History

Black Canyon of the Gunnison is a rugged, wild place, and the canyon's geography has influenced its history to a striking degree.

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History Details

Black Canyon of the Gunnison is a rugged, wild place, and not just because of its location, but because of its geography. The latter has influenced the canyon's history to a striking degree. For starters, the canyon is made up of 2,200-foot walls that rise quite abruptly from the Gunnison River. In places, the canyon is so steep, deep, and narrow that only midday sunlight reaches the bottom. The river drops at an astonishing rate -- 96 feet every mile -- losing more elevation in 48 miles than the Mississippi River loses over its entire 1,500-mile course. The river is choked with rocks and rapids, making for treacherous navigation. This is why the first European accounts of the canyon didn't appear until 1853; Native Americans avoided it, fur trappers and early explorers steered clear, and many believed the canyon to be impassable and the river to be unnavigable. In 1881, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad built a line connecting Denver and the town of Gunnison to connect the city with the gold and silver mines in the area. The final mile was said to have taken a year to complete at a cost of more than the rest of the project; true or not, the rugged landscape took its toll in laborer lives as the railroad was pushed to completion. Eventually the route was completed and connected Denver to Salt Lake City, serving as the main rail line for cross-country travel for nearly a decade until other routes became more popular and efficient. During the 1890s, farmers in the Uncompahgre Valley looked to the river as a source for irrigation. After a number of expeditions into the canyon, it was decided that a diversion tunnel could be blasted into the rock and part of the Gunnison's flow could be corralled. One of the men looking into building the tunnel, Abraham Lincoln Fellows, took a companion, William Torrence, on the first known run of the canyon, hiking, swimming, and floating (on a rubber mattress) 33 miles of the river in nine days. They determined it would be possible to build an irrigation tunnel and, in 1902, a 5.8-mile, 11-by-12-foot tunnel was built, diverting some of the river's flow into a nearby farm valley. In 1916, Emery Kolb, a photographer and paddler who lived on the canyon rim, decided, with his brother, to take a trip through the canyon. Despite years of experience, it took the pair five attempts to successfully complete their journey. The park, established in 1933 as a National Monument and designated in 1999 as a National Park, is composed of the deepest and most challenging 12 miles of the 48-mile canyon.

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