of Arizona the climate is delightful during the entire year."

"A portion of this stage-coach journey led us over the flank of the great San Francisco Mountain. The isolated position, striking similarity, and almost uniform altitude of its four peaks, rising nearly thirteen thousand feet above the sea, have long made them famous. Moreover, they are memorable for having cast a lurid light upon the development of this portion of our planet. Cold, calm, and harmless though they now appear, the time has been when they contained a molten mass which needed but a throb of Earth's uneasy heart to light the heavens with an angry glare, and cover the adjoining plains with floods of fire. Lava has often poured from their destructive cones, and can be traced thence over a distance of thirty miles ; proving that they once served as vents for the volcanic force which the thin crust of earth was vainly striving to confine. But their activity is apparently ended. The voices with which they formerly shouted to one another in the joy of devastation have been silenced. Conquered at last, their fires smolder now beneath a barrier too firm to yield, and their huge forms appear like funeral monuments reared to the memory of the power buried at their base. Another fascinating sight upon this drive was that of the Painted Desert whose variously colored streaks of sand, succeeding one another to the rim of the horizon, made the vast area seem paved with bands of onyx, agate, and carnelian. About the hour of noon we reached a lunch.station at which the stages, going to and from the Canon, meet and pass. The structure itself is rather primitive ; but a good meal is served to tourists at this wayside halting.place, and since our appetites had been sharpened by the long ride and tonic.giving air, it seemed to us the most delicious of repasts. The principal object of one of the members of our party, in making the journey described in these pages, was to determine the advisability of building a railroad from Flagstaff to the Canon. Whether this will be done eventually is not, however, a matter of vital interest to travelers, since the country traversed can easily be made an almost ideal coaching.route; and with good stages, frequent relays of horses, and a well-appointed lunch-station, a journey thus accomplished would be preferable to a trip by rail."

"Night had already come when we arrived at our destination, known as Hance's Camp, near the border of the Canon. As we drove up to it, the situation seemed enchanting in its peace and beauty ; for it is located in a grove of noble pines, through which the moon that night looked down in full-orbed splendor, paving the turf with inlaid ebony and silver, and laying a mantle of white velvet on the tents in which we were to sleep. Hance's log cabin serves as a kitchen and dining-room for travelers, and a few guests can even find lodging there; but, until a hotel is built, the principal dormitories must be the tents, which are provided with wooden floors and furnished with tables, chairs, and comfortable beds."

" This kind of accommodation, however, although excellent for travelers in robust health, is not sufficiently luxurious to attract many tourists. The evident necessity of the place is a commodious, well-kept inn, situated a few hundred feet to the rear of Hance's Camp, on the very edge of the Canon. If such a hotel, built on a spot commanding the incomparable view, were properly advert is ed and well.managed, I firmly believe that thousands of people would come here every year, on their way to or from the Pacific coast — not wishing or expecting it to be a place of fashion, but seeking it as a point where, close beside a park of pines, seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, one of the greatest marvels of the world can be enjoyed, in all the different phases it presents at morning, noon, and night, in sunshine, moonlight, and in storm. Early the next morning I eagerly climbed the little knoll at the foot of which our tents were located, for I well knew that from its summit I should see the Canon. Many grand objects in the world are heralded by sound : the solemn music of Niagara, the roar of active geysers in the Yellowstone, the intermittent thunder of the sea upon a rocky coast, are all distinguishable at some distance ; but over the Grand Canon of the Colorado broods a solemn silence. No warning voice proclaims its close proximity ; no partial view prepares us for its awful presence. We walk a few steps through the pine trees from the camp and suddenly find ourselves upon the Canon's edge. Just before reaching it, I halted for a moment, as has always been my wont when approaching for the first time any natural or historic object that I have longed for years to look upon. Around me rose the stately pines ; behind me was a simple stretch of rolling woodland ; nothing betrayed the nearness of one of the greatest wonders of the world. Could it be possible that I was to be disappointed ? At last I hurried through the intervening space, gave a quick look, and almost reeled."

"The globe itself seemed to have suddenly yawned asunder, leaving me trembling on the hither brink of two dissevered hemispheres. Vast as the bed of a vanished ocean, deep as Mount Washington, riven from its apex to its base, the grandest canon on our planet lay glittering below me in the sunlight like a submerged continent, drowned by an ocean that had ebbed away. At my very feet, so near that I could have leaped at once into eternity, the earth was cleft to a depth of six thousand six hundred feet — not by a narrow gorge, like other canons, but by an awful gulf within whose cavernous immensity the forests of the Adirondacks would appear like jackstraws, the Hudson Palisades would be an insignificant stratum, Niagara would be indiscernible, and cities could be tossed like pebbles. As brain grew steadier and vision clearer, I saw, directly opposite, the other side of the Canon thirteen miles away."

"It was a mountain wall, a mile in height, extending to the right and left as far as the eye could reach ; and since the cliff upon which I was standing was its counterpart, it seemed to me as if these parallel banks were once the shore-lines of a vanished sea. Between them lay a vast, incomparable void, two hundred miles in length, presenting an unbroken panorama to the east and west until the gaze could follow it no farther. Try to conceive what these dimensions mean by realizing that a strip of the State of Massachusetts, thirteen miles in width, and reaching from Boston to Albany, could be laid as a covering over this Canon, from one end to the other ; and that if the entire range of the White Mountains were flung into it, the monstrous pit would still remain comparatively empty ! Even now it is by no means without contents ; for, as I gazed with awe and wonder into its colossal area, I seemed to be looking down upon a colored relief.map of the mountain systems of the continent."

And here we leave John Stoddard as he admires the magnificent Grand Canyon.

Excerpted from John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Volume X, 1989, Boston, Balch Brothers Co. Now in public domain.