San Rafael Stewardship Day
On National Public Lands day – September 26th, 2026 – the Utah State Historic Preservation Office and our partners at the Bureau of Land Management and Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, will come together to host the San Rafael Stewardship Day. Staff and volunteers will set up at five sites across the Swell to greet the public, share the unique history of the specific site and the region, and share Leave No Trace and Visit with Repsect principles to educate visitor and ensure that these amazing places will endure for furture generations.
This event is open to all, and we welcome the public to visit us at one, or any of the sites below.
The Buckhorn Wash Panels
Location: https://share.google/Ztlz1F5mmpjUI1tBE
The site includes both painted (Pictographs) and pecked (Petroglyph) prehistoric images. In addition, the site also includes a boulder on which members of a CCC crew working on installing a CCC bridge across the canyon carved their names. Most of the Native American rock imagery here is “Barrier Canyon Style” and then later Fremont.
The culture that is characteristically, and almost exclusively Utahn is the Fremont Culture which was first described by Noel Morss in 1931. It is perhaps best represented in the canyons to the east of the Wasatch Mountains from Vernal to the Colorado River, but evidence of it is found all over Utah, except for a small corner in San Juan County. When it appeared is a much debated point, but about six A.D., the old hunting and gathering culture gave way to a partly farming culture which included some ideas from the Anasazi fanners to the south. Along with many other distinctive characteristics, the Fremont people developed their own art style. This was typified by horned, trapezoidal-bodied anthropomorphs (human-like objects) which seem to have been made everywhere the Fremont people lived.
In the more strongly Fremont areas, such as along the Fremont River, near Vernal, Nine Mile Canyon and some sites in the San Rafael Swell, these are large and have many elaborations such as necklaces, earrings, shields, swords, loin cloths and fancy headdresses. The Fremont people also developed a stylized way of making spirals, zigzags, scorpions, mountain sheep, deer, snakes and hunting scenes.
One of the greatest puzzles in Utah Rock Art is the Barrier Canyon Style, which was until recently considered to be Fremont in origin. Polly Schaafsma, one of the leading archaeological authorities on Utah Rock Art says: “This style has only recently been separated from the inclusive rubric Fremont and recognized as a unique artistic development which seems to have antedated the Fremont Culture by an undetermined period and was the product of a culture not confidently recognized in the current archaeological record. The authors of this art were extremely skillful, with a command of techniques and surrealistic forms rare in primitive art. The huge, starry-eyed mummies in Barrier (Horseshoe) Canyon, with tiny, intricately drawn mountain sheep and birds prancing around them are surely some of the finest rock paintings in the world. In the classic sites around the San Rafael Swell there is no mistaking their unique nature and total differentiation from the later Fremont paintings.” There are several instances where typical Fremont painting has been superimposed on classical Barrier Canyon types.
San Rafael Swinging Bridge
Location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/o1xBmTLvFH3cwVsA6
The bridge was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in between 1935 and 1937. Until the 1990s, it was the only bridge crossing the river. It no longer carries automobile traffic, but it is still open for pedestrian use.[2] It was added to the NRHP June 3, 1996. It is a cable suspension with timber cross-decking, measuring 167’ long with a clear span of 153’. No alterations have ever been made, other than re-painting periodically.
Before construction of the bridge, the crossing of the San Rafael River was unpredictable due to water levels fluctuating greatly from spring floods or large rains. Often sheep weren’t even driven across the River unless it was frozen over in winter. A 1936 newspaper article notes,
“The bridging of the treacherous San Rafael River is one of the outstanding accomplishments of the Division of Grazing, under CCC operation…the bridge will give access to a greater grazing section at all times of the year and is in the heart of the most scenic part of Utah known as the Wonderlands”
CCC and Division of Grazing Camp was in Castle Dale, with 30 men from Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, under direction of men from Spanish Fork and Castle Dale. To even get the materials to the bridge, the CCC had to build and improve 28 miles of road from Castle Dale, with 15,000 board feet of lumber cut in the mountains west of Orangeville. Utah Governor Henry H. Blood dedicated the bridge on April 24, 1937 to a crowd of 3,000.
Morrison-Knudsen (MK) Tunnels
Location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7b4kXMa1ZfUQTQbP6
By 1950 what was to become known as the Cold War was settling into place. The Soviet Union had detonated a nuclear device in the late 1940s, so the US nuclear monopoly was broken. In addition, both sides would successfully test thermonuclear weapons (a.k.a. hydrogen bombs) in the early 1950s.
So the sheer destructive power of nuclear weapons, even before operational thermonuclear devices, motivated the search for ways to “harden” (in current jargon) command and control centers to survive nuclear attack. Putting them underground was an obvious approach, but how deep and in what kind of rock?
The experiments here helped address these issues. Horizontal tunnels were dug in the Navajo Sandstone, a thick massive sandstone with relatively uniform mechanical properties. Explosions of various sizes were then detonated above these tunnels, while then-state-of-the-art instrumentation was installed in the tunnels to measure the effects. The investigations were carried out by Morrison-Knudsen (hence “MK tunnels”), at the time a well-known contractor.
Although the experiments were secret, and indeed remained classified till the 1980s, Morrison-Knudsen was remarkably open about the work. Test explosions would be announced and some were even photographed by people living around the area.
Testing wound down in 1952 and, presumably based on the test results, the Navajo Sandstone was deemed unsuitable for underground installations. Results from testing elsewhere presumably led to the construction of the underground installations in Cheyenne Mountain instead [link: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cheyenne-mountain-nuclear-bunker].
Temple Mountain
Location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ihQNvkHSnaHbu8kY6
Temple Mountain was a major uranium mining district from the late 19th through late 20th centuries, with its namesake the large stone outcrop that resembles the Salt Lake LDS Temple. The first recorded mining claim was in 1898, but the first for uranium, vanadium, or radium was in 1914, with early production through the early 1920s. Interest in radioactive minerals by the federal government lead to a resurgence of mining and was producing ore from 1948 into the 1970s. The most productive portion of the Temple Mountain Mining District was in the 1950s through early 1960s, where crews uncovered ore bodies that were often 700’ long and 15’ thick. Between 1948 and 1956 alone, 261,000 tons of ore was sent for processing, with 1,287,000 pounds of Uranium and Vanadium produced. Most mining before 1948 was done by Standard Uranium Company, but several operators arrived in the 1950s including the Consolidated Uranium Company and later the Union Carbide Nuclear Corporation.
At its peak in the 1950s, Temple Mountain District would have hosted several hundred miners and support staff such as cooks and drivers. By 1958 a glut of mineral at the mills led to the lay off of dozens of miners, of which the District never fully recovered its size. Thus, Temple City, as the small but bustling community of uranium miners was called, had its time in the sun in the mid-20th. Most of the stone buildings seen in and around the mining district are from this period, but some date to the early 20th century first boom.
Vanadium was heavily used to harden steel for industrial machinery and military hardware (such as cannons and artillery pieces), while uranium served mostly as a chemical byproduct or source material to extract radium for early cancer treatments. After World War 2, uranium and other radioactive minerals production was regulated by the United States Government, through the Atomic Energy Commission. Radioactive minerals from Temple Mountain District entered into a continued market for steel-making, but expanded into nuclear weapons and energy, and medical treatments. Radioactive minerals are closely monitored and controlled even today with direct federal oversight.
Swasey’s Cabin
Location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/qgjRubxy5dqaWfwf7
The cabin was built in 1921 by Joe Swasey for his family to ranch and drive cattle throughout the San Rafael Swell. The family first settled in the area around 1875 in the Ferron Creek area but worked in the Swell. While working, the Swasey boys slept out under the stars or in shallow caves before the cabin was built. (B. Austin 2020)
The Swasey family first settled in the Ferron Creek area by 1875, after Rodney Degrass Swasey “struck it rich” in El Dorado, California, with the family “headquarters” in Mona, Utah (Geary 1996:50; USHS 2000). The original Swasey brothers included Charles, Sidney (Sid), Rodney, Joseph Amos, Lucius, Franklin, and Dudley (Find A Grave 2000). Joseph Amos Swasey was born in 1861 in Provo and died in 1930 in Ferron, Utah (Find A Grave 2009). The Swasey brothers were known as expert horsemen in the area, well known to be more often out on the range than in town (Geary 1996:135). This included the naming of (Sid) Swasey’s Leap after a bet between Charles and Sid for a herd of cattle (SUU Digital Library 1978). The
brothers explored the area extensively, eventually building up a wood platform with a floor in the “Cliffdweller” cave, later known as Joe’s Office, where they would sleep during the summer. Another cave nearby was noted to be always shaded, with the family taking full advantage of it to store their food, naming it the “Icebox” or “Refrigerator” (SUU Digital Library 1911).
The cabin was built in 1921 near the “Cliffdweller” cave by Joe Swasey, his sons, and the Nordell brothers. It was known as a community house, open to anyone who wanted to use it, as it was built to be an important stop-over for anyone with horses (SUU Digital Library 1921). The Swasey Cabin continues to be used as a stop-over, now known for being a roadside attraction in Central Utah, with an easily accessible hiking trail (AllTrails 2020).
The cabin is constructed of Douglas Fir logs harvested from nearby Eagle Canyon, with sandstone boulders and slabs used for the foundation. The mortar is light brown mud and juniper bark, mud and black tarp material make up the roof. (B. Austin 2020).
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