![]() In 2006 Zion added an oil landscape painting of Zion Canyon completed in 1903 by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh to its museum collection. The painting was purchased at auction and donated to the National Park Service by the Zion National Park Foundation, the fund raising division of the Zion Natural History Association. The acquisition was funded through a grant from the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation. Dellenbaugh’s painting is a rare illustration of the canyon before it was established as Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909.; showing cultivated fields where roads and buildings are now located. The George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation and the Zion National Park Foundation also provided funding for conservators to stabilize this historic painting, allowing it to be exhibited safely. The painting is on exhibit at the Zion Museum Collection ZION 13004-123 Frederick S. Dellenbaugh was an early artist and topographer of the American West. He served as an assistant topographer with Major John Wesley Powell's second expedition of the Colorado River from 1871-1873. He spent the summer of 1903 painting Zion Canyon. These paintings were exhibited in the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair where spectators could not believe such a place was real. In the January, 1904 edition of Scribner’s Magazine, Dellenbaugh introduced the nation to Zion Canyon with these words: Dellenbaugh's paintings and the Scribner’s article contributed to President William Howard Taft's proclamation creating Mukuntuweap National Monument on July 31, 1909. In 1919, Congress changed the name and established Zion National Park.
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Last updated: February 23, 2020