Havasapai Indian Reservation Agency, 1908

Title taken from recto of card.

Photographer: T. S. Baldwin.

Printed on recto, bottom right: "No. 19. Havasupai Indian Reservation Agency, Cataract Canon. Copyrighted 1908, T. S. Baldwin."

Printed on recto, left: "The Grand Canon of Arizona."

Printed on recto, right: "The Cataract Canon of Arizona."

Written in pencil on recto, top right: "10-."

Written in pencil on verso, top left: "WAY 5."

Printed on verso: "The Grand Canon of Arizona. The Cataract Canon of Arizona. 'An Inferno swarthed in soft celestial fires.' Sixty-four miles north from the town of Williams, a small place located on the Santa Fe Railway in northwestern Arizona, there rises a gigantic cleft in the earth's crust the painted banded walls of the Grand Canon of the Colorado River, which with its tributary gorges, the Marble and Cataract Canons, constitutes what is conceded to be the greatest natural phenomenon in the known world. The Canon district lies principally in northwestern Arizona and embraces an area of about 15,000 square miles. It, however, has its begining in the high plateaus in southern Utah in a series of terraces, many miles broad, dropping like a stairway to the sucessively lower geological formations, until in Arizona the platform is reached which borders the real chasm and extends for many miles into the central part of that Territory. It is the theory of geologists that more than 10,000 feet of strata has been swept from the surface of the entire plateau, whose present uppermost formation is the carboniferous; this theory being based on the fact that the missing formations which belong above the carboniferous in the geological series are found in their place in the Utah plateaus where the canon region has its begining. Were these missing formations restored to their place on the adjacent plateau the Grand Canon chasm would be more than 16,000 feet deep instead of 6,600 as it is now. There is but one Grand Canon worthy of the name. It lies only in Arizona and is wholly the work of erosion, vast bodies of water in prehistoric times having flowed through this entire region for countless ages, carving this giant trough through the solid rock, to a width of thirteen miles, a length of 217 miles and a maximum depth of 6,600 feet. The beholder standing upon the rim is confronted by a stupendous panorama a thousand square miles in extent, that lies wholly beneath his eyes, a labyrinth of huge architectural forms endlessly varied in design, fretted with ornamental devices festooned with lace-like webs, and painted with every color known to the artist's palette. Through this fearful chasm flows the muddy, ever-turbulent waters of the Colorado River. The Cataract Canon joins the Grand Canon at almost a direct right angle near its southern extremity. For beauty and sublimity peculiar to itself nothing can equal this beautiful phenomenon. Through miles of its length rushes the beautiful blue waters of the Havasu River, which has as its source thousands of bubbling springs which burst from the sandy soil covering the impervious rocks, and which rushes over a succession of cataracts, forming waterfalls which leap two hundred and three hundred feet into pools of deepest blue. This valley is cultivated by the Havasupai Indians, a primitive tribe who have lived for generations within the narrow confines of this beautiful home. The Havaupais number 250 persons. Their village in Cataract (or Havasu) Canon is not often visited. It is scattered for three miles along willow-lined Havasu Creek, from the school house to Bridal Veil Falls. These Indians are chiefly farmers, raising corn, pumpkins, melons and peaches, and are self-supporting: they also make baskets. The United States Government has established a school there. Near by are interesting ruins and cliff dwellings. There are other Indians in the Grand Canon region who occasionally visit the Havasupais. The Utes tramp down from Nevada, crossing at West Ferry; the Wallapais come in from near Hackberry and Peach Springs, and the Mokis from north of Canyon Diablo- mainly attracted by the Peach Dance, an interesting ceremony which occurs the latter part of August, when the main crop of fruit is ready for drying. The Wallapais and the Chimihuevis frequently intermarry with the dwellers in Cataract Canon."