GRAND CANYON

GRAND CANYON, a gorge of the Colorado River, from four to eighteen miles wide and in places more than

a mile deep, winding some 280 miles from Marble Canyon, near the Arizona-Utah line, to Grand Wash Cliffs in northern Mohave County of Arizona.

The first written description of the canyon is Pedro de Castañeda's account of a small group of Spanish explorers who found it after hearing stories of a large canyon during a visit to the Hopis in 1540. The canyon was little known until Lt. Joseph C. Ives and Dr. J. S. Newberry visited its lower end in April 1858 and brought back the first geological description of the region. Maj. John Wesley Powell made the first journey down the Colorado River through the canyon with nine men, 24 May–30 August 1869. Congress created Grand Canyon National Park, 673,575 acres, on 26 February 1919, and two years later the completion of a railroad from Williams, Arizona, facilitated tourist travel to the canyon. In 1932, an additional 198,280 acres encompassing Toroweap Point of the canyon was set aside as the Grand Canyon National Monument. In 1966, the Sierra Club successfully spearheaded a drive to prevent the erection of a dam at the lower end of the canyon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Morehouse, Barbara J. A Place Called Grand Canyon: Contested Geographies. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996.

Pyne, Stephen J. How the Canyon Became Grand: A Short History. New York: Viking, 1998.

Rufus Kay Wyllys / c. w.

See also Colorado River Explorations ; Explorations and Expeditions: Spanish ; National Park System ; Tourism .