ART GREENE -
1968 - the largest concession company on Lake Powell

This interview, arranged and photographed by K. C. DenDooven and conducted by his editor, Gaylord Staveley, appeared in Western Gateways Magazine - Lake Powell Issue in 1968.

Art sometimes describes himself as a desert rat. But he's also Lake Powell Pioneer
-- a cowboy, a gracious host -- and a story teller

2005

INTERVIEWER: Before we get into the interview you did with Art Greene in 1969, tell me a little bit of what you remember about the man and about this day when you spoke with him.

K. C. DenDooven: Well, first of all, you know that my editor, Gaylord Staveley actually conducted the interview. I was there and I would say it was more like a three-way conversation. But Gay was the one who wrote it up.

INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about him?

K. C. DenDooven: He was funny, you know. Also, his family was a significant part of his succss. He had an incredible way of involing his entire family in his operation. Anyone who didn't particularly like dealing with people would be the person who did the legal work, or someone who repaired the motors and kept the mechanical stuff running.

INTERVIEWER (2005): K.C, I understand you knew him well.

K. C. DenDooven: Well, I spent a lot of time in that part of the country and I always felt welcome at Art's. I always remember him when I drive down past his place. He was a pioneer.

BACKGROUND TO INTERVIEW:

Dialogue with a man who insisted on running the Colorado River backwards, and parlayed a thirteen foot boat into a big marina on Lake Powell.

Art Greene is one of those Southwestern characters who is almost part of the scenery. His friends range from the royal and the rich to the rough and the rude. He likes everyone and everyone likes him-- it's almost impossible not to.

Art runs a "tight ship". As president of Canyon Tours, Inc. he's titular head of the largest concession company on Lake Powell with an average of 135 employees during the summer

Canyon Tours is somewhat of a business rarity, a family controlled corporation, it developed from a modest river tour business. All the members of the large Greene family are involved in Canyon Tours. They form the seasoned cadre that provides inertia for the operation.

When construction of Glen Canyon Dam began late in 1956, the dam site was closed to boat travel, both to parties floating downstream to leave the river at Lees Ferry and to the up-river boating that the Greenes had been doing from that point. It was then necessary to find a starting point upriver from the dam site and the only practical access to the river canyon was at El Vado De Los Padres, the "Crossing of the Fathers" used by Spanish missionary explorers in 1776 and by Utes and Navajo for several centuries.

Art and his family plowed their way cross-country from Kanab, out to the top of a sandy ridge within sight of the place the dam was to be built, and scraped together a little camp, consisting of a row of frame buildings that as time allowed were faced with slabs of locall sandstone. One became a small cafe and store, one a powerhouse and tool shed for the diesel generating plant, and others became overnight cabins. This was the first Wahweap.

When the National Park Service later called for a concessionaire, Art Greene’s family negotiated a concession contract through having provided services and facilities in the area.

The new Wahweap is plush, almost lavish, and a far cry from the little stone-faced buildings that have now become the nucleus of Wahweap's Trailer Village. But those old buildings are more "Art Greene", rustic and comfortable.

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WESTERN GATEWAYS: Art, things have changed considerably for you and your family since a few years ago when you were running up the Colorado River to Rainbow Bridge. How big is your new family, that is, your corporate family, Canyon Tours?

ART GREENE: Last Summer we had 135 on the payroll.

You know for an old cowboy, it's kinda' hard to keep 'em straight. And for a sheepherder it's damned hard!

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Your corporate family includes virtually all of your filial family, doesn't it?

ART GREENE: Yes, three daughters, their husbands, my son and his wife, and my wife Myrtle.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Any grandchildren?

ART GREENE: Oh, yeah, we've even got great grandkids, several of them. I'll tell you something else - - I'll bet we’ve got several in escrow, too.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: How far back would we have to go to talk about the first time you set foot in a boat?

ART GREENE: I guess about 1915. I think it was in '15.

We were running sheep up along the San Juan, and in high water we had too put boats on the river - - rowboats - - to move our provisions across. We had teams and wagons on both sides.

Harry Hubbard, Myrtle’s husband, came to me and wanted to take a fishing trip, so we fixed up for him to rent my boat. We were going to fish down as far as Farmington, New Mexico I got five bucks for it but when we got down there I'd forgot all about having to get that boat back up.. Finally I got a ride back up to Blanco and got the team and wagon and went back and got the boat. We made trips every Sunday after that, or almost every Sunday. But the boys had to have a wagon down at the lower end.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: But you ended up, of course, operating on the Colorado River, running upstream with powerboats. That was before Lake Powell.

ART GREENE: yeah, I wanted to get somewhere where I could run dudes. By then I'd run cows for several years . . .

but the government got to know more 'bout runnin' cows than I did so I thought, well I'll get in some other business.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: So you've run dudes ever since?

ART GREENE: Yeah, and you know when I look back at it now after runnin' both - - cows is pretty smart! Naw, I'm kiddin' - - dudes are wonderful.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Tell us about those early runs on the Colorado River. Do you remember your first trip upstream?

ART GREENE: The first trip was with a little ol' 13 foot boat with an outboard motor. We didn't know anything about up-river runs. It was an entirely different deal from running a boat on a lake or going down the river you'd just have to learn to read the darn river. I’d whole lot rather have had a man that didn't know a thing about a boat, because the first thing you'd have to teach him was to forget what he already knew about running a boat. Earl Johnson, now, had never been in a boat, and I'll say that ol' kid caught on fast. It wasn't long 'til he was tellin' me what to do!

There was a couple that came out, a man and his wife, and I had that little aluminum boat to take them to Rainbow Bridge. I had told them in one of my letters to bring a change of shoes, with an explanation that people sometimes might lose a shoe overboard or something, you know," then they were barefoot. So here they came with 16 pair of shoes and I don't know what all else they had along, but anyway we had the boat 'way loaded down. So I thought I'd be tactful, I sez, 'well I brought along this little radio, but I'm going to have to leave it here to lighten' the boat a little." Then I got rid of the ice 'n I got rid of a whole bunch of stuff trying to get them to get ride of something but I guess they didn't get the idea. So we took off anyway, heavy and slow, and we'd only made about 15 miles by lunch time; about to where the dam is now. So then we stopped for lunch and pretty soon he started bellyachin' about no ice, o this, no that. Well, I'd have to leave it all behind to get upstream at all. So after we had lunch I turned around and headed back down for Lees Ferry and he sez 'where you going'?' and I sez 'back to Lees Ferry - -you made me a fifty dollar deposit on this trip and I'm going to give it back to you.

You ain't havin' a bit off fun and I ain't either, and if I can't have fun I don't want to go.'

WESTERN GATEWAYS: You tried airboats in those early years didn’t you?

ART GREENE: Yeah..... We bought one the government had tried to run on the San Juan. They couldn't make it go. By golly, we couldn't either!

After that we got the larger airboat. We had quite a lot off help on that. The Coast Guard helped us, Fairchild Aircraft helped, and Seth Smith, the boatbuilder in Phoenix helped. Three design proposals came up almost identical. It was an inverted vee bottom, square bow. The vee was about two feet wide at the bow ad tapered to zero about 'midship. The theory was that the water would push back into the vee and lift the boat out. And it worked, when you were in shallow water.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: What about engine noise, wasn't it pretty loud?

ART GREEENE: Well, we never had a complaint about it. 'Course some of 'em couldn't hear for three-four days. We started using cotton; wad their ears up with cotton..... Finally some fella' told me, he sez, 'they make a regular ear plug', so we bought some of those. Worked pretty good, too -- they only complained they couldn’t hear for maybe two days.

Then another fella’ sez, 'don't pay those expensive prices you know these erasers they put on the end of a pencil, hollow and they slide over the end off 'em?' he sez 'they make good plugs'. So we bought a wad of 'em. Every time I went to the drug store that old guy in there the druggist, he'd say, 'Lord, Art, you must make a lot of mistakes!"

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Were you using an airboat similar to the ones used in the Florida Everglades?

ART GREEENE: Well, we went down there and looked at them before we build our first one. They used a little old 65 horsepower engine, so when we built ours we was gonna' get that - - we put 165 horse on it. When we got her out in the river the current just drug us back down - -and that was right there at Lees Ferry we weren't even up into any of those little riffles yet! So, then we brought her back to Phoenix and we put on a 245 Lycoming with a gearbox. Boy, we could really hold our own then - - but we still couldn't go up! So, then we put a 450 horse Pratt and Whitney on it. Rather -- 30 gallons of gas per hour!

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Not very economical.

ART GREENE: About every third trip up was a caching trip where we'd just go up with gas and cache it. We couldn't make a round trip. And that was 100 octane gas.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Things are a little different now, being able to run up Lake Powell aren’t they

ART GREENE: Oh I'll say!

We used to charge $250 a person for that trip. Made it in 3 days, if we were lucky. Or four, or five. Now we charge $25 and make it in a day, round trip.

When I was operating up the river if I'd take a hundred people in to Rainbow Bridge, I had a wonderful year. Now we've had as high as 150 in one day - - and we're quite disappointed if we don't have 30 or 40 every day between April and October.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: The picture has really changed since . . . when was it that you first got into the "dude business" as you call it?

ART GREENE: I think it was about 1943 when we started.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Then you had a few trips during the war years?

ART GREENE: I probably shouldn't admit it, because gas was rationed at the time. But we did, and it seemed like a few people had the gas to travel.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Where were you based in those days?

ART GREENE: We operated from Lees Ferry, upriver run to Rainbow Bridge.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Did you have a camp at Lees Ferry?

ART GREENE: No, I was operating Marble Canyon at the time - - Marble Canyon Lodge. Later we bought the old Cliff Dwellers Lodge father up the highway and improved that.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: You and your family homesteaded Marble Canyon, didn't you?

ART GREENE: No, the Hubble people owned it.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: But you were operating it and running your trip operations from there. What caused you to move on up to Cliff Dwellers?

ART GREENE: Well, we'd built Marble Canyon up to where it was really paying off and Mr. Hubble wanted to make a different arrangement. It wasn't advantageous to us, so we bought the Cliff Dwellers' and started operating from there.

WESTEN GATEWAYS: What did Marble Canyon consist of when you first went there?

ART GREENE: A little service station, a lodge across the road and one . . . two . . . five cabins altogether. The big stone lodge building is still there; we served meals and everthin’ there.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Was the Marble Canyon Bridge --- the Navajo Bridge - - - already there at that time?

ART GREENE: Oh, yeah, the bridge was built back in '29, and the road was surfaced about '35.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: So, there were quite a few people going through there by the early '40's.

ART GREENE: oh, sure . . . .

That's a border-to-border highway, you know. I guess it's the longest highway in the world. It connects with the Alcan Highway and the Alaskan Highway and goes on north.

And there’s only a short distance now that isn't passable with four wheel drive at least down in Mexico and Central America, south from Nogales. You take a map and check it; on a one day's ride from 89 . . . .

you can reach more National parks and Monuments than any other highway in the United States!

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Speaking of Navajo Bridge, several people, Barry Goldwater, Norm Nevills and some others have flown under it. Have you?

ART GREENE: Yeah, I flew under with . . . well, when they made that first 'Cinerama picture' a fella' came out and he sez, 'you even ben recommended to me as a fellow knowing this country'' and I took him around quite a little bit. His name was Thomas, and I didn't catch his first name. One day I asked him, I sez, 'Thomas, you know I been gypped a little by some of these movie outfits: give me some of your background'

'Well, ' he se,z 'do you know John Ford?' I sez, 'quite well. Then he asked me 'Lowell Farrell?' 'Yes,' I sez 'I know Lowell'. So then he sez, 'do you know Lowell Thomas, that news commentator?' 'No', I sez 'I don't believe I . . . hey, you ain't Lowell, junior, are you?' He was. Kind of embarrassin' to me!

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Was there anything at Cliff Dwellers' when your family took over there?

ART GREENE: Oh, just a few little old tarpaper shacks.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Who started Cliff Dwellers?

ART GREENE: Bill and Blanche Russell. Blanche at one time was one of the Follies Girls; a lot of people don't know that. She came out to the country, and in a few years Blanche could tail up a cow as good as any cowboy in that country.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: You bought it from the Russell’s?

ART GREEEN: No, Jack Church bought it from Blanche after Bill died. Jack is the fella’ that has the concession for mule rides up at Zion Park, and the Thunder River setup. Blanche, by the way, lives inn Kanab. A wonderful, wonderful person.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Not too long ago you got a power line into Cliff Dwellers', didn't you? Was that hard to get used to after making your own electricity all those years?

ART GREENE: Well, I was up at Wahweap when that happened, but it gave Vern and Ruth some bad times. Vern used to wake up in the middle of the night after we got on the power line, and not hear the generator runnin'. He'd grab his clothes and put 'em on and tear up there, get clear up there to see what was wrong before he'd remember we didn't have a generator any more! Got to be a habit after all those years.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Did your Cliff Dwellers bunch build the airstrip up there?

ART GREENE: Yep. The one at Marble Canyon, too. We built several strips through that country, and one over at Rough Rock, and one at Pinion on the reservatons.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Art, you grew up with Harry Goulding who operates over in Monument Valley, didn't you

ART GREENE: Yeah, but it's something I'm not too proud of.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: You're not? Why?

ART GREENE: Well, I'm just not too happy to be associated with a horse thief.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Sounds interesting. Explain?

ART GREENE: . . . . . . . . . . . .Well, . . . . . . . .

Harry come in one time, draggin' this lariat rope, 'n they was a horse on the end of it. 'Course I jumped him about it 'n he sez 'Art, I found this lariat rope and I didn't know they was this horse at the end of it when I picked it up.' Course he’s good on that end of story, you know.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: You two must have had some high times.

ART GREENE: Well, ol’ Harry and I were accused of almost everything that happened around the country, and about 95 percent of the time they were right.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: What part of the country was that?

ART GREENE: That was up around the Four Corners: Aztec, Farmington, Durango. We were both motherless children, and raised by a very fine old aunt - - Aunt Molly. She was sister to my mother and to Harry’s father. When I look back at it after I've grown up - - and this is serious - - I think what a damned hard job Aunt Molly had.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Mrs. Greene said to be sure and asked you about the time you and Harry Goulding ran away from home.

ART GREENE: Oh, you mean the time the folks treated us so mean? Well, you know how folks do to you. So we decided we weren't wanted and we'd go to California. Now we didn't exactly steal the horse, because it was Uncle Tom's - - that's Harry's uncle - - and his buggy. We were in Aztec, New Mexico then. So we loaded up the buggy and hitched up the horse and started for California. They finally caught us over at Chama. That’s 70-80 mile east. But I mean Wrong Way Corregan made a mistake too!

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Sure.

ART GREEENE: That son-off-a-gun led me into a lot of trouble. One time an uncle of ours gave us a new air rifle. We'd been reading a lot of this pulp magazine stuff, you know, about train robberies and all.

So we decided we'd rob a train.

Just above the old ranch at Pine Ridge - that's west of Durango - - there was a place they had to slow down; it's a pretty steep grade. So we got up there and stopped the train, shootin' BB's at 'em and everything. So then we got 'em stopped and then we didn't know what to do! So the old conductor, he had 'em back the train back down and he turned us over to our uncles and Harry’s dad.... .

You know, they broke our new BB gun!

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Harry went over to Monument Valley about ’21, didn't he? Were you still in Colorado then?

ART GREENE: I was at Aztec. Later I moved up to Denver to get my kids in what I thought would be a better school. Was in the coal and wood business for a while. When that got too tough for me I was building fancy trellises and fences and arches ad arbors for people.. later we lived in Blanding Utah for two years ran the old National Cafe, but I had in mind starting something with dudes. We operated the lodge at Marble Canyon, then bought the old cliff Dwellers' Lodge and improved that.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Do you and Harry Goulding get together very often?

ART GREENE: Oh, not much. I avoid him all I can. You can see why. We did go to Los Angeles a few years ago, about '58 I guess it was.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: And . . . . ?

ART GREENE: Well we got into the edge of Los Angeles and I sez to Harry 'now, Harry, let's this time be real good fellas in here. The first policeman we see, we'll stop and ask him some of the rules and regulations of the town.' So we go down the street a ways and see a cop standin' there and we pull over and ask him about the rules and regulations, and he sez, 'how long you fellas gonna’ be here?' We sez, 'oh about five-six days.' so he looks us all over, and the Arizona license on the car and a shovel tied on the front end and all, and he sez 'five or six days?' 'Yeah, about that.'

'Well', he sez, 'tell you what: if you get a ticket - - and I'm pretty sure you’re goin' to - - don't pay no attention to it. But don't come back for a year!'

So we hadn't gone on down the street too far, and see I'm drivin' now, and bells start ringin', whistles blowin', red lights flashin', and Harry sez 'I think the fella wants you to stop'. So we pulled over and stopped. You know how they stick their head in the window - - he sticks his head in the window and sez, 'can you think of any good reason why I shouldn't give you a ticket? ’I sez 'no, I can't, but what'd I do?'

He sez, 'back at so-and-so and so-and-so', he named off a couple of streets, 'you went through a red light'. I sez, 'well, brother, if there was a red light there I sure did, cause I ain't stopped for a long spell.

He sez, 'you probably went through a dozen of 'em!' But he didn’t give a ticket; I guess because I was honest.

So then Harry takes over drivin'. Same performance, bells ringin', whistles blowin', lights flashin'. This time he sez, 'You fellas possibly don't know it, but you don't have a tail light on this car." Harry sez. ''Is that right?' He sez, 'you know, Art, I'll bet when we got in that old buck-brush back out there it drug it off.' No ticket. I’ll bet we were stopped fifty times and never got a ticket once!

Harry had that blue French dog of his. What do you call 'em, poodles? Anyway we had him on about a forty foot rope while we were walking around. We found out that when we were walking down the streets of Los Angeles if we'd just step off the curb and look up - - never say a word - - we'd draw a crowd. Then we'd move on down and get up another crowd, take turns don' it. We found out cars'd go around us.

Pretty soon we noticed this cop was followin' us and every time we'd step out in the street and the cars'd start goin' around, he’d stop and watch us.

After while it was my turn, so I go to step out, and this cop taps me on the shoulder. Then he looks me up and down real good three or four times. Finally he sez - - 'go ahead, I'll mark it suicide.'

WESTERN GATEWAYS: It probably would have held up, too, even in the traffic they had in those days. Tell us about going in to the Wahweap area for the first time, before they were any roads.

ART GREENE: That was kind of a rough deal. We started out from Kanab with a hell off a good truck, and we got about as far - - a little farther - - than the movie crews would get going out to the Old Paria town site location. We really bogged that truck down. So then we bought a six-by-six, that's a six wheel drive, and that one went quite a little ways farther and I bogged down. We finally wound up buying a half-track to hook on the front of that six-by-six.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Then you were just going cross-country through all that sand and sagebrush?

ART GREEEN: That's right. No road at all. Today the new highway, that superhighway that goes through there, was built almost on our tracks. 'Course they built bridges, where we'd have to go up around the head of canyons to get across 'em.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: What was the reason for going in there?

ART GREENE: Well those fellas were plugging up the river and we couldn’t get through that damn tunnel they were gonna' build so we had to find a location above it - - some land we could get hold of. We finally found some school sections and go a lease on them. The Bureau of Reclamation took three sections away from us through the Enabling Act, but we had our foot in the door and we just kept it there. We lost a little skin off our shins while they were trying to get that foot out, though.

So we built some cabins, we built a little restaurant, we had a little store. In that little old store if you wanted some jewelry you could have bought maybe one pair of earrings. If you wanted some groceries you could have got a box of crackers and a can of sardines.

The first thing we built though was an airstrip. It was 200 miles around, from Cliff Dwellers to Wahweap by way of Kanab, yet straight across was just about 12 minutes. We had a little plane at that time and we flew in everything, everything we could get on that plane. Even some of the lumber we'd cut up and tie on the outside of the plane.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Things were pretty basic in those days weren’t they?

ART GREENE:

Well, when it was a river you know you had the adventurous person.

You never got any complaints. Now we’re receiving a different kind of people and we do get complaints. We had a complaint about our little store up at Rainbow Bridge Marina, a fella felt we didn't have near enough commodities up there. When I answered his letter, I told him we're trying to make a deal with Sak's in New York to put branch up there, but until that came through we just couldn’t do it.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: Let’s hope you weren’t taken seriously. You've met many many interesting people haven't you?

ART GREENE: Yeah, and in spite of everything they're all wonderful. We've been blessed with having wonderful, wonderful people. I think the one that impressed me most was Princess Margaret.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: That was bout 1965. How did the Princess and Lord Snowden like Lake Powell?

ART GREENE: Well . . . . . . . .

. . . . the last thing she said - - she called me 'Aht', she said, 'Aht, we want to thank you for a wonderful trip and we will be back'.

We did get another honor from that visit. There was a Scotland Yard man along and Lewis Douglas, our ex-Ambassador to England and I asked him, "Lew, I wonder if I could get them to sign my guest book, brought it along'. Lewis Douglas sez, "'I don't think you could, they just don't autograph anything'….. so Lew got down, I was sittin' in the co-pilot's seat, and the Scotland Yard man came over and sat down and I put the same question to him. 'Well, no', he sez, 'I been travelin' with them for years; they never give an autograph'. 'Hell, I sez, 'I’m not askin' for an autograph, I'm askin' some friends to sign my guestbook'. So, he called Roddy McDowell over, he was on the trip too, and we talked and he goes over and pretty soon I see Lord Snowden shakin' his head, and so he come over and got the guest book and they signed it. The Scotland Yard man said that was the first time he had ever seen that happen. I felt quite honored.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: I should think so. How did The Princess sign it?

ART GREENE: . . . .Margaret. . . . Just 'Margaret'.

We had a radiotelephone on the boat.

Lord Snowden wanted to know, he sez, 'how far can you reach with that thing?' 'How far you want to go,' I sez. 'Like to talk to New York', he sez.

So we called our office back at the marina and they hooked him up on the telephone and he called New York. 'Course you could hear both ends of the conversation and the chap he was talking to on the other end sez 'where are you?' 'I'm out in the middle of Lake Powell, and the other chap sez 'oh, lost again, eh?' Wonderful people.

WESTERN GATEWAYS: There was a story making the rounds about how you greeted the Princess and Lord Snowden. How did that go?

ART GREENE: Well, there was seven people supposed to be on the reception committee to meet them when they flew in, and I was supposed to be at the front. The Bureau of Reclamation figured out a nice little speech for me, the Park Service figured out a speech, and all my kids figured out one They taught me to do that little curtsy, you know, and all that stuff.

I told my wife, I sez, 'Lord, I'll get all balled up tryin' to do all that stuff I'm just going to be old Art'.

So when Princess Margaret stepped of the plane, I stuck out my hand and I sez, "howdy, Ma'am, by golly welcome to lake Powell'.