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Show 174 can do and how we can live ... When you have a particular group depriving you and your family and your conununity ofa living, then something has to be done." 539 The group complained of"harassmcnt of local cattlemen by hikers and conservationists" and suggested carrying guns and defacing Indian ruins before tourists could get to them. Rampton empathized with the residents: "People are trying to make the area where you make your living one big playground.',5 40 Whereas visitors had been seen as a boon during the establishment of Zion, tourism was now perceived as a threat. Two years earlier, a letter to 1he editor in The New York Times illustrated this frustration from the perspective of a tourist: Readers whose vacation itineraries this summer may include southern Utah might appreciate a timely warning gleaned from the unfortunate experience I had there recently. While in the area of Escalante, my car was vandalized and robbed. A businesswoman in town assured me, with smug satisfaction, that I had been so victimized because my car carried the sticker of a national conservation group. Anyone traveling in southern Utah is well advised to remove or hide anything identifying him as a conservationist, for he is persona non grata with those vocal locals who have whipped up feeling against a conservationist proposal.. Although the area in question is in the public domain, local interests arc accustomed to using it as though it were a private bailiwick. 54 1 The letter was accompanied by an editor's noic that the information had been forwarded to a "newspaperman" in Utah "with the request that he investigate the controversy in Escalante and its possible effects on visitors." The Utah journalist's findings were also printed. The conclusion: "Miss Williamson inadvertently found herself caught up in a m lbid. S'O lbid. l 'l Nancy E. Williamson, letter to the editor, New York Times , August 3, 1969, 3. |
