EXHIBITS

From Kayenta to the “Paiute Trail”

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A view of Kayenta trading post with a rock formation in the background.
[click the image to enlarge]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Zane Grey Rainbow Bridge photograph collection, P0672, Box 1, Image 197)

After the party’s detour up Tsegi Canyon, they traveled towards Kayenta where they met up with John Wetherill. Grey mentions that on this trip, Kayenta had changed greatly since his last visit. Kayenta was less wild and lonely than it was before, and had established an Indian School, a new trading post, and had an automobile.[1] Despite these new improvements, Kayenta was still in a state of disarray after World War I as the Navajo tribes were struggling and had lost many to the 1918 Flu Epidemic.[2] One estimate shows that 10% of the Northern Navajo in the San Juan area died due to the illness, while in other areas such as Pueblo Bonito about 18% of the population had died.[3]

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Zane Grey's horse stand riderless in front of a formation Grey calls "El Capitain," North of Kayenta.
[click the image to enlarge]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Zane Grey Rainbow Bridge photograph collection, P0672, Box 1, Image 216)

The “Paiute Trail”

The party headed north towards the rock monument “El Capitan,” From there they traveled West towards Wild Horse Mesa. For much of this leg of the journey, the party had to walk on foot leading their horses as the terrain was to tough to ride on and the party had long abandoned the chuck wagon, instead packing their food supplies on mules. One area that was especially hard was a place that Zane Grey called “Hills of Glass” which are of extremely smooth mounds of stone.[4] Grey and the party spent some time exploring these hills before continuing to Rainbow Bridge.

[1] Zane Grey, “Down into the Desert,” 44.
[2] Zane Grey, “Down into the Desert,” 44.
[3] Benjamin R. Brady and Howard M. Bahr, “The Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1920 among the Navajos: Marginality, Morality, and the Implications of Some Neglected Eyewitness Accounts,” American Indian Quarterly 38, No. 4 (Fall 2014), 484, accessed June 23, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5250/amerindiquar.38.4.0459.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A726287a44c39f9f788fcc67e27e0958c
[4] Zane Grey, “Down into the Desert,” 46.