Page 90

The cave is often referred to as "Loper's Cave". There are other caves at the site, above the rock bench about mile 24.5, which have been used as campsites. The name "G. Wright 1893" appears on the wall of Outlaw Cave (Historical site 21). The Kolb brothers did not stop here in 1911 but they, probably, added the inscription later (see Kolb's account of the 1911 voyage published in 1914). Julius F. Stone (1932, 4) noted while he was at Lee's Ferry, October 28, 1909, that four men came in from Searchlight, Nevada, that day enroute to Wright's Bar, 25 miles upstream. There was a flurry of activity up and down the river when the American Placer Corporation began to stake out the countryside about Lee's Ferry and in 1910 a group located the "Wright Sand Bar Mining Claim" but the scope of mining to follow, if any, has not been determined. Actually, the operations at Lee's Ferry by the American Placer Corporation mark the end of extensive gold mining in Glen Canyon. New interests later developed-copper and petroleum - but these did not affect the lower canyon. There was a revival of gold mining during the Great Depression under conditions reminiscent of the Panic of 1893, which had accelerated the Glen Canyon gold rush, but fewer men were attracted to this difficult placer ground. Wright Bar appears to have been the last significant mining site above Lee's Ferry. There were a few places where prospecting occurred, such as the right bank above Wahweap Creek (Hunt et al. 1953,221), but these were desultory workings and inconsequential. At the extreme lower end of Wright Bar, at mile 24. 1 there is a magnificent 50 ft. panel of petroglyphs on the cliff wall a few yards from the river. Historical site 21-Outlaw Cave Outlaw, or Galloway, Cave is located at mile 17. 4 on the right bank. It is a "royal arch" cave about 80 ft. long, about 25 ft. deep, some 30 ft. from the river bank and about 10 ft. above the high water mark (Crampton 1959, Fig. 48). The cave is a natural camping place and has been used by travelers on the river even before 1894, when Nathaniel Galloway, well known prospector, trapper, and boatman, visited the spot. 90Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 14,479,360 byte