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Show UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY “Great Stone Face,” “Guardian of the Desert,” and “Keeper of the Desert.”62 Beckwith also played an important role in exploring and naming landforms in the area around what is today Arches National Park. Local residents of Grand County had explored the beautiful rock formations for many years, and as early as 1917, Delicate Arch was featured on the front page of the local newspaper and heralded as “Scenic Wonder Near Moab.” The potential for tourism in the area was soon evident, and eventually led to President Herbert Hoover signing an executive order creating Arches National Monument on April 12, 1929. In 1933-34, an official expedition was organized and sent into the Arches to prepare a map of the area and to conduct an official archaeological investigation of the new monument.63 Due to his knowledge and experience as a geologist, explorer, and historian of the area, Frank A. Beckwith was selected as the expedition’s leader. Along with about fifteen trained scientists and assistants, Beckwith surveyed the area, and the group named and renamed many of the landforms. Frank Beckwith is credited with naming Landscape Arch. By the end of March 1934, the team had completed their work for less than ten thousand dollars. Beckwith followed up the expedition by publishing an official report, and he “also wrote several articles publicizing the area. Maps and a geologic survey were also published as a result of the expedition.”64 After traveling so extensively, and studying the archaeology, geology, and history of mid-Utah so thoroughly, Beckwith decided to write a guide to the area entitled Trips to Points of Interest in Millard and Nearby. For this book, he “drew materials from his large library of scientific works, sorted it, removed the technical terms, and gave the boys a presentation very readable, highly informative, and entertaining.”65 Beckwith dedicated the book to the Boy Scouts of Millard County, whom he had accompanied on many trips into the desert and given many talks on astronomy, because he felt that “The Boy Scouts are taught to do a ‘good turn.’—Well here’s a ‘good turn’ done to them.”66 The Boy Scouts sold the guidebook door to door, and all proceeds went to support their activities. The publication remained a popular guide for the local people and for visitors to the area for many years. As is probably quite clear by now, Frank Beckwith was a prolific writer. Besides his hundreds of editorials for the Chronicle, his articles on petroglyphs and trilobites, and his books on Indian Joe and places to see in Millard County, Beckwith also published articles relating to banking in Journal of the American Bankers Association, Inter-mountain Banker, and Coast Banking. He 62 Frank A. Beckwith, Trips to Points of Interest in Millard and Nearby (Springville: Art City Publishing, 1947), 4; “Does the Great Stone Face Really Resemble the Prophet Joseph?,” Deseret News, May 9, 2010. 63 Richard A. Firmage. History of Grand County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Grand County Commission), 1996, 270. 64 Ibid. 65 Frank A. Beckwith, Trips to Points of Interest, 4. 66 Ibid.; For his contribution to the Boy Scouts of America, Beckwith was presented with their Honorary Tenderfoot Badge by President George Albert Smith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints at a ceremony in Salt Lake City. 184 |
