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Southwest Circle Tour Roads and Bridges
Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon North Rim National Parks
Cedar Breaks, Pipe Spring National Monuments
Kaibab, Dixie National Forests
The Union Pacific Railroad worked with the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service to promote the "circle tour" of Zion, Bryce Canyon, and North Rim Grand Canyon national parks; Cedar Breaks and Pipe Spring national monuments; and Dixie and Kaibab national forests. Union Pacific motor stages prepare for departures at Zion Lodge ca. 1929. ZNP. |
ZION'S FLOOR OF THE VALLEY ROAD
In 1909, President Taft proclaimed Mukuntuweap National Monument (after 1919, Zion National Park.) Six years later Congress appropriated $15,000 for construction of a park road, the first appropriation allotted to the new reserve. This first automotive road into Zion Canyon was completed in 1917. It extended about 5 miles north from the old south entrance station at today's North Fork Virgin River Bridge to the Weeping Rock area. This road and other developments, including the Wylie tourist camp near today's Zion Lodge, an improved access road from LaVerkin, and automobile stage service from the Union Pacific Railroad depot at Lund, Utah, opened the monument to automotive tourism. The road was replaced in 1925 by the $70,000 "Government Road," a well-engineered, gravel-surfaced highway running 7.5 miles from the south entrance station to the Temple of Sinawava. This new scenic automobile road—in conjunction with regional road construction, the Union Pacific's 1923 branch line to Cedar City, and the railroad's new hotel and lodges at Cedar City, Zion, and Bryce Canyon (all completed by 1925)—inaugurated a new era for circle route tourism. The Government Road was realigned in 1932 and named Floor of the Valley Road (now called Zion Canyon Scenic Drive), which currently carries nearly a million vehicles per year into the heart of Zion Canyon.
North Fork Virgin River Bridge, completed in 1930, employs the rustic style of design, with 54-inch redwood slabs disguising the steel and concrete deck structure. Chris Payne, HAER, 1993. |
| Introduction | Acadia | Blue Ridge Parkway | Colonial Parkway | Generals Highway | George Washington Memorial Parkway | Great Smoky Mountains | Mount Rainier | Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway | Shenandoah's Skyline Drive | Southwest Circle Tour | Vicksburg | Yellowstone | Yosemite | Discover History |
