[Photo album of a trip to Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, etc.]

Zion National Park, Utah and the Grand Canyon, Arizona, 1932. 8vo album, half calf and “seaweed” patterned paper over boards. 39 ff. (additional 10 blank ff.) comprising 71 photos (including real photo postcards), 2.75" x 4.5" to 5" x 7"; 47 color landscape postcards, 3.5" x 5.5"; 2 Zion Lodge menus; 1 Grand Canyon Airlines souvenir ticket; 1 Grand Canyon Lodge pictorial letterhead; 1 color postcard map. Additional 3-pp. manuscript letter from guide “Kit” Carson to Bonney, with 4 loose photos in envelope, laid in.

A richly detailed, extensively annotated photo album, compiled by a close friend of notable western figures William Henry Jackson and Frederick Dellenbaugh, documenting a trip to Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon.

Western traveler Elwood P. Bonney left New Jersey in the summer of 1932, arriving in Zion in late July. This album documenting his travels commences, appropriately enough, with a photograph of “Walters Wiggles”—a switchback section of the West Rim trail—where he received his “initiation in western horseback trail riding--July 28, 1932 Boy, what a thrill!” This image is followed by an additional sixteen Zion photographs, fifteen of them annotated. Two of these show members of the “Angel’s Landing Party,” with whom Bonney seems to have been traveling, apparently a company of friends and acquaintances from back east. Among those identified are Laura B. Stidd of Matamoras, PA; Mae B. Wood of Yonkers, NY; Henry Levering, Vice President of the Reading Railroad, of Philadelphia; and Mr. J. S. Shedd of Pittsburgh. Their guide for this portion of the trip was Walter Beatty who, Bonney notes, "doubled for Jack Holt in 'Heritage of the Desert,’ and raced his horse down the Wiggles" (Bonney would appear to have the wrong title here: it was The Vanishing Pioneers of 1928 that was shot in Zion, starring Jack Holt).

On his way from Zion to the Grand Canyon, Bonney visits Kaibob National Forest, "the largest and most beautiful virgin forest in the United States," represented by eight photographs, including a real photo postcard for Jacob Lake, Arizona, "Home of the White Tail Squirrel." Bonney's arrival at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is marked by a sheet of Grand Canyon Lodge letterhead, followed by a series of well-annotated photos picturing subjects on the north side of the Canyon. Bonney's first extended trip is to the South Rim on donkeys with the guide "Slick." A number of photos in this section were "taken by Miss Staff of Detroit, whom I met with her brother and accompanied on the Trail from Phantom Ranch to Kolb's Studio on the South Rim." Included here are images of Phantom Lodge and vicinity, a stop at Donkey Springs (where they discover fossils), the Tonto Plateau, Indian gardens (where Bonney is shown taking "a couple of pulls on the old pipe after luncheon"), and a large image of Bonney, the Staffs, and Slick, taken at Kolb's Studio at the end of their excursion. In a long, interesting note he records that "pilot Thornburg flew me back to the north rim the next day."

The next series of photos begins with a souvenir ticket for a Grand Canyon Airline flight, dated 8-1-32, "To Oraibi to see the Hopi Indians"—"A glorious trip—But it cost money! It was worth it!" He undertakes this trip with Miss Stidd and Miss Wood, apparently having flown to the north rim to pick them up, and flies over the Canyon twice. Two shots taken from the plane are included, as well as a number of images of the plane on the ground with various members of the party standing nearby, including one with "Frank," a Navajo Silversmith. Various photos taken on the Oraibi Mesa are included, one with the Chief of Oraibi, who charges the visitors $5 for him to dress-up in his headdress and gown. Bonney comments in passing, "the Hopis are not a warring people—the Sioux Headdress is for photographers' use only." At the Oraibi store on the Mesa his lady friends pose with Hopi children for a few pennies: "Phew! What a stench inside! It resembled somewhat a typical Italian 'general store'—but smelled worse." At one point he sees a "native, entirely in the nude, scurry up the steps to his house when he spied us." Bonney and co. fly back to the North Rim airport, and he subsequently embarks on his final outing—a twenty-mile horseback ride to Point Imperial, accompanied only by "Kit" Carson, who is Chief Guide and Wrangler for the Harvey Co.

Bonney fondly calls Kit "an incomparable companion for such a glorious trip." This wonderful series of images includes one striking photo showing Bonney silhouetted against a Canyon backdrop, wearing a cowboy hat and chaps, and gazing out on the canyon. He remarks: "Dolling me up in this outfit was 'Kit's' idea—not so bad, eh?" A number of fine shots of Kit are included; one taken at the end of their trip features him posing in his car. Bonney mentions that Kit served as polar explorer Lincoln Ellsworth's guide around the Grand Canyon multiple times and "liked Ellsworth very much." During their trip to Point Imperial, Bonney finds "some specimens of obsidian here which had probably been packed out of the Canyon by Indians many years ago for use as arrow and spear heads, beads, etc." Concluding their trip, they reach the Wranglers' Headquarters where Bonney spends the night in a Deluxe Cabin. One charming photo taken upon Bonney and co.'s departure in early August shows a throng of people singing two songs Ms. Wood and Ms. Stidd composed—one of them "Canyon Days" to the tune of "Jingle Bells." A final shot of the Arizona plains features the caption, "The Prismatic Plains. On the way home—the last picture."

There are photo credits for many of the images throughout the album. Some were taken by Bonney himself, some by the aforementioned Miss Staff, and others by Miss. Wood, J. S. Shedd, and the commercial photographic firm Frashers Foto of Pomona, CA. Color postcards with accompanying inscriptions occupy the final third of the album, the majority of which reproduce paintings by the Swedish American artist Gunnar Widforss, whom Bonney calls "the only painter of prominence at the Grand Canyon in 1932."

Laid into the album is a manuscript letter dated January 7, 1935 from Kit (signed L. H. Carson) to Bonney in New Jersey, accompanied by four photos. Writing from Kingman, Arizona, Kit says he has been intending to write Bonney for a long time but has been busy "moving around so much." He notifies Bonney that he has received the book he sent and tells him he has "read it several times." Having left the Grand Canyon in the autumn following Bonney’s visit (three years previous), Kit notes that he has been working on a ranch until recently. Having purchased "a little bunch of cattle" he is "trying to make a go of it” and doesn’t know how he “will make out as they are making a lot of new laws in regard to the Range." He relates that the Lodge at the North Rim burnt down and encloses three striking photos of the ruins. The fourth photo shows Kit chopping wood and wearing his signature cowboy hat. In closing, he urges Bonney to come to stay with him if he ever ventures out his way. This intimate letter testifies, of course, to the strong rapport the men developed during Bonney's trip to the Grand Canyon.

Ellwood P. Bonney (1897–1986) was an amateur historian and an early collector of the photographs of William Henry Jackson, as well as other Jackson-related materials. Born in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, Bonney attended Franklin & Marshal College for three years and subsequently worked as a clerk for the Erie Lackawanna Railroad (another source identifies him as a railroad executive). Bonney eventually moved to New Jersey: the letter from Kit was sent to an East Orange address, and other evidence locates Bonney in Madison. In any case, in the 1920s, when his brother contracted tuberculosis, he brought him to Arizona for his health—a trip that apparently inspired Bonney’s love affair with the American west. He returned to Arizona in 1932, as documented in the album offered here, and that same year made the acquaintance of William Henry Jackson through the Explorer’s Club, apparently befriending Frederick Dellenbaugh around the same time. Both men were present at Bonney’s wedding in 1934. Bonney spent much time with Jackson and kept a journal of their extensive conversations, which was published by the University Press of Colorado in 2001, under the title William Henry Jackson: An Intimate Portrait, The Elwood P. Bonney Journal, edited by Lloyd Gundy.

All in all, a fabulous photo album documenting in considerable detail a thrilling and unforgettable visit to one of the world's most remarkable and sublime natural wonders.

REFERENCES: Frederick S. Dellenbaugh/Elwood P. Bonney Collection, May 1931–Nov. 1935, Oct. 1938, Nov. 1942, and 1960–1981 at www.azarchivesonline.org; Review of William Henry Jackson: An Intimate Portrait, The Elwood P. Bonney Journal in Western Historical Quarterly, Spring 2002, p. 88.

CONDITION: Spine perished, most photos and postcards with tape stains at edges, but with little to no effect on images, back cover separating.