The Arches Reader

Jeffrey D. Nichols is professor of history at Westminster University. He is the author of Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power and co-editor of Playing with Shadows: Voices of Dissent in the Mormon West.

Introduction 1. Edward Abbey, The First Morning (1968) 2. Amy Irvine, The First Morning, A Reply (2018) Part I: The Place of Rainbows 3. Arthur Winslow, A Natural Bridge in Utah (1898) 4. Joseph C. Anderson, Geology of Arches (1934) 5. Raye Ringholz, Bonanza at Big Indian (2002) 6. Frank A. Beckwith, 17-Year-Old Youth Finds Dinosaur Bones While Herding Cows (1934) 7. D. Elden Beck, Biology on Horseback (1947) 8. Brooke Williams, The Colorado: Archetypal River (2014) 9. Edward Abbey, Cliffrose and Bayonets (1968) 10. Gerald Callahan, Almost Like Dancing (1998) 11. Sam Webster, Mountain Lion (2011) 12. Terry Tempest Williams, Winter Solstice at the Moab Slough (1993) Part II: Living and Working in Arches 13. Descendants of Arches' First Peoples (2016) 14. Tom McCourt and Wade Allinson, Quit-sub-soc-its (2017) 15. Mary Langworthy, William Grandstaff, African-American Frontiersman (2022) 16. Esther Stanley Rison, Wolfe Ranch Memories (ca. 1977) 17. B. W. Allred, The Life of a Horse and Buggy Stage Line Operator (1972) Part III: A Wonder for the World 18. Alexander Ringhoffer, The Man who Discovered the Devil's Garden (1928) 19. John F. Hoffman, Devil's Garden: The Case of the Perambulating Place-name or, How Arches Became Part of the National Park System (1981) 20. Frank A. Beckwith, Good Roads (1933-1934) 21. Managing the Monument: Excerpts from Custodians' and Superintendents' Reports, Arches National Monument (1940s-1950s) 22. Jack Breed, Utah's Arches of Stone (1947) 23. Mitch Williams's Story (2004) 24. Tug Wilson Remembers (2012) 25. Caroline Wilson Remembers (2012) 26. Jim Stiles, Quiet Times at Arches National Monument (2013) 27. Jim Stiles, Ken Sleight Remembers: Arches (2016) 28. James Swensen, Life comes to Arches: Josef Muench's 1953 Photograph of Delicate Arch, Utah (2022) 29. Tom Till, Tom Till's Arches (2022) 30. Visitors on the Trail (1953, 2008, 2010) 31. Commendations and Complaints (1978, 1987) 32. Reactions to the Expansion of Arches (1969) 33. Jim Webster, Where There's a Will, There's a Way (2015) 34. Noel Poe, Dealing with Cremains (2016) 35. Doug Travers, The Very Original Arch Hunter (1969) 36. Jim Stiles, The "Stabilization" of Delicate Arch (2015) 37. Tom Sloan, New Arches Opposed (?)(1977) 38. Correspondent Todd, Arched Entrance Arches Eyebrows (1987) 39. Bruce Hamilton, Edward Abbey, Druid of the Arches (1976) 40. Ken Sanders, The Pasty White Shellfish Comes to Arches National Park (2022) 41. Jim Stiles, Tourists in the Vortex (2007) 42. Tourists Bite Back (2015) Part IV: Imagining Arches 43. Jose Knighton, Near Delicate Arch (1979) 44. David Feela, A picture is worth, maybe, 25 cents (2011) 45. Rebecca Bailey, Wall Arch (2016) 46. Erica Olsen, Adventure Highway (2012) 47. Natasha Saje, a meeting (2016) 48. Terry Tempest Williams, The Coyote Clan (1989) Timeline Further Reading Acknowledgements Sources and Permissions

If you want to know Arches National Park, and you've read Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, your next book needs to be The Arches Reader. Jeff Nichols is a historian, and he shows here his respect for fascinating original sources and excerpts long enough to capture their full-throated flavor. Many stories in Nichols's anthology feature park rangers and their families who turn out to be the colorful opposite of faceless bureaucrats. Arches sits on the bank of the Colorado River just outside Moab, and so this collection extends beyond the park to include uranium hunters, pilgrim poets, cranky environmentalists, and early outfitters. Nichols uses Arches as a springboard into Colorado Plateau environmental history and rural Utah culture. It's a worthy plunge into vastly enjoyable territory." - Stephen Trimble, editor of The Capitol Reef Reader and Red Rock Stories "Arches' story is unique, tied so closely as it is to the fate of its adjacent community. I'm not sure that any other park can tell quite the same story of an explosion in popularity and a community's attendant ambivalence. And its sometimes despair." - Jen Jackson Quintano, author of Blow Sand in His Soul: Bates Wilson, the Heart of Canyonlands