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The Story Of A Boat
Taken from the book "The Grand Canyon of
Arizona: How to See It" by Georg Wharton James --------
The Utah. Near the rim of the Canyon, at El
Tovar Hotel, is a steel boat, sixteen feet long, scarred and
battered, showing signs of the roughest usage, named the Utah.
Here is its story: Loper Plans to Explore the Canyon. For
ten years after Galloway's first trip was made, no one was
found venturesome enough to risk the dangers of the Canyon
journey until the man who built the Utah and his two companions
resolved to "dare and do." These men were Charles S. Russell,
of Prescott, Arizona, Edward R. Monett, of Goldfield, Nevada,
and Albert Loper, of Louisiana, Missouri. Russell was thirty-one
years of age, Monett twenty-three, and Loper thirty-eight
years.
The plan originated in the mind of Loper, in a mine in Cripple Creek,
in 1899. Six years later, Loper had been attracted to the San Juan
River, a tributary of the Colorado in Southeastern Utah, by the
excitement created by the discovery of placer mining there. He confide
to Russell his belief that the Colorado River offered much greater
chances of richer placer mining. Difficulty in Finding Companions. The men planned to make their
start in the spring of 1905. But they presently discovered that the
undertaking they had faced so lightly presented almost
insurmountable difficulties. At the outset, the men found it was
necessary to have at least one more companion if they were to
accomplish their undertaking, and four men were preferable to three.
But the most daring of the men they met in the mines refused to
consider such a trip.
Plans Begin to Materialize. It was consequently not until April of 190
that their long-laid plans began to materialize. Loper met Monett, a
boy in appearance, seemingly not strong, and unusually quiet, as he
did his day's work in the Mohawk mine in Goldfield. But that Monett
was not a boy--in courage at least--and not as weak as a casual
glance suggested, was presently evidenced. Loper notified Russell,
then foreman of the mine near Prescott, that the third man had been
found. A meeting was arranged at Green River early in September.
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