Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all

Glimpses of our National Monuments

items 58 of 80 items
  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10709.jpg
Item
?

Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • 52 OUR NATIONAL MONUMENTS a courtyard which was closed at both ends by heavy double gates. The spring came up in the courtyard and flowed out through the lower of the two houses through a stone-paved room. In the heart of the desert, Pipe Spring, with its wonderful spring of cold, pure water, flowing at the rate of over a hundred thousand gallons a day, its great cottonwoods affording abundant shade, and associations of early western pioneer life is a refreshing oasis and scenic accent on the way of the main-traveled road between Zion's colorful canyon and the mighty chasm of the Colorado. This is one of the southwestern monuments under the general supervision of Superintendent Pinkley. No custodian has yet been appointed. THE RAINBOW BRIDGE NATIONAL MONUMENT The existence of this natural wonder was first disclosed to William B. Douglass, a surveyor of the General Land Office, on October 7, 1908, by a Piute Indian who was employed in connection with the survey of the natural bridges in White Canyon, Utah, some distance to the north. An attempt to reach the bridge in November of that year failed, but on August 14, 1909, under the guidance of John AVetherill and two Piute Indians, a party consisting of Mr. Douglass and four assistants and Prof. Byron Cummings, then of the University of Utah, with three students, reached the bridge. They were the first white men to view this great natural arch. The following year, on May 30,1910, it was made a national monument. It is the greatest among the known natural bridges of the world, and is unique in that it is not only a symmetrical arch below, but presents a curved surface above, thus roughly imitating the arch of the rainbow, for which it is named. At the time of discovery, while the question of a name was being debated, there appeared in the sky, as if in answer, a beautiful rainbow, the "Barahoni" of the Piutes. The generic term of the Navajos, " Nonnezoshi," meaning " Hole in the Rock," is sometimes wrongly applied, as the Navajo word for rainbow is " Nodzealid." The bridge partly spans Bridge Canyon, which extends from Navajo Mountain northward to the Colorado River. The dimensions are 309 feet in the clear from the bottom of the canyon and 278 feet from pier to pier. If it could be arched over the Dome of the Capitol at Washington there would still be room to spare. Of salmon pink sandstone, its proportions are so nearly perfect it dwarfs all human architecture of the sort. The Rainbow- Bridge Monument is situated a little north of the Arizona line in Utah within the Piute Indian Reservation, about 50
Object
?

Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).