Rainbow Bridge Administrative History

After the historic posturing concluded, the expedition made camp below the bridge. Horses were set loose to graze and various members of the party wandered below the bridge's span. Douglass and his team set about measuring Rainbow Bridge. Using two steel tapes they had carried with them, the height was measured at 309 feet and the span at 278 feet. This was by far the largest arch in the known world and the team was duly impressed. Cummings, Judd, and Donald Beauregard headed down Bridge Canyon to locate the creek's confluence. Cummings reported a slot canyon that was narrow enough to touch both walls with his fingertips. Cummings and the others returned near midnight. Meanwhile, Wetherill located a route to the top of the bridge by means of climbing above the bridge via the west buttress and then lowering himself onto the arch with a rope. [124]

After measuring the bridge, Douglass and his team stayed a few more days to survey the boundaries of what became Rainbow Bridge NM. Douglass laid out a 160-acre square centered on the bridge. Except for minor changes made later to the corner markers, Douglass's original boundaries remain intact to the present day. After the boundary survey, they returned across the southern mesas to Tsegi Canyon to survey Betat' akin and Keet Seel. Cummings began his return to Salt Lake City the day after finding Rainbow Bridge; he had to be back in time for Fall semester at the University of Utah.

Douglass also conceived of a name for Rainbow Bridge. In his 1910 report to the GLO regarding the expedition, Douglass claimed that his guides spoke a Navajo word, nonnezoshi, meaning "hole in the rock." Seeking a fitting tribute to the Paiutes who brought knowledge of the bridge to the English speaking world, he claimed he asked one of the guides for the Paiute word for rainbow. Douglass claimed the reply they offered was barahoine. Douglass made a topographic sketch of the bridge that revealed his desire for the Paiute name. In fact, the Navajo word for Rainbow Bridge is tsé naa Na'ni'ahi, which translates as "rock arch." [125]

Figure 16 W.B. Douglass map of Rainbow Bridge, 1909 (Courtesy of Glen Canyon NRA, Interpretation Files) (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Douglass left Bridge Canyon on August 17. Neil Judd and Dogeye Begay, Wetherill's wrangler, led Douglass and his team to Tsegi Canyon. Douglass was in Tsegi Canyon by August 21, completed his survey of Navajo NM by early September, and returned to the GLO office in Cortez by September 11. The excitement over Rainbow Bridge spread quickly. Various regional newspapers carried word of the "discovery" in editions as early as September 2. In October, Donald Beauregard wrote his version of the adventure for the Salt Lake City's Deseret News. The first major report of the expedition came in the February 1910 issue of National Geographic. It was authored by Byron Cummings and included photographs taken by Stuart Young. There was little argument over the natural and scientific importance came of Rainbow Bridge. The articles that after the bridge's "discovery" all pointed to its awe-inspiring physical beauty as well as its unique geologic significance. In his report to the GLO, William Douglass urged that the bridge be designated a national monument in order that it be protected from various threats. Douglass' efforts were bolstered by the attention the bridge received in the popular press. Based on the many considerations extant at the time, Rainbow Bridge became part of the national park system. On May 30, 1910, President William Howard Taft designated Rainbow Bridge National Monument. In his proclamation, President Taft declared that the bridge possessed great scientific interest and was an example of "eccentric stream erosion." Utilizing the boundaries surveyed by William Douglass, the proclamation set aside 160 acres around Rainbow Bridge. [126]

Figure 17 Rainbow Bridge, August 13, 1909 (Stuart M. Young Collection, NAU.PH.643.243 Cline Library, Northern Arizona University)

Over the course of the next forty years, participants of the first successful expedition to Rainbow Bridge jockeyed over the credit for finding the bridge, indicting each other's integrity in the process. For his part, William Douglass remained steadfast in his assertion that he sighted the bridge before Cummings, that Mike's Boy knew of the bridge before anyone else and shared that information with Douglass long before Wetherill or Cummings had knowledge, and that Mike's Boy led the joint expedition to its goal. For unknown reasons, Douglass even went so far as to claim credit for locating and naming Inscription House. In the same 1919 letter to Mather cited earlier, Douglass also wrote:

The Natural Bridges National Monument and the Navajo National Monument were both made on my recommendation and based on my surveys. The latter was first called to the attention of the Interior Department by me, and several of its ruins are of my discovery, including the discovery of the inscriptions, which resulted in my naming that ruin "Inscription House." [127]

The world may never know what inspired Douglass to claim credit for discoveries he clearly had no part in making. But in his official report to the GLO concerning Rainbow Bridge, Douglass mitigated Wetherill's role to nothing more than "packer" and took the position that Byron Cummings and his team had joined Douglass and the government party. Nasja Begay was never mentioned in Douglass's notes or his reports. Douglass noted that he and his assistants were the first human beings to walk atop the bridge. The members of the Utah Archeological Expedition rallied around Cummings and against Douglass's obvious disinformation.

Figure 18 Expedition party seated below Rainbow Bridge, August 13, 1909. Back row, left to right: John English, Dan Perkins, Jack Keenan, Francis Jean Rogerson, Neil M. Judd, Donald Beauregard. Front row, left to right: Jim Mike (Mike's Boy), John Wetherill, Byron Cummings, William Boone Douglass, Malcolm Cummings (Stuart M. Young Collection, NAU.PH.643.2.9 Cline Library, Northern Arizona University)

The official government history of the "discovery" of Rainbow Bridge was drawn from Douglass's report to the GLO and remained true to that version of the story for many years. Douglass refuted various deviations from his version that appeared sporadically in the government press. [128] For the most part, the members of the first expedition had individual versions of what happened and of who knew what and when. Cummings published his version in February 1910. It was totally innocuous in its description. Cummings mused that "not even Hoskininni seems to have penetrated as far as the Nonnezoshi [Rainbow Bridge]. The members of the Utah Archeological Expedition and of [the] surveying party of the U.S. General Land Office, who visited the bridge together August 14, 1909, are evidently the first white men to have seen this greatest of nature's stone bridges." [129] There was no doubt in this publication that Cummings had divorced himself from any controversy or disagreement over credit for finding the bridge. Though he did publish the bridge's measurements without crediting the GLO, there was nothing in his article that suggested he made the measurements himself. Douglass's contention that Cummings "stole" the measurements and published them as his own was drastically overstated. One obvious fact remained true: Cummings acknowledged the participation of the GLO in finding Rainbow Bridge while Douglass all but omitted the UAE from his own official report. There was nothing in Cummings' early publication of the Rainbow Bridge expedition which suggested any attempt to either credit himself with the discovery or to exclude Douglass from the story.

Eventually, Sterling Yard, director of the National Parks Association (NPA), solicited Neil Judd's version of the events. Yard was instrumental to the Park Service as a publicist during large scale advertising and public relations campaigns. The Park Service, through the NPA, was trying to structure its image and its history for the public. [130] The details of every monument's history were important to this pursuit. Fortunately for Judd, Yard did not subscribe to the official line penned by Douglass. Judd wrote his brief narrative on October 30, 1919. The report disparaged Mike's Boy as a liar and Douglass as an amateur. Judd ascribed the credit for finding the bridge to Nasja Begay and his father, Old Nasja. [131] Wetherill chimed into the debate in 1924. He decided that there should be a commemorative plaque erected at the bridge honoring Nasja Begay as the real discoverer of Rainbow Bridge. To this end he wrote numerous letters to the National Park Service. Wetherill, in the course of this correspondence, took his jabs at Douglass and Mike's Boy. He wrote, "it was very evident that Jim [Mike's Boy] did not know the trail. I do not feel that Jim is entitled to any of the credit." [132] Wetherill also excluded any information relating to Douglass's aborted attempt to find the bridge in the fall of 1908 or of the disinformation he passed on to Douglass. Wetherill was not seeking credit for himself but rather his friend and guide, Nasja Begay. Cummings also wrote to the Park Service on this issue, verifying most of Wetherill's claims and the singular importance of Nasja Begay to finding Rainbow Bridge. [133] For the most part, the members of the first expedition were honorable explorers or government servants. Despite their differences, they all agreed that no white man would have found the bridge without one or both of the Paiute guides. To that end they all lobbied for a commemorative plaque which acknowledged this most basic fact.

John Wetherill began his attempts to honor Nasja Begay in 1924. Unfortunately, Begay had contracted influenza in 1918 and died as a result. Wetherill felt compelled to secure his friend's place in history and bronze as "the Indian who guided the first party to the Bridge." The initial problem was that the Park Service assumed Wetherill was talking about Mike's Boy, the Indian guide the Park Service knew from Douglass's official reports. This was NPS Director Mather's assumption in his reply to Wetherill a year later. This naturally reignited the whole debate among the original participants over which Paiute guide did what and what each expedition member knew and when they knew it. John Wetherill, Byron Cummings, and Neil Judd all wrote to Director Mather regarding their individual participation in the expedition and the role of their guide in finding Rainbow Bridge. Their efforts to ensure that Nasja Begay be remembered as the Paiute who found the bridge were admirable. For its part, the Park Service was dealing with a great deal of mixed information. Given the numerous and inconsistent versions of the "discovery" story, the Park Service personnel assigned to verify the historic record were slightly confused. Even Director Mather, for example, was unsure of the Paiute guide's identity in early correspondence with Wetherill. Based on the intense interest in honoring the expedition's guide, Dan Hull, chief landscape engineer for the Park Service, made plans in March 1924 for a bronze plaque bearing the likeness of Nasja Begay and a brief narrative of the "discovery." The plaque was to be placed very near the base of the bridge itself, in plain view of any future visitors. [134]

Plans for the commemorative plaque continued through 1924 with design sketches and copy edits passing between various members of the Park Service. [135] But in July 1925, the official story still had not changed. A press release and information bulletin was in preparation to assist the growing number of visitors to Rainbow Bridge. That press circular identified Mike's Boy as the only Paiute guide on the expedition and described Cummings and Wetherill as ancillary to the whole event. By 1927 the "official" story was breaking down. Various public inquiries about who located Rainbow Bridge were answered by accounts that included Cummings, Wetherill, and Begay. Assistant Director A.E. Demaray, as well as Associate Director Arno B. Cammerer and Director Mather, were slowly but carefully gathering facts about the first expedition and relating those facts to other Park Service personnel. Based on the more complete story, Mather authorized mounting the commemorative plaque in September 1927. [136] The original plaque read "To Commemorate the Piute [sic] Nasjah Begay Who First Guided The White Man To Nonnezoshi August 1909. [137] The real irony came with the event's press coverage. In newspaper stories which followed the plaque hanging ceremony, columnists credited John Wetherill as the first white man to see Rainbow Bridge, giving only cursory mention to the other members of the party.

The other story of note in 1927 was Neil M. Judd's published account of the expedition in the National Parks Bulletin. [138] Judd correctly identified the caveat that marked the controversy over who first located Rainbow Bridge. He wrote:

Who actually discovered Nonnezoshe? Nobody knows. Some Indian way back in that pre-Colombian past when man romped and roamed widely over this continent of ours but left no written record to prove it. Some Indian was the real discoverer. But we whites have a conceit all our own which frequently tempts us to ignore the achievements of those of a different hue. A thing clothed in the traditions of a thousand years remains unknown until we ourselves have seen and recorded [it]. [139]

Rainbow Bridge was not discovered by Douglass, Cummings, Wetherill, or anyone else in 1909. It was located and mapped and then introduced to the English speaking world as a wonder to behold. It was exceptionally humble for Judd to couch his entire article in the framework of being last to the bridge. While Judd still clung to the belief that Cummings was the first white man to see the bridge, he did present a valuable statement about the biases of history and the way fortune favors the literate Eventually the whole story of August 1909 was told to the world. The plaque commemorating Nasja Begay's role in the first expedition hung silently on a rock near the bridge for fifty years. But in the fall of 1973, Empire Magazine, a weekly supplement to The Denver Post newspaper, published an article that detailed Mike's Boy's (known by this time as Jim Mike) part in the first expedition. Zeke Scher, a writer for Empire, obtained copies of William Douglass's account of the expedition and wrote an article to vindicate Jim Mike. Mike never told his story to the world, perhaps assuming Douglass would take care of the history. It is possible he never knew about the plaque honoring Nasja Begay. Jim Mike did not return to Rainbow Bridge until 1974.

In June 1974, Jim Mike was 104 years old. He was alert and active but in no condition to trek to Rainbow Bridge. Fortunately for Jim, the inundation of Lake Powell had made it possible by this time to access the bridge via boat. He would not have to hike to have his place in history commemorated. The Park Service planned a ceremony to honor Jim Mike for his part in the Cummings/Douglass expedition and for his contribution to making the new monument possible. The ceremony took place June 18, 1974. At the ceremony, NPS Regional Director Lynn Thompson presented Mike with a new robe and $50.00—a guide fee that the Park Service felt Mike was owed for his services in 1909. It was a fitting tribute that Mike obviously appreciated; however, there was still no plaque honoring Jim Mike as one of the original guides. Another article appeared in Empire in 1974. The second article retold of Mike's role in 1909 and detailed the 1974 ceremony. Within a year, someone clandestinely removed the plaque honoring Nasja Begay and threw it into the waters of Lake Powell just beneath the bridge. In the early 1980s the Park Service remounted the Nasja Begay plaque in its original location. They also placed a smaller plaque just below Begay's which recognized Mike's part in the 1909 expedition; unfortunately, he did not get the chance to see his name immortalized in bronze. On September 28, 1977, Jim Mike died of natural causes. He was 107 years old. [140]

Figure 19 Mounting the plaque, 1927 (Courtesy of Glen Canyon NRA, Interpretation Files. Photo by Raymond Armsby)