Arches National Park
- Utah
 Arches
contains one of the largest concentrations of natural sandstone
arches in the world. The arches and numerous other extraordinary
geologic features, such as spires, pinnacles, pedestals and
balanced rocks, are highlighted in striking foreground and
background views created by contrasting colors, landforms and
textures. With the addition of the Lost Spring Canyon area, the
park is 76,519 acres in size.
Arches National Park is
open year round. The majority of park visitors come March
through October, with lowest visitation in December and January.
You can enjoy sightseeing by personal car, hiking, biking
(established roads only), picnicking (3 designated picnic areas
in park), and camping.
Native Americans utilized
the area for thousands of years. Archaic people, and later
ancestral Puebloan, Fremont and Utes searched the arid desert
for game animals, wild plant foods and stone for tools and
weapons. They also left evidence of their passing on a few
pictograph and petroglyph panels. The first white explorers came
looking for wealth in the form of minerals. Ranchers found
wealth in the grasses for their cattle and sheep. John Wesley
Wolfe, a disabled Civil War veteran, and his son, Fred, settled
here in the late 1800s. A weathered log cabin, root cellar and a
corral remain as evidence of the primitive ranch they operated
for more than 20 years. A visit to Wolfe Ranch is a walk into
the past.
Paleo-Indians lived in the
lush canyons leading to the Green and Colorado rivers from about
10,000 to 7,800 BC and might have been the earliest people to
see Arches. Although there is no evidence of Paleo-Indian use in
the park, their spear points and camps have been found nearby.
 By
9,000 years ago, the climate here became too warm and dry for
many large mammals. They and some of their Paleo-Indian hunters
moved to higher habitats. Those who stayed in the canyon country
depended more on gathering and traveling. This lifestyle, called
Archaic, meant that the people had to live in small groups and
travel extensively. Archaeologists have found a few spear
points, occasional campsites, and quarries for stone needed to
make tools. Barrier Canyon style rock art panels, once
attributed to the more recent Fremont culture, are the best
evidence of the Archaic hunter-gathers in Arches.
By A.D.1, Archaic culture
gave way to prehistoric agriculturists called Ancestral
Puebloans, previously know as Anasazi and Fremont.
Arches National Park was a
frontier between these people. To the south, the Park preserves
some of the spectacular villages of the Ancestral Puebloans at
Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Hovenweep and Navajo. To the north at
Dinosaur National Monument and to the west at Capital Reef
National Park, Fremont archaeological sites dominate.
Ancestral Puebloan and
Fremont cultures were very similar. Only subtle difference in
styles of art and technological traits distinguish the two
cultures. Both groups supplemented their agricultural economies
with food from wild plants and animals, supported large
populations in sedentary village life, and made beautiful black
on white pottery.
Arches National Park was
not continuously occupied by these peoples. The landscape was
only marginally suitable for the floodwater farming these people
practiced.
During the thirteenth
century, both Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont peoples abandoned
the Arches region, drifted southward and were succeeded through
historic times by Utes and Paiutes. These people were primarily
hunters and gatherers.
No one knows who the first
European was to penetrate Arches. However in the mid 1800's
frontiers were pushed back and solitary mountain men and
trappers pursued big game and beaver in remote and hostile
territory. Denis Julien, one of those lone explorers, might have
been the first European to see Arches. He left his name and the
date, June 9, 1844, inscribed on a rock fin in the park.
People from the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established outposts in many
remote areas of Utah in the late 1800's Among these was Elk
Mountain Mission. In 1855 the missionaries, under the impression
that they were on friendly terms with the local Ute Indians,
planted crops and constructed a stone fort. But in September of
that year, Utes killed three of their settlers so they quickly
abandoned the out post and returned to their home in northern
Utah. It was 20 more years before another settlement was
attempted in Moab Valley.
In 1888 the first family of
settlers chose to settle in Arches. John Wesley Wolfe and his
son Fred moved from Ohio. They selected a 150 acre tract along
salt Wash for their Bar DX Ranch. Salt Wash provided the water
and the surrounding land had enough grass for a few cows. John
and Fred lived this solitary life for nearly 20 years. In 1907,
John's daughter Flora, her husband Ed Stanley and their two
children moved to the ranch. They built a new cabin and a root
cellar, those seen in the park today. John's original cabin was
swept away by a flash flood. In 1910, the Wolfe family moved
back to Ohio. They sold the ranch to Tommy Larson. Larson sold
it to Mary Turnbow in 1914. Emmit Elizondo bought it from Mary's
heirs in 1947. The following year he sold it to the federal
government. In 1971 the site officially became known as the
Wolfe Ranch.
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