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Historical Site 104 - Wright Bar Wright Bar is located on the right bank of the Colorado River between mile 24 and mile 25. 1 and consists of a rocky bench at the foot of the cliff below which, in the lower half of the bar there is a sandy terrace. During low water a sand bar forms which may extend entirely around the bar. It is believed that the broad delta one finds now at the mouth of Navajo Creek may be a fairly recent development which has pushed the river over against the right bank at Wright Bar and altered the sand bar pattern there. The Domínguez-Escalante party spent the night of November 4, 1776 on the rocky terrace at the foot of a very rough trail coming down from the rim at the head of the bar (see Chapter I, the Domínguez-Escalante expedition). Two members of the party managed to cross the river and go up Navajo Creek a distance but judged that its canyon was not passable, and so the explorers went on upstream to the Crossing of the Fathers (Historical site 9). During the Glen Canyon gold rush the bar was staked by a group on November 15, 1892. Among the locators were L. C. Wright and G. W. Wright after whom the bar was probably named. Wright Bar is one of the few places in Glen Canyon where placer mining is carried out on the low water sand bars. There is practically no gravel overlay on the rocky terrace and there is no indication of mining on the sand terrace though a number of mineral claim stakes were noted on both (Crampton 1959, Fig. 43). No record has been found of any extensive mining activity in 1892 or afterward at Wright Bar but it is frequently mentioned in the literature of the canyon. Bert Loper, miner and later famous river man, stopped here February 1-4, 1908 on his first trip up the river, and prospected the bar and said that he found good colors, as good as he had ever found on the Colorado. During his stay on the bar Loper domiciled himself in a shallow cave at the upper end at the base of the sandstone bench about mile 25. There he wrote his name (it appears twice) and the date "2-2-08" on the wall with those of others who had been there before him: G. M. Wright, Nove 13, 1892; E. Mesken, 10 AP 1892; Thompson Feb 22? 1901; and others whose names have become illegible. Later names and some without date are: George Franklin; Helberger [?] ; A. G. Turner, 1896 to 1912; Kolb Bros 1911 1921 1923 1928; Pat Powell 10-17-21; W. Louis Johnson 1928; and the names of several late river parties. The names on the cave walls are incised and written in charcoal. There are also on the walls of the cave a few petroglyphs representing wild sheep. 89Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 14,104,576 byte