Tales from Torrey
and of Capitol Reef
by James H. Knipmeyer

Part V— 1976-1987: Interlude

When I drove away from Torrey that June morning in 1973, little did I realize that it would be fourteen years until I returned. I did come back to Capitol Reef twice during that time, but never made it those few miles farther west to Torrey. I simply did not know anyone there any longer. The Elletts and Tolberts had both moved away, and the old Chuck Wagon Café & Motel just was not the same. In 1976, my wife and I came back to Capitol Reef to look for an old, historical inscription, actually a pair of them, located somewhere in Capitol Gorge. In my sixteen years of coming out to southern Utah, I had grown very interested in the history of the region, and as I hiked and explored, I began to come across old inscriptions left on boulders and canyon walls, some of which names I recognized. So I began to photograph them, especially the older ones dated prior to 1900. Torrey Knoll from the Rimrock Motel

These historical inscriptions most commonly consist of a name and a date, though sometimes it is just one or the other. Occasionally there are only initials. Oftentimes they have been scratched or carved into the relatively soft sandstone. Less often they have been drawn onto the rock surface, wet charcoal being a favorite medium, as well as axle-grease from wagons. Most of these early inscriptions were left by explorers, travelers, and settlers. Sometimes it was a military or scientific expedition that was passing by. The favorite location for these “signatures” were at camping places, usually where there was some sort of water source. But routes of travel, such as Capitol Gorge with its Pioneer Register, were also popular signing places.

I had read about and even seen photographs of the two inscriptions Bonnie and I were going to look for. The names were those of J. A. Call and Wal. Bateman, both accompanied by a date of Sept. 20, 1871. They were said to be the oldest inscriptions in the Capitol Reef area. When we had been to the Pioneer Register a few years earlier, the oldest name and date we had found was from 1877. This time we intended to make a more thorough search.

We began scanning the walls of the gorge soon after leaving the parking area, especially from the site of the prehistoric petroglyphs to the Pioneer Register. No luck. We examined the register itself, with its scores of old names and dates, but again, nothing. We even walked on past the register, as far as the waterpockets on the north side, but without finding any trace of the Call and Bateman. We did run across, and I photographed, several interesting inscriptions, such as the names of two men with the U. S. Geological Survey, which was mapping the region in 1882 and ’83. However, we did not succeed in locating the ones we were actually searching for.

We drove back to the park service Visitor Center, and I inquired of the rangers about the inscription locale. Most of them had heard of it, and they were familiar with the display and photograph in the museum but did not know of any specific location other than being in Capitol Gorge “somewhere around the Pioneer Register.” One ranger did say that she had seen it “years ago,” and that she was sure it was not right at the cliffside Register. From what she could remember, she thought that it was just up a small side canyon, not far to the east.

Armed with this information, after lunch Bonnie and I returned to Capitol Gorge. Sure enough, a tributary canyon did come in from the south, just as the ranger had described. But a search turned up no inscriptions whatsoever, much less the elusive Call and Bateman of 1871. We finally had to admit defeat. We trudged back to the car, left Capitol Reef, and drove back towards Missouri. But we had not given up for good.

Two years later, in 1978, we were back. This time we hit the jackpot. I suppose we examined the cliff walls a little more carefully, but really, the difference lay in looking in a slightly different location. My wife and I finally found the pair of inscriptions on the west side of the Pioneer Register, not to the east as the ranger had told us. Part of the problem had also been that they were incised into the rock in fairly small letters, the Call had been weathered quite a bit over the years, and the Bateman was partially obscured by the painted lettering of a more recent inscription.

But there they were, J. A. Call and Wal. Bateman, both dated Sept. 20, 1871. Along with the names and dates was the added notation, “Prosspecters (sic).” Subsequent to the expeditions of Major John W. Powell in 1869 and again in 1871, there was considerable interest among mining men as to what the two parties may have seen in the Colorado River canyons in the way of valuable minerals. It was generally believed that they may have found either deposits of gold ore, or at least placer workings of that metal. Call and Bateman, believed to have been from Cedar City, Utah, passed through Capitol Reef, apparently on their way to prospect along the Colorado River, or perhaps in the Henry Mountains to the east. What the result was of their prospecting endeavor, is not known.

Call & Bateman inscriptions, Capitol Gorge, 1978 g

Our find, however, did mark the end of our search in Capitol Reef. With our success, Bonnie and I stayed at the relatively new Rim Rock Motel and Restaurant, which had been built by the side of Highway 24 just west of the national park boundary before starting back to Missouri the next day.

There then followed a nine-year interlude before I once again returned to Wayne County and south-central Utah. In 1980, I had begun to camp and backpack in southeastern Utah and northern Arizona with Mike Ford, a fellow-teacher from Lee’s Summit. It was rather ironic that the two of us had taught at the same high school, albeit in different departments, for some ten years before, through a mutual friend, we discovered that both of us were interested in the Colorado Plateau region. We have been coming out together ever since.

In the summer of 1987, Mike and I had been on a six-day backpacking hike down from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to Thunder River and the Tapeats-Deer Creek areas. We were headed north to Capitol Reef, and our route lay over Boulder Mountain. Imagine our surprise to now find it paved all the way, complete with pull-outs and a short loop side-road to scenic overlooks. If James Andrus from 1866 could have seen his trail now!

It was getting on into the afternoon. It was cloudy and a little rainy, and by this time the park service campground in Capitol Reef was more than likely full. So, as a result, Mike and I decided to stay in Torrey. At the Chuck Wagon I requested and we got “my” old room, Number 5, up and around the back. To me, it seemed just like returning home after a long absence.
But there was no more café or gift and rock shop. Except for the motel “addition,” the building had been returned to its original role as a general store. Therefore, we had our dinner at a little place a short ways up the road. Just before sunset the clouds began to break up and a shaft of light from the setting sun illuminated the upthrust sandstone of The Cockscomb to the southeast. It was a picture-perfect way to bring my “homecoming” to a close.

The next morning after breakfast, I drove Mike around town, much as I had done with Bonnie back in 1972. Again, I somewhat proudly showed him the carport I had built for Rocky some eighteen years earlier. It was still standing! Actually, not too much had changed in Torrey itself since I was last there in 1973. The Big Apple dance pavilion had been spruced up and renovated and was evidently being used once again. Up the road a new LDS ward chapel had been constructed, and the old log meeting house moved to a site nearby. Mr. Brinkerhoff’s old Sinclair service station had been converted into a __________. But all in all, the town looked much the same.

After the “tour,” we drove down to Capitol Reef. In all my years of coming here, I had never traversed the length of Grand Wash, where it cut its way through a portion of the barrier cliffs. Mike was to let me off on the western side and then pick me up around farther east, where the usually dry wash joined the Fremont River. Much like Capitol Gorge to the south, a grade dirt road off of the Scenic Drive led a mile or so into the canyon before dead-ending. Beyond, a short two-mile walk brings one back to the Fremont River and the highway. Grand Wash 1987

Less than a half-mile from the parking area, a faint side-trail wound upward and around a promontory of rock to an old cabin, now in ruins. I had read of this and wanted to photograph it. It had, at one time, been built of logs with a dirt roof. Local folklore describes it as a way station on the outlaw trail of the notorious Wild Bunch. Or, it may have been used as a hideout for Mormon polygamists in the late 1800s, when Federal marshals would come to the nearby settlements. However, it seems unlikely that the place was used by outlaws or by polygamists, since a 1971 National Park Service study dated the cabin to post-1900 times.

The so-called “Wild Bunch” was a loose collection of outlaws, which operated in the Wyoming-Colorado-Utah region during the latter half of the 1880s and the decade of the 1890s. The members of the gang were constantly changing as individuals or small groups came and went, and the number at any one time was probably not much over a dozen, if that. For a good portion of its time, the Wild Bunch was under the nominal leadership of the famous Butch Cassidy, son of a Mormon family in Circleville, Utah, whose real name was Robert LeRoy Parker.

After winding my way through Grand Wash, Mike had picked me up at its end, and we drove just a couple of miles east to the old Behunin cabin on the south side of the Fremont River. This was the quarried stone house built by Elijah Cutler Behunin for his family about 1891. I wanted to get a picture of an inscription near the top of the back wall. On two adjacent stone blocks could be seen the carved name “Butch Cassidy.” In stories passed down by descendents of the Behunin family, this was reputed to have been left by the well-known outlaw during one of his stops here for a short rest and a quick meal.   The Behunin Cabin 1978, Caineville, Utah

But it was not only the occasional outlaw, or outlaws, that made their way through the Capitol Reef area. One of the favored hideouts of the Wild Bunch was the so-called Robbers Roost, a region of plateaus and canyons east and slightly south of Hanksville in the eastern end of Wayne County. At least twice, law enforcement officers rode through the area on the trail of outlaws.

In June of 1897, a posse was financed and organized to “clean out” the outlaws and thieves of the Robbers Roost area. Led by deputy United States marshal Joe Bush, the posse was said to have outfitted at Torrey, but got only as far as the Henry Mountains region near Hanksville. However, it did succeed in capturing one of the more noted outlaws known as Blue John.
Two years later, in 1899, when the state of Utah put a $500 reward each for twelve of the Wild Bunch gang, Joe Bush decided to go back yet again. Once more he outfitted at Torrey. In December of 1898, George Crosby had opened a store on the same site where today is located the Chuck Wagon General Store. Bush also picked up local rancher Ott Thompson and a man named Cox, for his “posse.” Almost unbelievably, the trio did not see a single outlaw in the eastern part of Wayne County near the Robbers Roost area. Acting on a tip, however, they did finally capture one of the better known outlaws, known as Silver Tip, farther south near Pahreah, Utah.

Arriving back at Torrey, Joe Bush rode on to Salt Lake City, temporarily leaving the prisoner in custody of John Hancock, sheriff of Wayne County. It is said that Hancock did not even own a gun, and kept Silver Tip at his own house in Torrey for several days, unguarded, the outlaw making no effort to escape. Later he was finally bound over for trial in the county seat of Loa.
A corollary to this story is another, which states that two years later, while awaiting a preliminary hearing for a possible early release in 1901, Silver Tip was again boarded with Sheriff Hancock in Torrey. This time, however, after having already served two years in prison and facing a possible eight more on his original ten-year sentence, Silver Tip was not so accommodating. Hancock allowed him to occupy a room by himself overnight and found the next morning that “his bird had flown the coop.”

Introduction
Part I — 1963: The First Visit
Part II — The Three Nephites
Part III — 1969: Home
Part IV — Early 1970's: The Prodigal Son Returns
Part VI — 1990's: The Last Years
Epilogue — 2000