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Page 1 of the June 1997 ISSUE OF PASS PATROL CAMPFIRE TALES

The June issue included here contains the stories and not the advertisements. Keep in mind, the stories here were written in 1997.  

This issue includes
Hole In The Rock

The San Juan Mission

HOLE IN THE ROCK  -  ANOTHER OF THE MANY ADVENTURES OF PASS PATROL

There have been lots of stories written about Hole in the Rock located west of Blanding in Utah, but most of those stories cover little more than a twenty mile section of the original two hundred mile journey and never even visit the actual site of Hole in the Rock.  Very few visitors realize the original name for the journey more than one hundred years ago was, “The San Juan Mission”.  Not until the mission was complete did the path left behind become referred to as the Hole in the Rock Road.  That road was used for more than a year after the San Juan Mission settled in the town now known as Bluff, and was traveled in both directions.

The story of the San Juan Mission goes back to before the existence of Utah as a state.  Under the leadership of Brigham Young, the Mormon Church, based in Salt Lake City,  had set out to colonize as much of the wild west as possible.  When he died in 1877, there was still a lot left undone.  One gaping hole in the overall plan was the area referred to as the San Juans located on the east side of the Colorado River and extending into Colorado and Arizona.  Although a few families had moved into the isolated area, there was no substantial Church presence in that remote country.  The San Juan’s of Utah were cut off from the rest of the state by the mighty Colorado River.

Most of the activity for southern Utah branched out from the towns of Cedar City, Parowan, and Paragonah.  Any expansion into the San Juans would begin from there.  The town of Escalante was the most easterly settlement dating back to 1876 and was on a direct line between Cedar City and the area where the town of Bluff would soon be established.  It was an estimated 200 miles from Escalante to Bluff but because of canyons carved by the Colorado River, no one had ever gone that way.  There was no existing wagon road, not even a footpath that connected the two points.