HISTORY104 - Crossing the Colorado River at Lees Ferry

One of Pat’s and my favorite spots to visit in Arizona is the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  In fact, we just returned from a short stay there.  The North Rim is much less crowded than the South Rim and the canyon views are just as spectacular. 

On our several road trips from Tucson to the North Rim, we have passed Lees Ferry on the Colorado River.  On this last trip, we stopped at the site and learned a little more about its fascinating history.  So, this blog covers the complete history of Lees Ferry - a combination of what we learned on the trip, and research after returning to our home in Tucson.

After a short introduction, I will cover the geography and geology of the area, its first indigenous inhabitants, and the first visit by Europeans.  Next, I will discuss how Mormons from Utah, emigrating from the north to Arizona, used ferryboats to cross the Colorado River barrier.  Next, I will discuss the building of two bridges across the Colorado River near Lees Ferry that replaced the ferryboats.  Then I will talk about how Lees Ferry became an important focal point of water rights in Arizona and the Southwest.  Finally, I will cover what Lees Ferry is like today.

I will list my principal sources at the end.

 

Introduction

Lees Ferry (sometimes Lee's Ferry) is a site on the Colorado River in north-central Arizona, about seven miles southwest of the town of Page and 12 miles south of the Utah-Arizona state line.

Lees Ferry is located on the Colorado River in north-central Arizona.

Due to its unique geography - the only place in hundreds of miles from which one can easily access the Colorado River from both sides - Lees Ferry historically served as an important river crossing; and starting in the mid-19^th century was the site of a ferry operated by John Doyle Lee, for whom it is named.  Ferryboat service at Lees Ferry continued for over 55 years before being superseded in the early 20^th century by a bridge, which allowed for much more efficient automobile travel.

Lees Ferry served as a military outpost for 19^th-century settlements in Arizona and Utah, a center of limited gold seeking, and since the 1920s, the principal point at which Colorado River flow is measured to determine water allocations in the Colorado River basin. 

Today, there are two bridges at Lees Ferry - one historic and one new.  Lees Ferry is administered by the National Park Service within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area - as both a historic site and as a fishing and boating site.   It also marks the upstream boundary of Grand Canyon National Park.

 

Geography and Geology

Lees Ferry is located on the Colorado River, at the point where the Paria River joins the Colorado from the north.  Lying in an open valley at the mouth of Glen Canyon to the north, and the start of Marble Canyon to the south, it is the only place in more than 260 miles where the Colorado is not hemmed in by sheer canyon walls.  Here, the Colorado River is also much smoother and calmer than the stretches that lie above and below.  Lees Ferry lies 689 miles upstream of the Colorado's mouth at the Gulf of California, at the approximate halfway mark of the river's length.

Lees Ferry, near the confluence of the Colorado River with the Paria River.

The geologic story of the Grand Canyon, including the Lees Ferry region, begins almost two billion years ago with the formation of the igneous and metamorphic rocks of the current inner gorge.  Above these old rocks lie layer upon layer of sedimentary rock, each telling a unique part of the environmental history of the Grand Canyon region.  Then, between 70 and 30 million years ago, through the action of plate tectonics, the whole region was uplifted, resulting in the high and relatively flat Colorado Plateau, containing sandstone, siltstone, shale, and limestone formed by the sediments on ancient seabeds.  Finally, beginning just 5-6 million years ago, the Colorado River began to carve its way downward.  Further erosion by tributary streams led to the canyon’s widening.  Still today these forces of nature are at work slowly deepening and widening the Grand Canyon.

 

Indigenous Inhabitants

In pre-Columbian times, the Lees Ferry area was inhabited first by Paleo-Indians (mobile hunter-gathers), who populated the region beginning about 11,500 years ago, followed by the Archaic culture (transition to more sedentary living and agriculture), which appeared on the Colorado Plateau about 8,000 years ago.

The Anasazi pueblo people, Paiute, Hopi, and Navajo peoples, who left evidence of habitation in the valley, arrived only in the last 1,000 years or so.  The discovery of two ruins near Lees Ferry on the Paria River, suggests that the Anasazi pueblo builders utilized the area sometime in the 12^th century AD.  Nonetheless, indigenous peoples generally did not make extensive use of the Lees Ferry area and other canyon stretches of the Colorado River, preferring the open plains above for hunting.  However, Lees Ferry did later become a disputed territory between the Navajos and Paiutes, who recognized it as a valuable livestock watering point.

The route down and over the Colorado River at Lees Ferry was first used by the Native American tribes in the area, including the Hopi.

 

First Europeans

The first Europeans who happened upon Lees Ferry were members of the 18^th-century Domínguez–Escalante expedition, an attempt to find an overland route through the unexplored Southwest between Spanish settlements in present-day New Mexico and California.  In late 1776, the party ran out of supplies in what is now southern Utah and having decided to turn back towards Santa Fe, had to find a way to cross the Colorado River.  Their Native American guides told them of two regional fords of the river, one at the site of Lees Ferry and the other at Glen Canyon.  When the explorers arrived at Lees Ferry in October, they found the river too wide and deep, and had no choice but to head for the second ford more than 40 miles upstream.  Almost two weeks later they successfully crossed the river, and made it back to Santa Fe in early January 1777.  Their river-crossing point, now submerged under Lake Powell, is named Crossing of the Fathers after Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, the two Franciscan priests who headed the expedition.

The route of the Domínguez–Escalante expedition.  The area around Lees Ferry and the Crossing of the Fathers lie within the blue circle.

Note:  Maps and documentation produced by the expedition aided future travelers. The Domínguez–Escalante route eventually became an early template for the Old Spanish Trail, a trade route from Santa Fe to Pacific Coast settlements.

 

The Mormon Church and Lees Ferry

During the 19^th century, Lees Ferry served as a gateway for the expansion of settlement from Utah south into Arizona.  Most of the settlers were Mormons, who had been long established in the Utah Valley near present-day Salt Lake City, and were looking for additional land.  Although the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry was too deep to ford for most of the year, its relatively calm current presented an attractive site for crossing by boat.  

The first recorded crossing was in 1864 by Mormon pioneer Jacob Hamblin and his small group of Mormon missionaries.  Hamblin was on a mission to warn the Navajo of northern Arizona to stop making raids into Utah, stealing livestock, and threatening Mormon expansion. The lands into which the pioneers wanted to move was viewed as "unsettled" territory, theirs for the taking under the precepts of Manifest Destiny, despite millennia of native occupation. 

Note:  Known as the "Buckskin Apostle," Hamblin explored much of northern Arizona in the 1860s and 1870s to find suitable locations for colonies.  He's also the namesake of Jacob Lake, which sits at the junction of today’s US 89A and State Route 67. 

Originally, Hamblin’s crossing point was called the "Paria Crossing," because the Paria River (usually a muddy or dried-up creek), enters the Colorado at that point.

Lees Ferry received its present name after Mormon leader John D. Lee was asked by Mormon church officials to establish and operate a permanent ferry that could be used by church emigrants traveling south on colonizing missions.  Even though Lee had been excommunicated for his part in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, he accepted the assignment in late 1870.

John D. Lee established the first permanent boat crossing at Lees Ferry.

Note:  Lee had taken part in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which a group of Mormons and Native Americans attacked a passing non-Mormon wagon train from Arkansas, killing about 120 people.  The ill-conceived attack was the result of several factors including hysteria surrounding the 1857 "Utah War," an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the U.S. government over federal authority, and animosity toward Arkansans after the murder of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt near Van Buren, Arkansas.  Lee arrived at the ferry site in September 1870 with two of his wives and his children, and created a small settlement.  He built stone and wooden homes for the two families that lived with him, as well as a dam and an irrigation system for farming.  The ranch at Lees Ferry was named Lonely Dell due to its austere remoteness. 

The Mormon Church provided the lumber and manpower to build the first real ferryboat at Lees Ferry, the Colorado, first launched on January 11, 1873.  Although approach roads on either side of the river had yet to be built, wagonloads of colonists began arriving to be ferried across the Colorado River to begin new lives in Mormon settlements in Arizona. 

The Colorado was the first of many boats that would ply the treacherous and fluctuating river.  The location of the ferry, slightly upstream from the Paria River confluence required passengers to traverse a dangerous incline nicknamed "Lee's Backbone" on their ascent up the south wall of the valley.  

Tensions between the settlers and the Navajo began mounting again in 1874, precipitating the construction of a defensive fort at Lees Ferry, which was soon converted into a trading post, and later a residence, school, and mess hall.

Lee oversaw ferry operations until late 1874, when he was arrested by the U.S. government and tried (twice) for his (presumed) leadership role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.   Found guilty, he was executed by firing squad at the massacre site on March 28, 1877.  Lee was the only participant in the massacre to be tried and executed out of the over fifty men who had participated.

After Lee's death, his wife Emma continued to operate the ferry for two years. 

By this time, the Mormon Church was well aware of the importance of Lees Ferry as a link between settlements in Arizona and Utah.  In 1879, the Church bought the ferry rights from Emma Lee for $3,000, and sent Warren Marshall Johnson and his plural families to the ferry to take over operations.

During the 1870s and 1880s, Lees Ferry was used as a crossing point by thousands of emigrants bound for Arizona.  In addition, recently married Mormon couples in settlements in Arizona’s White Mountains, such as Show Low and Snowflake, would make the arduous trip to St. George, Utah, to have their marriages solemnized in the temple there.   Because of this, Lee's Ferry became an important point on the so-called "Honeymoon Trail." 

In 1896. the ferry was transferred to Jim Emett, who installed a cable across the Colorado River to reduce the risk of boats washing downstream during high water.

 

A ferry boat, utilizing the cable system, crosses the Colorado at Lees Ferry.

Lees Ferry continued to be an important crossing throughout the rest of the 19^th century and into the 20^th.  The Mormon Church continued to operate the ferry until 1909.  It was sold to Coconino Country in 1910, and was operated by them until 1928.  

A Model -T automobile crosses the Colorado River in 1923 at Lees Ferry.

In 1889, a series of gold strikes in southern Utah attracted gold seekers to Lees Ferry and the surrounding area.  The most extravagant investment was a full-scale mining operation led by Charles H. Spencer, head of the American Placer Company, who came to Lees Ferry in 1910 planning to extract gold.  Spencer brought in tons of equipment including a 92-foot steamboat, the Charles H. Spencer, reputedly the largest vessel ever to float the Colorado River upstream of the Grand Canyon.  The operation was a dismal failure, and Spencer left, broke, in 1912.  The steamboat sank in 1921 and now lies in pieces along the Colorado from Glen Canyon to below Lees Ferry.

The steamboat Charles H. Spencer moored at Lees Ferry.

 

The Navajo Bridges

By the 1920s, automobile traffic began using the ferry, though it was not considered a safe and reliable crossing due to adverse weather and flooding regularly preventing its operation.  At the river's edge, travelers faced muddy banks, a fluctuating, sediment-filled, dangerous river, and a ferryboat that had been involved in several accidents.  A bridge was clearly required to provide safe and efficient road travel over this important route.

Construction of the original Navajo Bridge began in 1927 about five miles downstream from the Lees Ferry site, at a point where the high canyon walls on opposite sides of the river were compatible; the bridge opened to traffic in 1929.  The bridge was paid for by the Arizona State Highway Commission (now the Arizona Department of Transportation) in cooperation with the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, as the eastern landing is on the Navajo Nation.  The steel arched bridge was designed and constructed by the Kansas City Structural Steel Company and built for a cost: $390,000 (equivalent to $6.92 million in 2023).

The original bridge is 834 feet in length, with a maximum height of 467 feet from the canyon floor.  The roadway was 18 feet wide.  When the bridge officially opened on January 12, 1929, the Flagstaff paper proclaimed it "the biggest news in Southwest history."

The bridge was officially named the Grand Canyon Bridge when it was dedicated on June 14-15, 1929.  The state legislature changed the name to Navajo Bridge five years later in 1934. 

The original Navajo Bridge opened in 1929.

 

Note: The roadway over the bridge was U.S. 89, the route between Flagstaff, Arizona and Utah via Bitter Springs, Jacob Lake, and Fredonia.  This route would carry the U.S. 89 number until 1963, with the opening of a shorter route over Glen Canyon Dam near Page.  The Navajo-Bridge route became U.S. 89A, or “alternate” U.S. 89, providing the only access to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, via Arizona State Road 67 from Jacob Lake.  (See the final section:  Lee’s Ferry Today.)

By 1984, however, Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) officials decided that the traffic flow was too great for the original bridge and that a new solution was needed. The sharp corners in the roadway on each side of the approach had become a safety hazard due to low visibility, and deficiencies resulting from the original design's width and load capacity specifications were becoming problematic. 

The original proposal called for merely widening and fortifying the 1929 bridge, but this was ultimately rejected as not sufficient to meet contemporary federal highway standards.  Replacement became the only option, and it was eventually decided to entirely discontinue vehicular traffic on the original bridge.  A new bridge would be built immediately next to the original and have a considerably similar visual appearance, but would conform to modern highway codes.

The new steel arch bridge was commissioned by ADOT and the Federal Highway Administration, and was completed in May 1995, at a cost of $14.7 million.  The new bridge is 909 feet in length, with a maximum height of 470 feet from the canyon floor.  The roadway is 44 feet wide, much more appropriate for modern automobile traffic.  A formal dedication was held on September 14, 1995.

Both Navajo bridges - the original in the foreground and the new bridge behind.  Looking into Marble Canyon.

The original Navajo Bridge is still open to pedestrian and equestrian use, and an interpretive center has been constructed on the west side to showcase the historical nature of the bridge and early crossing of the Colorado River.  The original bridge has been designated as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 13, 1981.

The Navajo Bridge interpretive center.  Pat and I visited in July and walked across the original bridge.

Water Rights

Since August 1921, Lees Ferry has been the site of a stream gage operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, and has since accumulated one of the most extensive streamflow records ever made in the United States. The river flow here is the principal factor in allocating water to the seven U.S. and two Mexican states in the Colorado River basin. The Colorado River Compact of 1922 apportioned an equal portion of the river's flow to the Upper Basin (the U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and northern Arizona) and the Lower Basin (Arizona, California, and Nevada), with the individual "basins" divided by an imaginary line at Lees Ferry.

Lees Ferry separates the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River for apportionment of River water.

 

Total allocations, including a later 1944 treaty with Mexico guaranteeing that country most of the remaining water in the river, ran up to 16.5 million acre feet, which was believed to be the natural flow of the Colorado River based on early observations at Lees Ferry and other gages along the river.  To fully utilize these allocations and prevent water from "wasting" to the ocean, the U.S. federal government constructed several large storage dams on the Colorado River system.  The canyon country around Lees Ferry was considered for the site of the first dam, but was abandoned in favor of a site lower on the Colorado, where Hoover Dam was completed in 1936.  In the 1960s, the area was again investigated as part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River Storage Project, and that assessment culminated in the construction of Glen Canyon Dam in 1966.  The filling of the resulting Lake Powell of 24.3-million-acre feet inundated the Crossing of the Fathers, Charles Spencer's old mining operation, and other historic landmarks of the area.  Flood control at Glen Canyon also smoothed out the seasonal flux of the Colorado River that so beleaguered the ferry operations at Lees Ferry in the past.

Lees Ferry has long been a focal point of American Southwest water disputes, and has been called "both the physical and spiritual heart of water history in the arid West.”  From the 1940s onward, Colorado River flows were found to average significantly less than what was allocated under the two treaties, and 21^st century studies have postulated that the actual sustainable flow past Lees Ferry is between 13.5- and 14.7-million-acre feet, creating water supply issues for the river basin.

 

Lee’s Ferry Today

Today, Lees Ferry is used as a fishing area and river rafting launch site. The main access is by Lees Ferry Road, which splits off from U.S. Route 89A at the hamlet of Marble Canyon, Arizona, on the west side of the Navajo Bridges. The Lonely Dell Ranch Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and expanded to include Lees Ferry in 1997, features several buildings built during and after John D. Lee's brief tenure at the site along with some remnants of the Charles H. Spencer steamboat.  A small historical cemetery is located nearby.  The area is managed by the National Park Service within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area as a historical site.

Ruins of the repurposed old fort at Lees Ferry.

Lees Ferry is the principal starting point for whitewater rafting trips through the Grand Canyon, which are said to offer "a trip backwards through time" as the river cuts through progressively older strata. Most of these trips are run by commercial rafting enterprises using both paddle and motorized inflatable rafts to carry large parties of tourists (up to 24 passengers per raft) on the river with most trips lasting from one week to ten days.  Some trips travel all the way to Lake Mead, 277 miles downstream, and can last several weeks.  Permits for private trips are no longer backlogged on an extensive waiting list, but instead are now based on a lottery system.  All but the most experienced rapid runners are discouraged from this potentially dangerous trip.

Today, Lees Ferry is a popular fishing area and river raft launching site.

Trips upstream from the confluence of the Colorado and Paria Rivers may be made without special permit (other than a day use boating fee) and users may travel 16 miles upstream on calm waters to the foot of Glen Canyon Dam.  This reach of the Colorado River is also well known for its status as a Blue Ribbon fishery, thanks to releases of cold, clear water from Glen Canyon Dam that make conditions ideal for introduced rainbow trout.  While the river here has been stocked with rainbows since 1964, the implementation of a more stable flow regime at Glen Canyon Dam in 1991 has somewhat reduced the average size of fish caught there due to the increased survival rate of young fish and the resulting competition.

Lees Ferry is also the ending point for backpacking and canyoneering trips down the Paria River, which features historic petroglyphs, slot canyons, waterfalls, and natural bridges including Wrather Arch, the longest such formation in the U.S. outside of Utah.

Roadmap of Grand Canyon area in Arizona.  The five-pointed blue star identifies Lees Ferry.

 

 

Now that I’ve learned so much more about Lee’s Ferry and the Navajo Bridges, I want to go back someday to better appreciate their history.

 

 Sources

My principal sources include: “John D. Lee,” wikiwand.com; “Lees Ferry,” “Navajo Bridge,” and “U.S. Route 89A,” en.wikipedia.org; “Grand Canyon Geology,” “Lees Ferry History,” and Navajo Bridge,” nps.gov; “Lee’s Ferry, where history crossed the Colorado,” azdot.gov; “Lee’s Ferry, Arizona,” uen.org/Utah-history; “Lee’s Ferry Area,” Google Maps; plus numerous other online sources.