City of Rocks Historic Resources Study

Another resource not yet utilized is the scenic attraction of the "Cassia City of Rocks." This unique area is surely worthy of development and deserves recognition as a National Monument. [289]

For Charles Brown, publisher of the Oakley Herald and president of the Oakley Chamber of Commerce, economic recovery (if not salvation) lay in creation of a National Monument at City of Rocks and in harvest of the area's tourist potential. Recreational use of the area was not new: since settlement, the region had served "as a favorite picnic spot of southern Idaho residents" and a frequent "field-trip" destination for area school children. [290]

Yet there was little economic benefit in local use and in 1926 Brown initiated a concerted publicity campaign aimed at gaining the attention of the traveling public, of local congressional leaders, and of those who controlled the county's road maintenance and construction coffers. Brown was joined in his efforts by geologist Alfred L. Anderson, who frequently worked for the Idaho Bureau of Mines and Geology, by state politician Byron Defenbach who prepared an Idaho Trails and Landmarks Association plan, and by Idaho Senator James P. Pope, who presented Defenbach's plan to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal congress.

Their publicity campaign included frequent editorials; pictorials; pages of testimonial from geologists, historians, and local and regional dignitaries; bathing beauty contests held at Bathtub Rock; and annual prizes to the best paper presenting a topic of local history. (The 1938 winner "recreated" a version of the Battle of Almo Creek in gruesome detail.) [291]

Aesthetically, Brown and others compared the City of Rocks to Utah's Zion Canyon and Colorado's Garden of the Gods. Geologically, Anderson offered oft-repeated testimonial to the uniqueness of "such a complete assemblage of bizarre and fantastic forms within an area of two or three square miles." Historically, the City was lauded as being "rich in the history and legend of the Old West," a place of Indian Massacre and Stagecoach Holdup. [292]

By 1938, Brown's proposal to create a National Monument at City of Rocks had been "indorsed by every member of Idaho's congressional delegation; by Governor Clark; by the Oakley and Twin Fails chambers of commerce; by such influential daily newspapers as the Twin Falls News, the Idaho Evening Times, the Boise Statesman, and the Salt Lake Tribune; by many of the weekly papers published in the West; and by organizations and individuals and publications throughout America" (many of whom were members of Brown's "Advisory Council Advocating [a] National Monument at City of Rocks"). In October of 1938, Brown organized a tour of the City; participating dignitaries included Clark, Pope, Anderson, future U.S. Senator Henry Dworshak of Burley, E.C. Munson (Union Pacific assistant general manager), and Edmund B. Rogers of Yellowstone National Park. Although thwarted by a severe snowstorm that precluded travel from Oakley to the City of Rocks, Senator Pope arranged for a full National Park Service investigation of a potential National Monument at City of Rocks. Historian Merle Wells reports that "Nothing like this had been attempted in Idaho before, and it would be difficult to identify any such project to match it anywhere else." [293]

The irony of the region's important role as a crossroads of overland and stage travel can not have been lost on these local boosters. Monument status and economic benefit were most severely challenged by the lack of a modern transportation system:

The area has great possibilities from a tourist standpoint, but people should not be inveigled into the section until roads are improved. For the hardy Idaho roamer the matter of a few miles of bad road should not play any important part, but if we want outsiders to visit the section, immediate steps should be taken to secure the construction of good roads . . . .

By 1938, CCC crews, under USFS supervision, had reconstructed the Emery Canyon Road connecting Oakley with the City of Rocks, and had oiled and improved the Elba to Oakley road past Mount Independence and Independence Lakes (just north of the City of Rocks). The county followed suit, oiling the public highways connecting Burley with Oakley and with Almo. By the late 1930s, forest service officials reported a "striking increase" in recreational travel to Independence Lakes and the City of Rocks, augmented by the "increased use of automobiles and the construction of several access roads."

The push for monument status stalled following America's entrance into World War II (when military needs diverted attention from local conservation concerns and fuel restriction terminated the annual tour program) and ground to a virtual halt following Brown's untimely death circa 1945 and the subsequent closure of the Herald. Long-time Basin resident Newell Dayley and Cassia County Historical Society president A. W. Dawson revitalized the movement in the late 1950s by reintroducing the dramatic pageants, and publicity tours. By the 1960s, the Idaho Historical Society led a series of well-attended field trips through the City of Rocks, and the National Park Service prepared a sequence of design proposals that suggested possible protection and development strategies. [294]

In 1957, the state of Idaho classified a (state-owned) endowment or "school" section in the center of the City of Rocks as a state park. In 1964, the City of Rocks was established as a National Historic Landmark, for its association with overland migration. Ten years later, the area was designated a National Natural Landmark, in recognition of its geological and scenic value.

Proposals advocating federal ownership or control of the region, however, encountered substantial resistance from local land owners. After much local debate, initial proposals for a 30,000- to 35,000-acre unit under federal control (and possibly designated as a National Park or Monument) were rejected in favor of a 13,000 acre reserve, to be managed by an inter-governmental program composed of state and federal officials.

Congress created the City of Rocks National Reserve in 1988 in order to "preserve and protect the significant historical and cultural resources; to manage recreational use; to protect and maintain scenic quality; and to interpret the nationally significant values of the reserve." Tourism (and the attendant infrastructure of campgrounds, trails, and parking areas) has increased dramatically since that time, inspired not only by the beauty and history of the place but also by the recreational opportunities offered by the rocks themselves. [295]

The first climbers' guide to the City of Rocks, published in 1989, described a variety of free climb and bolted routes in six general geographic areas: the "upper city" (near Emery Canyon), the "parking lot" (along the road to Emery Canyon/Oakley), the "inner city" (Circle Creek), the "lower east side" (surrounding Echo Gap), "center city" (within the dryland homestead basin), and the "Twin Sisters" vicinity. Local climbers soon kept company with climbers from around the world, vying for position on Elephant Rock, Bath Rock, the Twin Sisters, and other monoliths renamed by the climbers — and competing with stockmen, private land owners, and tourists for use of the land and of camping spaces. [296]

The introduction to the second edition of the City of Rocks, Idaho. A Climber's Guide (1995) includes a terse description of the "worsening private land problem," the increased conflict with a "small but fanatic group of anti-bolt activists," and National Park Service "bureaucrats' ... efforts to replace the qualities most City of Rocks visitors cherish with a 'historic theme park' approach geared toward motorized RV traffic." CLOSED notations checker this second guide, slashed across the Twin Sisters, Kaiser's Helmet, Camp Rock and City Limit, Register Rock, and the south wall of Elephant Rock. In defense, and in fear that the city will be closed to all climbers, author Dave Bingham urges his readers to "keep a low profile," avoid all emigrant inscriptions, stay on the trails, use the garbage cans, close the gates, and give "the City of Rocks the care this special place deserves." [297]