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Denver Area
Denver to Pueblo
Colorado Springs Area
Royal Gorge Route
Marshall Pass Area
Gunnison River
Uncompahgre River
Tennessee Pass Area
Eagle River
Colorado River
Grand Jct.- Green Riv.
Green Riv.- Provo
Provo- Salt Lake
USGS History
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Green River to Provo
(U.S.G.S. Bulletin 707, 1922)
MAIN LINE OF RAILROAD FROM GREEN RIVER TO PROVO.
[After leaving Green River, ] the
train pursues a westerly course through the barren wilderness of clay flats, low shale
hills, and dry beds of the desert watercourses (see
Sheet 8). Water is so scarce in this region that at each siding the, railroad company
has built cisterns to which it hauls water in tank cars for long distances. The rainstorms
here are generally violent; the water falls in torrents, the desert becomes a sea of mud,
and the rushing streams cut deep channels and dissolve their banks as if they were made of
sugar. At times even the railroad trains have been engulfed by streams which during more
than eleven months of the year carry not in a drop of water.
The great south face of Beckwith Plateau, a point that runs off southward from the main
mass of the Book Cliffs, looms up prominently on the north (right), as shown in Plate LXXXV, but in the
other direction there is no prominent feature to attract attention; one can look
southwestward across the adobe plain as far as the eye can see and distinguish nothing but
the dim outline of the Henry Mountains, far away in the hazy distance.
Six miles west of Greenriver, at milepost 561, the railroad curves to the north and
follows the shale valley on the west side of the Beckwith Plateau. As the train goes
around the curve the traveler may get on the left an excellent view of the east side of
the San Rafael Swell, a great uplift of the rocks that involves all the geologic
formations he has seen on his journey and even the underlying granite in a large area in
the middle of the uplift. The sedimentary rocks on the east side of this elongated dome
have been sharply upturned, and the heavy beds of sandstone between the notches cut by the
streams
have been left standing as great tables tilted to the east at an angle of 30 degrees or 40
degrees, which as seen from the train resemble the teeth of a gigantic saw. This line of
tilted sandstone can be followed by the eye for many miles, but in the distance it fades
into the misty blue of the desert. The beds nearer the traveler are upturned less steeply
and have not been removed by erosion, so they form a great swell, but even where the rocks
lie nearly flat the streams have cut into them deep canyons, having nearly or quite
vertical sides, which measure hundreds or perhaps a thousand feet in height. The profiles
are all angular; they are composed of straight lines; and when viewed from. a distance
these immense pinnacles of rock resemble the ruins of some ancient city, and in
imagination one can see in them the remains of temples, pyramids, columns, and arches
standing in grandeur amid. the wreck of the structures of which they once formed a part.
Here, one can not resist the temptation to let the imagination have free rein to rebuild
these ruins as wonderful habitations of ancient, giants and to picture the dramas that may
have been enacted in them. If the traveler is fortunate enough to see these ruins when the
sun is just setting behind their massive piles and suffusing their, domes and pinnacles
with great golden halos he can readily understand how a savage race might have here
received the inspiration to; build a magnificent temple to the sun, which to our minds
might, rival the most wonderful temples of the Egyptian kings.
Desert
At the point where the railroad makes the turn around the Beckwith Plateau it is at a
considerable distance from the front of the plateau, but farther north it approaches the
front more and more closely, until near the siding called Desert it is so close that the,
traveler may see, if the light is just right, all the delicate lines of erosion that the
rain has cut in the shale slope.
The great anticline called the San Rafael Swell extends far to, the north, and the rocks
of the Book Cliffs bear the, same relation.. to those in the anticline as the rocks of the
Book Cliffs at Grand Junction bear to those of the Uncompahgre Plateau. The Book Cliffs
west of Green River look different from those with which the traveler is familiar east of
it. East of Green River the rocks weather into many projecting points or salients of hard
rock, and between these points there are deep notches or reentrant angles. In addition,
the upper beds of sandstone have weathered back much farther than the lower beds, but each
layer is characterized by the same kind of salients and reentrant angles.  The result of this form
of weathering is a front that is extremely irregular and jagged. West of Green River the
front of the Book Cliffs is very regular; it shows no tendency to weather into long
points. This difference is probably due to the absence of streams and to the presence of a
greater number of beds of sandstone in the west than in the east, as well as to the more
massive character of these beds and to the greater dips which prevail in this part of the
plateau, for all these characteristics would give a very different result in the forms
produced by erosion. The Book Cliffs west of Green River are characterized by many bands
of sandstone, which may be followed by the eye for long distances and which produce slight
benches on the slope. A profile of a part of the front of the Beckwith Plateau is shown in
the figure.
A geologist accustomed to interpret the meaning of land forms sees almost everywhere in
these shale areas fragments of older surfaces of the land, preserved in terraces and
benches. Some of these remnants of an older surface were pointed out west of Grand
Junction and again near Thompson. West of Green River they grow more and more prominent as
the traveler a proaches the head of the stream. They stand at different heights above the
present general surface, but commonly some particular terrace-one that ranges in height f
rom 50 to 200 feet above the present surface-is more prominent than the rest. The old
surface in this region was probably more nearly smooth and regular than the surface of
today, and its slope was doubtless not so great as that of the present surface. After this
old surface had been well developed, the lower country, though it showed considerable
differences in elevation between the higher and the lower parts of its slopes, must have
formed one general plain. Then came a change, either an uplift of the land or an increase
in the rainfall. At any rate, the streams were able to cut deep trenches in this old
surface, and their work has been continued so long that it has left, here and there, only
remnants of the once continuous surface, and these remnants are the terraces and benches
that we see today. Terraces are very prominent in places west of Woodside, and the
traveler may be interested in studying them, not as terraces but as remnants of that old
surface. Indeed, he may be able in imagination to reconstruct from them the old surface as
it existed before the streams had cut into it and carved the valleys of today.
Cliff
The railroad rises steadily until it reaches a local summit at Cliff siding between
mileposts 574 and 575 and then begins a rapid descent to Price River, the master stream in
the north end of Castle Valley. This stream heads on the Wasatch Plateau, far to the
northwest, and flows across the north end of the San Rafael Swell, beyond which it joins
Green River through a deep canyon cut in the Book Cliffs just north of the Beckwith
Plateau. The traveler may see the entrance to this canyon by looking ahead on the east
(right) after passing Cliff siding.
Woodside
The line of cottonwood trees that marks the course of Price River may be seen long
before the train has reached the bottom of the valley, and their soft green color is very
refreshing to the eye that has been gazing on the barren expanse of desert just crossed.
At Woodside the railroad crosses Price River, which the traveler unaccustomed to this
region may not be willing to call a river unless he remembers that most of the water it
normally carries is withdrawn for irrigation farther upstream, and then he may wonder that
any water at all is left in it at Woodside.
For a distance of about 3 miles the railroad follows the east bank of the river through
groves of cottonwood trees and small irrigated f arms. Its course here lies near the west
margin of the belt of shale, and the underlying sandstone (Dakota) and the red and green
rocks of the McElmo may be seen at many places across the river on the left. Near milepost
583 the river ceases to follow the shale and swings in from the west, where it has cut a.
deep and narrow canyon in the hard rocks across the north end of the San Rafael Swell. The
railroad engineers sought to avoid this canyon by following the broad valley that Grassy
Creek has cut in the shale. This valley is the extension of the one that the train has
followed ever since it left Green River.
The valley was not formed by a downfold in the rocks but simply by the erosion of the soft
Mancos shale. The traveler may understand this easily by looking at the higher rocks in
the face of the Book Cliffs on the east and the lower rocks in the San Rafael Swell on the
west and noticing that they dip in the same direction-toward the northeast. From time to
time as the traveler may be able to look ahead he can see that apparently the valley is
filled and cut off by terraces that rise 100 feet or more above the level of the track.
These terraces appear to bar the further passage of the railroad, so it turns to the left
a short distance beyond Grassy siding and climbs out of the shale valley. In making this
climb the road turns and twists about some of the barren shale hills, cuts through others,
and finally, at Cedar siding, approaches the margin of the shale and at the same time
attains the level of the great terraces that were so conspicuous from points near Grassy
siding. When seen from their own level these terraces are very extensive and appear like a
vast flat plain.
Cedar
In the vicinity of Cedar siding the lower part of the shale contains many beds of
sandstone and some conglomerate. This part of the formation thickens considerably toward
the south for 20 or 30 miles to a place where 4,
it contains several valuable beds of coal and is known as the Ferron sandstone. About a
mile west of Cedar siding a sharp upward bend of the rocks terminates the outcrop of the
shale and brings to the surface the Dakota sandstone and, underlying it, the maroon and
green beds of the McElmo. The railroad at this point is on the bank of a creek called
Sunnyside Wash, and it fol lows the valley of this stream to the north until near milepost
600 the railroad passes from the varicolored beds of the McElmo into a broad, flat valley
cut in the Mancos shale.
Mounds
On the right may be seen the branch line of the Denver & Rio Grande Western that
leads to Sunnyside, one of the largest coal mines in the district and the only one that
produces a merchantable quality of coke. The two lines run nearly parallel for some
distance but finally unite at the station of Mounds, (See
sheet 9). To the casual traveler the country over which he has been riding, as well as
that which he can see about Mounds, probably appears to be barren and valueless, but
should he pass this way in sheep-shearing time and have a few hours to examine the
shearing plant which stands just north of the station, he might change his mind, for this
is the center of a large sheep industry. It is said that 100,000 sheep were sheared at
this plant during the season of 1916 and that many sheep were turned away.
It must be remembered, however, that the sheep sheared here do not depend upon this
immediate vicinity for their pasture, for the sheep herder wanders with his flock during
the summer into the high country of the San Rafael Swell and in the winter seeks the
protection of the lower valleys. The sheep would soon starve on a small area, but there is
much open range that is, unfenced Government land-in this country and by constant
migration migration the sheep do well.
From the vicinity of Mounds the traveler may see that the Book Cliffs, which he has
been following, continue northward only a few miles beyond he mine at Sunnyside, which
generally can be located by its smoke, and there swing to the northwest to the head of
Price River, near Helper, and there again change their course to a direction a little west
of south-that is, they encircle the north end of the San Rafael Swell. The name Book
Cliffs, however, is applied only to the part that lies east and north of the Denver &
Rio Grande Western Railroad; the part that lies south of the railroad is known as the edge
of the Wasatch Plateau. All these features can readily be seen from the train in the
vicinity of Mounds.
Just west of Mounds curious hard masses of rock which on account of their nearly spherical
shape are frequently referred to as 96 cannon balls" may be seen in the shale that
forms the cut edge of one of the terraces. These round masses of rock are known to
geologists as concretions," and they were undoubtedly formed in the shale after it
was deposited as mud in the bottom of the ocean.
Farnham
From the uplands at Mounds the road descends westward to Price River, which it reaches
at milepost 607. Here the traveler is once more gladdened by the sight of green trees and
small irrigated farms in the river bottom. The valley becomes rather narrow, and at
Farnham the bluffs of shale encroach closely upon the river bottom. The shale hills are
gray and barren, but they form a background that serves to heighten the color of the
fields and trees.
From Farnham the railroad follows Price River practically to its head. Irrigation is
generally practiced in the valley, but the supply of water is not sufficient to serve all
the land that is otherwise favorably situated. Towns have sprung up along the railroad and
are achieving more or less success.
Wellington
The next town to be passed is Wellington, which appears to be a thriving village, whose
most prominent building is a modern schoolhouse.
Price
Northwest of Wellington the valley is more open, and well-irrigated farms are abundant.
The country on both sides of the river is served by canals that take their water from the
river several miles above Price. Price
is the county seat of Carbon County, which was so named because of the great beds of coal
that are found in the Book Cliffs. It is a general supply point for the ranches in
Duchesne Valley, north of the Book Cliffs, and in Castle Valley, south of them.
For a distance of 4 miles above Price the course of the river is outheastward and its
bottom lands are fairly wide. The railroad a in this bottom and affords good views on both
sides of the best part of the irrigated district. From this open valley the traveler may
ee the shale terraces extending toward the river from both sides, like one fingers, and at
milepost 623 they approach so closely that the ever flows in a veritable shale canyon,
with steep walls on either and that rise to a height of nearly 100 feet.
Helper
At this point the river also changes its course, coming out of the Book Cliffs in a
course nearly due south. The valley continues narrow, with shale bluffs and a narrow strip
of irrigated bottom land. Just beyond milepost 625 a branch line on the east (right) leads
to Kenilworth, a mining town that produces a notable part of the coal shipped from this
region. About a mile farther north, in a valley so narrow as scarcely to provide room for
a single street, is the railroad town of Helper, which was so named because
here are kept the light engines that serve the regular trains as "helpers" up
the heavy grade north of the town. The town is at the mouth of the ca on hat Price River
has cut in the plateau of which the Book Cliffs are be front. These cliffs loom up 1,500
feet above the station and see to interpose a blank wall against the further progress of
the railroad, but like many other things in this world their appearance is deceptive, for
the railroad has succeeded in following the stream through the narrow cleft. A view of the
cliffs from above is shown in Plate
LXXXVI, C.
The canyon above Helper shows at close range the character of the coalbearing (Mesaverde)
formation. The lower part of the cliff overlooking Helper is composed mainly of shale
(Mancos), which originated in the sea and therefore contains no coal. The rocks above this
shale are mainly sandstones, but there are also many beds of shale, and in places there
are coal beds, which range in thickness from a few inches to as much as 20 feet. An old
prospect in one of the thick beds is shown in Plate LXXX, B. The coal
beds, however thick they may be, can not generally be seen from the car windows, for they
are the softest members of the formation and consequently weather back faster than either
the shale or the sandstone, so that their outcrop becomes covered with soil and broken
rock. Sandstone makes up the greater part of the formation, and its general color is light
gray or nearly white. It has been described as red, but this is a mistake, as the
formation contains no red sandstone, though a ledge on weathering becomes a rusty brown,
or if a coal bed below it has been burned it may have become a bright red, but these are
not the inherent colors of the sandstone.
Half a mile above Helper a branch railroad turns back to the left up Spring Canyon to
coal mines at Storrs, Standardville, and other towns where mines have recently been
opened, and about 2 miles above Helper the Utah Railway, a new line built to replace the
one from Price to Hiawatha, connects the mines at Hiawatha, Mohrland, and Wallis with the
Denver & Rio Grande Western.
The scenery in Spring Canyon, as in many others on the road, is dominated by great
sandstones. This dominance is shown particularly by the narrowness of the canyon. Where
the base of the cliffs is composed of shale the canyon is wider, as can be seen in the
first 2 miles above Helper, but where the canyon walls are composed largely of sandstone,
as they are farther up, the canyon is narrow, barely affording room for the automobile
highway, the railroad, and the river. The walls of the canyon also show the effect of the
different rocks; where they are mainly shale they have a pronounced slope, but where they
are mainly sandstone they are precipitous and in places vertical. Each spur that projects
into the canyon is preserved by heavy sandstone, and therefore the characteristic feature
of the canyon is the many sandstone points which stand up like walls or dikes.
Castlegate
As the coal beds occur well up in the Mesaverde formation, they lie near the tops of the
ridges at the mouth of the canyon, and the coal mines here must lower the coal by long
inclined tramways to the tipple, which is at railroad level. This form of handling the
coal is well illustrated at the Panther mine, near milepost 629. F arther up the canyon
the coal beds lie nearer the creek level, and they finally pass below water level and are
seen no more. The most prominent mine and mining town on the main line is Castlegate, at the mouth of Willow
Creek, which enters the main stream from the east (right). The mines are on both sides of
the valley a few rods above the mouth of Willow Creek, and the coal taken from them comes
to a common tipple, which spans the railroad at this place.
The name "Castlegate " was taken from that of the peculiar gatelike passage 2
miles above the town, the sides of which seem to, be walls or dikes of sandstone
projecting from the sides of the canyon. When viewed from a point directly opposite it the
rock wall on the right looks like a thin finger, as shown in Plate LXXXVII,
C, but when seen from a point farther up the canyon the walls on the two sides seem to
project so far into the, canyon as almost to obstruct it and to bar the railroad from
further progress. This aspect of the gateway is shown in Plate LXXXVIII.
As a matter of fact the two walls are not directly opposite, though this fact is not
indicated in the illustration, but are offset a considerable distance, so that the opening
is not so narrow as it appears. It is, however, a striking feature of the canyon and well
deserves the name "Castlegate." The spurs that form the gate are not the only
projecting ledges of sandstone, for each point or spur, whether it is at railroad level or
high on the mountain side, is bounded by great cliffs of gray sandstone hundreds of feet
high.
Throughout the main part of the canyon the railroad climbs steadily in order to cross
over the top of the Wasatch Plateau. For about 10 miles out of Helper the grade is 127
feet to the mile, and though such a grade is not excessive it necessitates the use of
extra engines on some of the heavy trains to get them to the summit.
Northward the canyon gradually grows less and less rugged and the walls decrease in height
until just above the first tunnel, 11 miles above Nolan, the thick ledges of sandstone
give place to weaker beds of muddy sandstone, shale, and fresh-water limestone. Although
these beds are in general gray, they belong to a different geologic formation from that
which carries the coal beds at Castlegate. This formation, the Wasatch, which appears just
above the first tunnel, is generally red, and in many places it is very coarse, but here
it is light in color and is composed of fine material. Where the less resistant rocks form
the surface the slopes become smoother and less steep and the general aspect of the canyon
is much subdued. These gray beds continue to a point about half a mile above, the station
of Kyune.
Kyune
The upper part of the Wasatch is composed mostly of red clay or shale and appears to
contain only a few beds of sandstone. Some of these beds have been quarried extensively
above Kyune, where this part of the formation first makes its appearance. As the upper
part of the Wasatch formation in this locality is composed largely of soft material, the
slopes are gentle and the immediate hills are low. Here and there a harder or a thicker
bed appears at the surface, and at these places the valley becomes more like a canyon.
Colton
The railroad follows the boundary between the gray and the red parts of the Wasatch
formations for some distance above Kyune, cutting in places into the gray beds and in
places into the red ones. A short distance west of milepost 643 the railroad leaves the
red beds and for a mile it traverses the light-colored limestones and shales. In these
rocks the stream has cut a canyon, which bears off to the southwest. On rounding the point
of the spur that projects from the north the traveler comes into an open valley that
trends northward, and on the farther (west) side of this valley lie the bright-red beds of
the upper part of the Wasatch formation. These beds are brought down into view again by a
northward-trending fault, which has cut the rocks for a long distance on either side of
the railroad and has dropped those on the west side at least 200 feet. This f ault, which
passes a few hundred feet east of the station at Colton, has caused the formation of the
north-south valley. From Colton a branch railroad extends southward up the valley of West
Fork to the towns of Scofield, Winterquarters, and Clear Creek, where coal of about the
same quality as the Castlegate, coal is mined. The surface of the plateau, being composed
of soft rocks, is not rugged, and it does not seem to be very high, yet several points
near Colton stand nearly 10,000 feet above sea level. The plateau is a fine summer range
for stock and affords pasturage for thousands of sheep.
Soldier Summit
From Colton the railroad runs up a broad but short valley in the Wasatch formation to
the crest of the plateau at Soldier
Summit, where the main line of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad reaches
its highest point in the State of Utah. The summit of this pass was so named because some
soldiers under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who were returning from the Salt Lake Valley
at the end of the " Mormon war," were buried here. Recently the railroad company
has built an extensive yard on the summit to facilitate the movement of freight.
On approaching the summit the traveler may notice on the north side of the valley, only a
short distance from the track, a mine at which considerable work has been done. This mine,
as well as one north of Colton and some others on the west side of Soldier Summit, were
opened on veins of ozokerite , but the operators have had difficulty in competing with
ozokerite shipped into this country from Galicia, and the mines have never been fully
developed.
As originally built the railroad on the west side of the divide followed Soldier Creek
from its head to Thistle, where the creek joins Spanish Fork. This route made necessary
the exceptionally steep grade of 4 per cent, or 211 feet to the mile. The operation of the
road over this steep grade was very expensive, for three or four or even five locomotives
were required to get a heavy train from Thistle to the summit. Recently the railroad
company has abandoned this steep grade and has constructed an entirely new line which
begins at Soldier Summit and extends westward for a distance of 15 miles. The new line has
a grade of 2 per cent, or 106 feet to the mile, and one locomotive can haul as many cars
on it as three locomotives could haul on the old line. The new line also gives the
traveler a much better opportunity to see the surrounding country than the old line, which
ran in the bottom of the valley.
The rocks exposed in the numerous cuts on the new line are generally red or at least are
banded with red. These red rocks are the continuation of those that were seen about Colton
and are undoubtedly the upper part of the Wasatch formation. The rocks dip to the north
(right) at about the same angle as the slope of the mountain side, but the rocks across
the ravine on the north side of the old line of the railroad are very white and carry no
trace of red material. It is therefore fairly evident that the rocks in the cuts along the
new line belong to the uppermost beds of the Wasatch, and that the white shale and
sandstone across the valley are in an overlying formation which geologists have named the
Green River formation, from its wide distribution in the Green River Basin, Wyo. This
formation is especially prominent at the town of Greenriver, on the Union Pacific
Railroad, and forms the picturesque buttes back of the town.
The formations in this vicinity are the same as those that the traveler saw in Grand
Valley, Colo., between Rifle and De Beque- variegated Wasatch shale at the base and white
shale of the Green River formation above it.
Scenic
At the siding of Scenic, 5 miles west of Soldier Summit, the traveler may look down on
the north (right) and see not only the old line of the railroad 439 feet below him but
also the loop over which he will pass in a few minutes. The difference between a 4 per
cent and a 2 per cent grade is here brought out clearly, even to those who are not
familiar with the engineering problems of railroad construction. Two miles farther on the
road makes a broad loop to the right, still in the Wasatch formation, and returns along
the mountain side at a lower level. A reverse loop is made under the old roadbed at the
station of Gilluly, and from this point down through the canyon the railroad follows the
right wall, but far above the level of the old line.
The rocks which form the mountain side above the tracks and which have been deeply cut in
order to provide a roadbed are all in the Green River formation. They are naturally dark,
but on weathering they turn intensely white. Experiments have shown that oil in commercial
quantity may be distilled from many beds of this shale, and it is possible that gasoline
and other grades of oil, as well as fertilizer, may some day be extensively manufactured
here .
Where the Green River formation is first seen it dips to the north (right) 250 or 300,
but beyond the curve to the right, above the abandoned station of Tucker, on the old line,
the beds are somewhat disturbed, and between mileposts 663 and 664 they are thrown into a
well-marked synclinal fold, which may be seen on the right.
The siding of Detour marks the junction of the old and new lines and also the termination
of this narrow part of the valley. Below Detour the valley is more open, at least as far
as Narrows siding, where it is again constricted by the appearance of harder rocks.
Immediately below Narrows siding the lowest beds of the Green River formation rise
downstream, and half a mile beyond milepost 672 the red beds of the Wasatch make their
appearance beneath the gray beds of the Green River. The Wasatch is bright red, and the
change in color is very striking. This outcrop of the Wasatch is very different in
composition from that east of Soldier Summit. There it is generally clay or soft shale;
here it is largely a mass of conglomerate composed of boulders of all sorts of rock that
occur in the Wasatch Mountains. The presence of such masses of conglomerate made up of
boulders of this size is a sure indication that the material was derived from high
mountains and that it was not carried far by the streams before it was dropped to form
great boulder beds that now are consolidated into massive rock. It therefore seems certain
that a high range of mountains once existed in this region when the Wasatch formation was
deposited in the early stages of the Tertiary period. This range must have been old as
measured by the standard in this mountain region, whereas the present Wasatch Range is
supposed to be comparatively young. These statements, however, are not so contradictory as
they appear, for most mountain ranges have a complex history, involving many movements up
and down, and the Wasatch may not be an exception. It may have had its beginning as a.
mountain range in early geologic time, but that old range may have been worn down to a
rolling plain and later it may have been uplifted into a range like the present Wasatch.
In fact, such changes may have occurred several times.
The conglomerate has been a formidable barrier in the pathway of the stream, and it
therefore forms a canyon which is scarcely wider than the stream that occupies it and
which has given rise to the name " Narrows " for the siding at its upper end.
The conglomerate is 700 or 800 feet thick and forms the sides of the valley for several
miles. The character of the rock, as well as its brilliant red color, gives to the canyon
an individuality that distinguishes it from all the other canyons on the line.
Thistle
Soldier Creek flows directly west, and the railroad takes a course toward a high
mountain peak, one of the southern points of the Wasatch Range, which lies due west of
Thistle. The most southerly point of this range is Mount Nebo, a peak which lies so far to
the south (left) that it is obscured by the low hills in the foreground.
The appearance of the valley improves in its lower course; more of the ground is
irrigated, and there are indications that the train is approaching a town or a railroad
junction. Just before reaching the station at Thistle there is a complete change from the
soft rocks of the Wasatch formation to the hard blue limestone and red and gray sandstone
of the Jurassic system, which form a decided constriction in the width of the valley.
The railroad turns abruptly north and is joined at Thistle by a branch line which
traverses the rich Sanpete Valley and extends as far south as Marysvale. This valley was
early settled by Mormon families sent out from Salt Lake City by Brigham Young for that
purpose, and in 1849, in order to protect these outlying settlements as well as those in
the Salt Lake Valley, the State of Deseret was organized. The organizers passed through
much the same experience as those who attempted to organize the State of Jefferson in
what-is now Colorado, but their motives were obviously quite different. The State of
Jefferson was organized to protect the people and their property from the lawless hordes
that would be attracted to the country by the discoveries of gold, whereas the State of
Deseret was organized to protect and strengthen the Mormon Church by having the machinery
of government controlled by the dignitaries of the church.
Soldier Creek, which the railroad has been following from Tucker, is here joined by
Thistle Creek, and together the two streams form the Spanish Fork. The canyon at Thistle
is narrow, and its walls are composed of bluish limestone on the east and banded red and
gray sandstone or quartzite on the west. The blue limestone contains marine shells which
show that its age is Jurassic. It normally belongs beneath the Cretaceous rocks, which are
so conspicuous along the railroad from Green River nearly to Kyune. Near Thistle the rocks
dip steeply to the east, but toward the north the dip decreases until they lie nearly
flat. They also change in character, for they become much softer downstream and are
composed almost entirely of soft red shale with some beds of sandstone. Beyond milepost
681 this sandstone has been extensively quarried for building stone in Salt Lake City, but
the growing use of cement has led to the abandonment of the quarries.
Spanish Fork is here joined by Diamond Fork, a stream coming from the northeast (right),
which, though rather small, has been utilized by the United States Reclamation Service to
bring water from Strawberry River, a tributary of Green River, through a dividing ridge,
to irrigate some barren land in Salt Lake Valley. The water obtained by damming Strawberry
River is carried through the ridge by a long tunnel and discharged into one of the head
branches of Diamond Fork. From this point it flows by gravity Into Spanish Fork and is
diverted lower down, where it is most needed. The traveler may see the diversion canal
near the lower of the canyon.
Castilla
The Triassic red beds extend nearly a mile west of the mouth of Diamond Creek, to a
place where they are probably terminated by a fault which separates them from the
Carboniferous and older rocks that form the core of the Wasatch Range. The rocks of the
mountains are of Carboniferous age but are so poorly exposed and so complicated in
structure that it is useless to attempt to describe them. From some limestones of this
formation comes the hot sulphur water which has made Castilla (cas-tee'yah) Hot Springs a
noted resort.
The Wasatch Mountains, although not equal in height to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado or
the Sierra Nevada of California, are nevertheless one of the dominating ranges of the
continent, and their peaks range in elevation from 10,000 to more than 12,000 feet. The
impressiveness of the range is due more to its situation than to its elevation, but both
unite to make it a noteworthy group of mountains. During the great ice age this range
supported a number of glaciers, but the glaciers were neither so large nor so numerous as
those of the Rocky Mountains.
Since leaving Canon City the traveler has been either in the Rocky Mountains or in what is
generally known as the Plateau country, so called because it is made up of a series of
plateaus of different elevations, but when he passes through this canyon and emerges on
the west front of the Wasatch Range he finds himself in a country that is very different
from any that he has yet seen on this journey. This region is known as the Great Basin, a
land of desert basins and of barren mountain ranges, which in general trend north and
south. The precipitation here is slight, ranging in this latitude from 5 to 8 inches, and
that which falls finds its way into some deep basin in the interior like Great Salt Lake,
where the water, when it evaporates, leaves the mineral matter that is carried in solution
to form beds of salt or soda.
The walls of the canyon, although steep, are generally smooth and are covered, except in
the higher parts, by brush and dwarf trees of many kinds. In summer they are clothed in a
soft, beautiful green, with here and there an evergreen tree to accentuate the softness of
the foliage of the other trees, but in September, after the frost has touched the dwarf
maples of the higher slopes, the coloring is magnificent. Many of the slopes are a blaze
of scarlet from top to bottom, and others show scarlet interspersed with brown and green.
The clumps of aspen give the landscape a touch of gold, and the whole scene presents an
unexcelled splendor of autumn colors.
The canyon grows broader to the west, and the railroad is built along its north wall. On
the opposite side, near milepost 687, is the headgate where the water of Spanish Fork,
including that from Strawberry River, is diverted into a. large canal, which is soon lost
to view as it follows the south wall of the canyon to the mouth and there turns to the
left to the area where its waters are most needed.
The outlet of the canyon is not like the outlets of most of the canyons that the traveler
has seen but seems to be dammed or choked by a great mass of gravel. Where first seen, a
little below the intake of the canal, the gravel is at railroad level, and its top is
flat, as if it had been washed down the canyon and deposited as a delta in standing water.
An examination of the opposite slope shows a terrace of similar material about 100 feet
higher. This terrace also appears to have had a, similar history, except that as it is the
older of the two deposits most of its gravel was washed away when the second terrace was
formed, and so only fragments remain where they have been protected on the side slopes.
These terraces are of the greatest significance in the interpretation of the late geologic
history of this region to the geologist they have much the same value that the cliff
dwellings or tables of cuneiform writing have to the archeologist. They constitute the
record of one of the most remarkable geologic events in this country-the flooding of the
basin of Great Salt Lake during the ice age to a depth of more than a thousand feet. When
these terraces in the Spanish Fork canyon were formed the water Of Lake Bonneville, as it
has been called to distinguish it from the present lake, entered the mouth of the canyon
at the level of the highest terrace, and if a traveler had then attempted to make a
westward journey here he would have been confronted by an inland fresh water sea that
extended from the Wasatch Mountains to the west line of the State. (See fig. 60.)
Some of the most prominent of these old shore lines have been named. The highest, the one
visible as a terrace about 100 feet above the track, is called the Bonneville shore line.
The one at railroad level, which has not been named, represents a later stage of water,
when the, northern outlet had been cut down below its first position but not so low as it
became later. It probably records the position of a harder bed of rock, which the
outflowing waters encountered when they had partly cut the barrier that held them in
place, and this hard bed held the stream so long that it permitted Spanish Fork to build
at this height a delta of considerable extent.
In its descent to the lower level of the valley the railroad cuts deeper and deeper into
the delta, and finally, near milepost 689 it comes out on a still lower plain, which
represents a later and lower stand of the waters. This plain is extensive, and from its
even surface the traveler may get his first general view of the Great Salt Lake basin.
Originally this plain was only a desert, but now it is dotted with farms, each protected
by a line of tall poplars that may be seen far across the valley. Utah Lake, a body of
fresh water 30 miles long and 6 to 10 miles wide, lies in the middle of the basin, and
beyond it are the barren slopes of the Oquirrh Mountains (o'quer). Most of these desert
ranges are not very high, but they are striking features, for they rise, island-like, out
of a wide expanse of desert.
Mapleton
The plain upon which the railroad is built is another of the numerous unnamed terraces
that mark the shore line of Lake Bonneville and represent pauses of longer or shorter
duration in the gradual lowering of the water in the basin. This is well developed about
the station of Mapleton. The view from the railroad at this point is particularly fine
because it embraces what appears to be the bottom of the valley, so wide is it and so
completely cultivated. On the right stands the great blank wall of the mountains, across
whose front the Bonneville shore line can be seen as a mere, thread separating the slopes
above-characterized by gashes cut by streams-from those below, in which all roughness and
angularity have been concealed by the material deposited in the ancient lake. Along the
foot of the slope, within the irrigated lands, stretches a belt of sloping plain on which
most of the homes of the region are built. Each house has its protecting row of slender
poplar trees, which give the scene an aspect so foreign that one, seeing it might almost
imagine himself on the plains of northern Italy looking at the slopes of the Alps, instead
of in the Salt Lake Valley looking at the slopes of the Wasatch Mountains.
The abrupt change from the steep slope of the mountain front to the nearly flat surface of
the desert plain, except where deltas and bars were built in the waters of old Lake,
Bonneville, is very striking and doubtless will attract the attention of many travelers.
The traveler sees no foothills, no indication of a mountain front, until he reaches the
foot of the slope. What does the abrupt change from mountain to plain mean, and has it any
connection with the geologic history of the region? It assuredly has a meaning, and the
processes that produced these mountains have had a most striking effect in determining not
only the surface, features of this region but its climate and its and conditions. Long
ago, as man measures time, the rocks composing the crust of the earth broke along a line
that now coincides with the west front of the Wasatch Range, and the part on the east side
of that break or fault was forced up many thousand feet, or the part on the west was
dropped an equal distance, or both movements took place to a lesser degree. It matters not
which side moved, for in any event the part east of the fault now forms mountains because
it was uplifted relative to the other, or the other is now a low basin because it was
depressed relative to the part on the east."' Although the principal movement
probably took place long ago, slight movements have occurred so recently that they have
broken across alluvial canes formed by small streams flowing out of the mountains.
Springville
A short distance beyond Mapleton the railroad curves to the right and approaches the
edge of the plain. There it begins to descend to a lower plain, which stretches away in
the distance as far as the eye can see. Before reaching the level of the lower plain the
railroad passes through the flourishing town of Springville (see sheet 10), which is surrounded not only by fields
of grain, alfalfa, and sugar beets but by orchards that stretch out mile after mile until
they seem to be interminable. It is indeed a land of peace and plenty, and an added beauty
is given to the scene by the still waters of Utah Lake shimmering in the bright sunshine.
A branch railroad turns to the south (left) and runs to the Tintic mining district, 43
miles distant. The town was named Springville because of a large hot spring which issues
from the base of the mountain in Hobble Canyon just east of the town. This spring and the
stream into which it flows provide an unfailing supply of pure water for the State fish
hatchery, which is about a mile from the town on the right of the track.
East of Springville the Bonneville shore line is beautifully developed on the mountain
front; above it the normal mountain slopes appear, but below it all is covered with the
sediment deposited in the old lake.
In a short distance the railroad descends to the lower plain, which it follows to the
town of Provo.
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