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Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest
Red Hole in Time (Volume 9)
Escalante Canyon is a red-walled hole in a geologic uplift (the Uncompahgre Plateau) in western Colorado. Pioneers surging west fell into this canyon hole the way gold nuggets get caught in the potholes of a stream. Like nuggets eddying against stone, they were shaped by the Canyon—rounded off, shattered, or tossed away, according to how they conformed or resisted. Indeed, treasure richer than gold settled into that hole in time; in the onrushing current of history the lifestyle—the Old West—settled and still survives there—in fact, in artifact, and in living memories.
The tale of the canyon is a tale of struggle, change, frontier friendship, and enmity that is part of the story of the West Anglo settlement; conflict between cowman, nester, and sheep man; epidemics; hardships; loneliness. Many of its stories, though, are tantalizing episodes unique to this place, laced with oddity and tragedy.
Using as digging tools the camera, tape recorder, diaries, memoirs, and a hundred years of old newspapers, Marshall has mined more gold than the first prospectors ever suspected lay in that mysterious red hole.
The tale of the canyon is a tale of struggle, change, frontier friendship, and enmity that is part of the story of the West Anglo settlement; conflict between cowman, nester, and sheep man; epidemics; hardships; loneliness. Many of its stories, though, are tantalizing episodes unique to this place, laced with oddity and tragedy.
Using as digging tools the camera, tape recorder, diaries, memoirs, and a hundred years of old newspapers, Marshall has mined more gold than the first prospectors ever suspected lay in that mysterious red hole.
312 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 29, 2021
Thoroughly researched and well-written, this is a must-read for anyone who wants to explore Escalante Canyon west of Delta--not the Staircase. Beyond that connection, it's a book about the Wild West, though a little difficult to follow sometimes when the author waxes poetic and makes veiled references to persona and incidents. A map would have been nice.
February 14, 2011
About Escalante Canyon, which is familiar to us. We actually are BLM site stewards for Cap Smith's cabin. Found this to be very enlightening and it answered alot of questions I had been asking, like why someone would choose to live there in the first place with no easy access and so far from town.
May 11, 2007
If you're a river guide on the Gunnison River, you MUST read this book for history of the area.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews