History of Capitol Reef National Park

By Jacob

Capitol Reef National Park is located in southern Utah east of the town of Torrey, Utah. It protects the hundred mile long waterpocket fold running from north to south. Before it was a national park it was a national monument, a mormon settlement and home to the ancient Fremont Culture.

The first people who came through the park may not have visited at all. Archaeologists think it is likely that the Paleo-Indians migrated from this area. 12,000 years ago they crossed the Bering Land Bridge and were the first north americans. These people would have spent their time in caves for shelter and hunting mammoth and megafauna, another large animal. Changes in climate led to the extinction of the megafauna so the lifestyle of these early peoples was changed. The people of the Archaic migrated depending on availability of food and other resources. There is evidence of these people in pictographs and artifacts found east of Capitol Reef in Horseshoe Canyon, part of Canyonlands National Park.

If you have visited Capitol Reef National Park you probably saw the petroglyph panels along Highway 24. Those drawings are from the Fremont Culture. They are named for the Fremont River that flows through the central part of the park. 2,000 years ago the Fremont Culture along with others in the area began farming so they could stay in one place and did not have to move when resources were available. Unlike the cliff dwellings of the surrounding area in Colorado the Fremont Culture built their homes into the ground. They covered themselves with roofs of vegetation from the surrounding area. The Fremont Culture was not living but thriving in Capitol Reef. Archeologists have uncovered many artifacts that have shown signs of a thriving culture that was able to not be so focused on surviving. Farming allowed the culture to add to their diets and thrive in this area. There are many petroglyphs in the park that remain secret so as to prevent destruction of these artifacts. They include people like drawings as well as other animals native to the area. Archeologists believe that the petroglyphs were used to record religious events, migration, hunting trips or other knowledge of the culture.

There have been three groups of explorers who passed through Capitol Reef between the Fremont Culture, Mormon Settlers and creation of Capitol Reef National Monument. The area of Capitol Reef was the last place explored and charted in the continental United States. The same year as the signing of the Declaration of Independence two franciscan priests set out to find out a new route to the missions of Monterey, California. Along the way they documented their findings and befriended the native Ute people. Over 50 years later in 1853, John Charles Fremont. Fremont was a military officer, explorer and politician. He was a United States Senator from California and the first Republican nominee for President of the United States in 1856. He passed through trying to find a route for a railroad route to the Pacific Ocean. He documented their time through the park making some early maps of the region. It is possible that he gave the Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon formations names such as “Mom, Pop and Henry”. He does not name the waterpocket fold but it is shown in his maps of the region. An expedition led by John Powell led to more exploration of Capitol Reef. Powell, who Powell Lake is named after, brough geologists to the reason while he was coming up with theories about the formation of the Grand Canyon. Almon Thompson, one of the geologists on the team, gave Capitol Reef the nickname the Waterpocket Fold. He got the name from the many pockets holding water in the hundred mile fold in the earth. The group also explored Bryce Canyon as well as Zion.

The area around Capitol Reef was not fully explored until the 2nd expedition by John Powell in 1872, the same year that Yellowstone was made a national park. The Mormons in Salt Lake City decided to build missions in the west. One of these settlements is the small town of Junction in the location of the present day Capitol Reef National Park Visitor Center. Nels Johnson began planting orchards along the Fremont River that gave life to the area. Other towns were established down river along the Fremont River but the flooding of the towns made them unsuccessful. The town of Junction was changed to Fruita. Today there are still buildings that the Mormons built like ths school house along Highway 24. The National Parks Service still maintains the orchards that Johnson planted. You can even purchase and pick fruit from the orchard when certain fruits are in season.

In 1914, Ephraim Portman and his brother-in-law Joseph Hickman began advocating the waterpocket fold should become a Utah state park. The human history of Capitol Reef, the natural arches, the gorges and petroglyphs were worth protecting. There were now two national parks in Utah, Bryce Canyon and Zion. They had both brough more economic development as well as tourists to the area. They took photos of the area hoping to convince the state legislature that the area was worth preserving. Unfortunately, Hickman drowned in a lake and the idea of a state park for now died with him. 18 years later the National Parks Service sent Roger Toll, a ranger at Yellowstone, to investigate the waterpocket fold. The following year Portman was elected to the Utah state legislature and delivered a bill to the governor with the proposed boundaries of a new park. Pectol also began lobbying the National Parks Service to protect the area. Ranger Toll returned to the area and toured Capitol Reef with Pectol. In a John Muir Theodore Roosevelt kind of meeting Toll endorsed the idea for the creation of a park.

For a few years government bureaucracy went back and forth on the size that this new park should be. They also did not know what to call this place. The mormon settlers called a rock formation along the Fremont River the capitol dome because of its resemblance to the capitol dome in Washington D.C. They also called the area a reef, because it is hard to cross. The two were pushed together and the area was called Capitol Reef. Finally, President Franklin Roosevelt established 37,000 acres of Capitol Reef National Monument. The park experienced an increase in infrastructure as the Civilian Conservation Corps built buildings and roads through the park. Before 1966 the NPS launched Mission 66 to increase visitor facilities and infrastructure to give greater access to the public. A new visitor center was built as well as State Route 24 which vastly increased visitation to the park.

In 1970 a bill passed congress to decide if the Capitol Reef National Monument should become a national park. The Department of the Interior recommended that over 240,000 acres be set aside as a national park. Consequently, a year late President Nixon signed a bill creating Capitol Reef National Park.

Works Cited

“Explorers and Surveyors.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/care/learn/historyculture/explorers-and-surveyors.htm.

“Fremont Culture.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/care/learn/historyculture/fremont.htm.

“The History of Fruita.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/care/learn/historyculture/fruita.htm.

“Hunters and Gatherers.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/care/learn/historyculture/archaic-hunters-and-gatherers.htm.

“Pioneer Settlers.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/care/learn/historyculture/pioneer-settlers.htm.

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Utah

Capitol Reef