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Conversation with:
Frank Wright
dialogue with a well known river runner who is now a National park service concessioner on Lake Powell
This interview, arranged and photographed by K. C. DenDooven and conducted by his editor, Gaylord Staveley, appeared in Western Gateways Magazine - Colorado River Issue - Spring 1967River running has traditionally been thought of as a young man's activity, an adventurous kind of life that one leads before he settles down to the serious business of making a living. By the time they are in their late twenties, many fast water men find it necessary to turn to other, less romantic, more remunerative primary pursuits. Norman Nevills, whose early expeditions largely precipitated passenger carrying boat trips on the Colorado River system, held that . . . . .
"by the time a man was forty, it was time, from the physical standpoint, for him to find adventure elsewhere."
But Frank Wright, who learned his river running with Nevills, flew in the face of all this by beginning a fast water career when he was in his fifties and pursuing it for some twenty years. At this writing he is planning a forthcoming expedition down the Colorado River with a group of river friends.
Living in most parts of the rural West requires a man to acquire many capabilities if he is to prevail against the remoteness and the elements. Frank is a man of many talents, a self-made man, and he has prevailed. When Lake Powell was created he was sought out by a group interested in establishing a concession operation along the shore of the Glen Canyon that he knows so well. Since that time he has spent most of his time at the Hall's Crossing marina, commuting periodically to his home in Blanding, Utah, where this conversation took place.
Western Gateways: Frank, at the time Lake Powell was formed, you were still actively running the Colorado River and San Juan River. How did you happen to make the transition to operation of a marina on Lake Powell?
Frank Wright: Well, . . . .
a local man had come to me some time before with the idea that the lake might act as a barrier between some of the most scenic areas of Utah. He had conceived the idea of a ferry connecting the two sides of the lake, and he presented such a picture that it intrigued me.
Particularly because at that time there were no recreation sites planned for the upper lake except at Hite, and I knew that being near the head of Powell, this would be silted up sooner or later. This man represented a group who hoped to develop a site on the lake, and they wanted me to go in with them because of my river experience and familiarity with boat operation.
I asked him to give me a couple of weeks to think it out, and the idea seemed good. Hall's Crossing seemed like the place for a recreational site on the San Juan County side of the lake, so we got the ball rolling, got the endorsement of the county commissioners, got a ferry franchise, and proposed our plan to our congressional people whereby . . .
we could make Lake Powell more than a barrier, and could establish facilities to help people enjoy the lake.
Western Gateways: But didn't' the development of recreational sites require approval of the National Park Service?
Frank Wright: Yes, and some time afterward we received word that the Hall's Crossing site had been approved and that an official prospectus would be issued. when that was done, we were able to submit the best competitive bid.
Western Gateways: In effect, then, you had permission to go ahead and establish certain facilities and services at Hall's Crossing. But wasn't that pretty remote and inhospitable country in those days?
Frank Wright: I should say so! There's quite a bit involved in going out to a gravel beach where there's nothing, and setting up buildings and providing electricity and water for your own use as well as the public's.
I thought I'd worked hard in my life before, but this was something else!
In some places there wasn't even a track out there, no road at all. But the county put a rudimentary road down and we got some equipment in and started running our trips from there with a 17 foot inboard-outboard boat, and just kept building and adding so that we could give people the basic things they needed out there. We still make our own electricity, and we have a water well, now, and a new store. Our boat fueling complex is exactly like the one at Rainbow Bridge, and we have slips and rental trailers and our own repair shop. the Bureau of Public Roads people are doin' a little surveying out there now, so we think things are going along pretty well.
Western Gateways: Hall's Crossing has quite a historical importance, doesn't it?
Frank Wright: Yes, there was quite an important cross-country route through there for several years.
The Mormon pioneers crossed at Hole In the Rock in 1880 on a wagon ferry built by Charles Hall . . .
But later parties all crossed at Hall's Crossing. I've never been able to find out whether Hall and his two sons moved the Hole In The Rock ferry upstream to the better crossing or not, but it would have been awfully difficult; probably they built a new one there. Crossings were made at Hall's until 1885 or so, then the route was abandoned in favor of crossings at Moab and Lee's Ferry.
Western Gateways: Then your river running led to this. But how did you get involved with the Colorado River?
Frank Wright: When you ask that question, you're asking for a long story. Actually, it happened because I once asked a question. In the 1940's my brother and I were running a repair shop in Blanding, where my brother did the automobile repairs and I did he heavy repair work and the welding.
One ay Norm Nevills came in from Mexican Hat to get some work done, . . .
. . . . . and I started asking him questions about an article the Saturday Evening Post had just carried about his river expeditions. Somewhere along the way Norm asked me if I thought I'd like to run the Colorado River sometime, and I said I thought it would be fun, interesting anyway.
"Well, maybe we can arrange it," Norm said, and if you knew Norm Nevills you'd know that meant quite a bit! A couple of weeks later, in April, he invited me to go on a trip from Bluff down to Mexican Hat. He had gotten a few friends together and was taking an extra boat along - - I found out later - - to test out a few prospective boatmen.
He put three of us in this extra boat together and one of the other two had had about a half day's experience before, but that was all. There were two other boats in the party and we'd watch them and try to do what they did, but it didn't look like Norm was paying any attention to us at all.
At lunchtime I asked Norm a few questions and he said they were the right questions, and in the afternoon we traded off and I got to run his boat for a while. We really had a ball.
Two weeks later I got a phone call from Norm asking if I wanted to take one of the longer San Juan trips, take one passenger, along with another of the new boatmen and take turns at the oars. So I went down the day before the trip and helped get it ready.
That night I asked Norm, . . .
"Where's Mike?" . . .
. . . .and he said he was still in Blanding. Next morning we got the boats down to the river and loaded them and were ready to shove off and I asked him again, . . .
"Norm, where's Mike?" . . . .
He rubbed his chin - - he had that way of rubbing his chin - - and he sort of grinned and said, . . .
"Frank, Mike isn't coming. It's up to you to take the boat through." . .
. . . .Well, that was the beginning.
Western Gateways: About a year later, the Nevills were killed when their plane crashed. What happened then?
Frank Wright: Jim Rigg had started boating for Norm that summer - - 1949 - - and after the crash Norm's mother asked Jim and me if we'd take over and continue the trips. I'd felt at the time like I never wanted to see a boat again, but she kept urging us, and so after things got settled down I talked to Jim about it and he said, "Why not?", So . . . . . .
Western Gateways: So in 1950 Wright and Rigg were in the river business. Didn't you run Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in powerboats about that time?
Frank Wright: We made two powerboat runs through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River, I think in 1952 and 1953. They were Cris Craft Express Cruisers, built from precut parts and fiber glassed. They had straight inboard drive, with 60 horsepower inboard engines. The only modifications were to increase the rudder area so we had better steerage, and to replace the cabin glass with plywood. We had troubles of course, with the sand eating up the water pumps and with bent props, but otherwise they were a good boat.
Western Gateways: Was this the first time powerboats had been run through the Grand Canyon?
Frank Wright: No, Ed Hudson had been through with the Esmerelda, he and Doc Marston, I don't remember what year it was, then they ran again the next year with Esmerelda II which I think was the same boat with a bigger engine. They were having engine trouble, and then down through the section of rapids called The Jewels . . . .
. . . .they got a hole poked in the boat, so they left it, turned it loose and part of the group went out in a helicopter and the rest went on through in the other boat.
We found the boat at Forrester Rapid, where the water had dropped and left it away up on the shoe. when we tested the starter it worked, and the hole wasn't very big, so we patched it and rolled the Esmerelda down to the water on driftwood poles. There was a full tool kit aboard, plywood, screws, and everything. We got it running, but every time we tried to gun the engine it would die.
Next morning we could hardly wait until breakfast was over and three of us went down and lifted the cylinder head. It had barely cleared the bolts when I could see the gasket was blown, so that two of the cylinders were fouling each other up. Well, the gasket was quite wide, so I took a piece out of the edge of it and made a cardboard pattern, and cut a new section to fit between the cylinders, and we tightened it down, and started it, and it sounded good. Of course everyone wanted to go for a ride, and I thought under a full load it would blow again, but it didn't! Well, we took it on through, and when we got to Lake Mead there was Ed Hudson who had come up, through curiosity, and the first thing he wanted to do was see how it ran. So he got under the wheel and opened it up and looked at the tach and said, "You know that thing never did run that good for me!"
Western Gateways: At that point, whose boat was it?
Frank Wright: Well, of course we felt we were entitled to it since it had been turned loose and washed ashore at Forester, and as salvage, it should have been ours. . . . . .
But they had signed an agreement with the Park Service that it was to go to the museum at the south Rim, and we didn't want to go through a legal hassle to get it.
Western Gateways: Then that experience with powerboats sort of precipitated the building of your Criss Craft kit boats a year or two later, and your two power runs. Why weren't the powerboat runs continued?
Frank Wright: Jim Rigg decided to go to medical school, so we sort of terminated the partnership casually, he took the powerboats and I kept the floatboats.
Western Gateways: . . . and eventually you got out of the float trip business, too, didn't you?
Frank Wright: Well, I thought I had. In 1956 Gaylord Staveley went along with me as a passenger on both the San Juan and Grand Canyon trips. He had married Norman Nevills' daughter, Joan, and wanted a taste of river running. Then in 1957 he asked me about becoming a boatman. Instead, after we talked it over, he came in as a partner, and at the end of that year I sold out the whole operation to him.
Western Gateways: That was the second time you had tried to give up boating. What happened to get you back on the river?
Frank Wright: An Archeological Salvage Project. The Museum of Northern Arizona and the University of Utah had been given a grant by the National Park Service to locate and examine all important archeological locations that would be covered by Lake Powell at its highest possible level. This was on both the San Juan river and Colorado River branches of the lake that would be forming behind Glen Canyon Dam. Our group was assigned both sides of the San Juan River, and the east bank of the Colorado River below the San Juan.
I bought a sixteen foot boat and two outboard motors, and built a new San Juan type floatboat. We also used an old rubber raft to carry supplies and equipment. We also used an old rubber raft to carry supplies and equipment.
Western Gateways: What specific things did this project involve?
Frank Wright: The first year we did very little but an overall survey to find all the sites we could. Later we went back and excavated them quite carefully, and photographed each one. . . .
I'd say we found around three hundred sites, and excavated perhaps a third of them. . . .
The force was headed in each case by archeological people, and reports were compiled; they're available from the University of Utah.
Western Gateways: If memory serves, your group spent about a month excavating a prehistoric irrigation system a few miles from the mouth of the San Juan.
Frank Wright: Yes, we found a partially buried system of ditches, one of them rock-lined, with a series of slab-rock weirs at about ten foot intervals to adjust the flow of water as it went down this ditch.
Western Gateways: Was the water source a catch-basin, or did it appear to be diverted from the river?
Frank Wright: We got into quite a controversy over this one. The archeologist was new on the job and new in this part of the country. He thought one of the main ditches was a catch-ditch, and that heavy rains would have run down the sand and shale hills and gathered in this ditch at the base. Now I'm not an archeologist, but I've lived in this part of the country for a long time, and I know that rain doesn't run down that kind of ground, it soaks in. If they ever got a rain that was heavy enough to run down those hills without soaking in, it would be enough rain to thoroughly irrigate their whole crop without needing the ditching system! But he had his reason for what he believed, and so did I.
Western Gateways: I suppose much of this work was pretty routine. Did you find anything that intrigued you personally?
Frank Wright: Oh, yes. There is tremendous complex of old trails used by the early Indians to get into and out of the river canyon, and to cross the canyons that enter the river. This is more evident down round Rainbow Bridge on the east side where the Carmel Sandstone is eroded away, leaving a shelf on top of the next layer, the Navajo Sandstone. On this project, any time we found evidence of habitation in the canyon, we would always find a trail up and out of the canyon. On top, there would be more evidence, and the trail would continue. One of the things that was most exciting to me was to find and trace out these trails. We found a trail up onto Cummings Mesa, and were, I think, the first white people to have gone up it. It would follow a talus slope until it came to a ledge, climb the ledge, follow it for maybe a half mile, then climb another talus slope, another ledge, and so on.
Western Gateways: Was the salvage project finished by the time Lake Powell rose behind the dam?
Frank Wright: We finished late in 1961, several months before they started impounding water.
Western Gateways: Many people think running the river offers an exciting and non routine way to make a lot of money. Have you found this to be so?
Frank Wright: I don't think anyone has ever made money running the river, at least as a primary source of income.
Western Gateways: You've been an observer for the U.S. Weather Bureau for a number of years. Is this your answer to how to run the river and still make a living?
Frank Wright: Well, the weather observations have provided us with our livelihood since 1939. We started in April that year, making four observations a day. Then in a few months they wanted us to increase this to eight a day, and that's the way it's been ever since.
Western Gateways: What's involved in doing this?
Frank Wright: Well, the observation is quite complete. there's . . . .
. . . . . .wind direction and speed, relative humidity, barometric pressure, precipitation records, not to mention twenty-nine different categories of cloud types, plus cloud altitudes. then we supplement this with anything of special interest that may be taking place.
Western Gateways: After all those years, has it gotten to where the local people expect you to predict the weather, too?
Frank Wright: Oh, yes, but we were put on the right track about that in the beginning. Forecasting is left to the forecasters, but they furnish us with a local forecast once a day by radio from Grand Junction; we send that up to the local radio station and they broadcast it.
Western Gateways: Your observations, then are reported over short wave radio to Grand Junction?
Frank Wright: Yes, but in the beginning we reported to Milford, Utah, then Hanksville. In those days it was all reported by international Morse Code. I had a little ham set in 1938 and the weather bureau came down and said they were looking for someone to report local observations to them, and that they'd give me a little money for stronger equipment if I'd take the job on. I agreed, but didn't hear from them for a long time, and had about forgotten it. Then just after Christmas that year the equipment started showing up, so we set it up and got started.
Western Gateways: What other things have you done?
Frank Wright: For a while I worked in the coal mine at Sunnyside, and at the smelter in Tooele. I had to quit that because I couldn't take the chemical reagents they were using. Then I taught music for a number of years - - I've studied music most of my life when I was thirteen I taught myself to drive a Model T truck that belonged to my dad, while he was out of town for a few days. Before I turned fourteen I was driving the mail from Monticello to Bluff in the old Model T. One winter I lived in Bluff with a brother and sister and drove to school in Blanding every morning and back at night.
Western Gateways: Wasn't that drive just about a day's work at that time?
Frank Wright: A full day's work.
On the mail runs, If I got back before five o'clock they'd accuse me of driving too fast!
Once the magneto spring broke, and I had to borrow a hairpin from a lady passenger and use it for a spring. We made it in, too. Of course there were more pleasant times in the old Model T, too - - driving down in the moonlight from a dance in Monticello - - things like that.
Western Gateways: Tell us a little about your family.
Frank Wright: I met my wife when I was working in the mine at Sunnyside. She was a school teacher then. In 1931 and '32 things got pretty tough and I took a job in Nevada. My wife and youngsters moved here to Blanding to be with my folks until I finished in Nevada. Our children make up what we always refer to as a "basketball team plus a referee," and that's just about the way it went while they were all at home!
Western Gateways: Several of your photographs have appeared in Arizona Highways Magazine. Are you still active in photography?
Frank Wright: Somewhat, but not like I used to be. Most of it now is in connection with our boating business. I did have a portrait studio here, and usually had a lot of business around Christmas time each year. I did school pictures for a year or two, and still have my darkroom and all of my equipment.
Western Gateways: Having known Glen Canyon extremely well, I suppose you miss it?
Frank Wright: Oh, greatly. When I first started running on the new lake water out there - - you know, Lake Powell, I'd invariably follow the old river cannel, even though I knew that the rocks and trees were down under twenty or thirty feet of water, and not a hazard. But there were landmarks, you know, and we always ran the river a lot by landmarks. It was kind of hard to see a lot of the scenic places go under, Music Temple and some of those. I've seen people who had known those places before the lake go back to look for them, and shed tears.
Most people I've questioned as to how they felt about the lake say how beautiful it is, if it just wouldn't' get any higher. Others say they just can't live until the day it is filled.
There are still lots of beautiful places, interesting places, to see on the lake. It's opened up some interesting places I had never seen before. I guess the thing I can say for it is that a lot of people enjoy the lake who would have never ventured down the river.
One of the big differences I've noticed is t that the scout groups and young people's groups have quit coming. they used to look forward to the float trip down Glen Canyon. They can't afford powerboat trips, and so they have had to find other recreation. I feel badly about this, but then there are a lot of people who come and enjoy the lake. The season is longer than it was on the river. I water skied down there one October, and we've had people down in late December.
Western Gateways: Frank, have you ever totaled up the number of miles you've logged in boats of one kind or another?
Frank Wright: No, I started to one day, and maybe someday I'll get it done. Counting lake miles would be impossible, but I think I could come petty close to figuring how many thousand river miles I've covered since the first day on the San Juan in 1948.
