Colorado National Monument by Alan J. Kania

Author:Alan J. Kania
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2011-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

Five

CCC CAMPS AND OTTO’S HIGHWAY DREAM

Other than foot-and-hoof trails along the canyon floor, the canyon walls of the Colorado National Monument were nearly insurmountable to the average visitor. The Trail of the Serpent, a 2.5-mile trail with 54 switchbacks, was later expanded to a wagon road from a footpath but still had the stigma of being called “the most dangerous road ever built.” The trail passed through the eastern slope of the Monument and ended at a rock promontory whose impressive cliff edge was known as Cold Shivers Point.

John Otto and the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce sought to improve access into the canyons of the Colorado National Monument. They proposed a 24-mile, single-width highway to the Fruita end of the park along the same route that is now the Scenic Rim Drive. The unlikely duo, through subscription and gifts from local residents, raised $1,500.

U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civil Works Administration accepted the $1,500 as seed money for publicly subscribed funds to include the road proposal as a federal project. In November 1931, chief engineer Frank A. Kittredge of the National Park Service and road engineer T. W. Secrest submitted plans for the double-width rim rock road. For reasons unknown, John Otto left the monument at this time, and Clifford Anderson from Yellowstone National Park was installed as custodian of the Colorado National Monument.

In May 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp at the east entrance and a second camp at the Fruita entrance flanked the road project. The Works Project Administration added a transient camp on the eastern end of the project, putting rail-riding hobos to work installing 5.2 miles of a water main and other roadway improvements.

Roadwork continued until 1942, when World War II called custodians and rangers to active duty. Work on the road resumed in the fall of 1949. The final project is 23 miles long, connecting the two entrances that are actually only 8 miles apart. The landfill necessary to traverse the sheer walls and the construction of three tunnels assisted in earning recognition by the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.

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