My Younger Years In Page, Arizona

My Younger Years In Page, Arizona

Then Now

Everyone has their favorite place that they grew up at. Of all the places that I lived in, Page, Arizona was my favorite. Page is located in northeastern Arizona, not to far from the Utah state line. Its located right in the middle of the enchanted circle as they call it. Grand Canyon on one side, Monument Valley, not too far away. And many other interesting sites. Page is also in the middle of the Navajo Indian Reservation.

My dad landed a job with the Sheriff Dept as a deputy on the Glen Canyon Dam site. This was in the summer of 1958. He worked guarding the new bridge they just put across the Canyon. They didn’t have any apartments yet, when he first moved up to Page from Phoenix. My mother, and I and my brother stayed in Phoenix until the spring of 1960, when he found us a place to live in Page. He found a apartment in the Marrah, Chapman & Scott apartment complex. We lived in a two bedroom apartment, with my brother and I sharing a bedroom.

When we were first coming into Page, at the foot of the mesa, from the main highway, I didn’t think there was much to the town, because you couldn’t see it from the main highway. We climbed the road into Page from the west and went along church roll and was amazed at how big the mesa was and how big the town really was. There were a few stores and I could see the school to the left, one that they just built for the children of the construction workers.

In the fall of 1960, we enrolled in school in Page. I started my 7th grade, and my brother was in the 9th grade. I went to Page Jr. High school, through the 9th grade. I remember being initiated into High School then. We had to wear a big diaper to school for one or two days. Then the Seniors sent all of us Freshmen to the gym, the girls too, and made us eat raw eggs. Some of the girls ended up with raw eggs in their hair. The Seniors blindfolded some of the Freshmen and made them eat raw spaghetti, telling them it was worms. Gee that was fun.

We went to the First Baptist Church on church roll there. It was the last one on end of the roll, before you got into town.

Page had the worlds largest trailer court. Over 4,000 trailers in it. They were starting construction on houses for the government workers. It was a thriving little town while the construction of the dam was going on.

My favorite past time while I lived in Page, was going out into the desert just southeast of town, just beyond the airfield and going out there and playing. There was a cave in the side of the cliffs, that we made hand holds to get up to. It was about twenty feet from the bottom of the mesa to the cave. Some of my friends and I would just go out that way on hikes.

I joined the boy scouts and we made several camping trips to other mesa’s outside of Page. We hiked there and hiked back after we camped overnight.

In the picture is me on the left, my brother, and two neighbor boys.

One year we hiked the Grand Canyon. The first year just one side of the Canyon, from the Bright Angel Trail to the Kiabab Trail,just on the south rim of the Canyon. The second year we hiked from rim to rim, starting at the North rim first to the South rim, which was a fourteen mile hike. The north rim was all forest and the south rim was all desert. Going down the North rim was easy, just the climb back out of the canyon on the South rim was tiring and hot. You had to climb up switch back trails, that wore you out. We camped both times at the bottom of the Canyon at Phantom Ranch, at the camping grounds near the Colorado River.

This is me after I just hiked the Grand Canyon.

During one of the years I was there, they made the movie ‘Greatest Story Ever Told’. That was a big event for everyone in town. Alot of the local people were extras in the movie. The movie set was just north of Page along the Colorado. We took a trip along the river and seen the set.

One of the favorite spots we use to visit was the Crossing of the Fathers, just northeast of Page. It was where the Mormons crossed the river, and had to pull there wagons and horses up the side of the cliff at the river edge. Its now under water.

When I first got to Page, they had just finished the bridge across the canyon, and just had the coffer dam in. My dad guarded the bridge, and we use to go down to where he worked at and he would let us walk across the swinging foot bridge. You could look down through the metal grading and see the bottom of the canyon 700 feet down. It swayed in the slightest breeze.

Dad told us that when he first got there in August 1958, they had a accident. One of the high scalars that were drilling holes in the canyon walls fell to his death to the bottom of the canyon. The rocks gave way, that his cables were hook to, and caused him to fall. That was the sixth or seventh death involving the work on the canyon that year.

Later on, Dad was transferred to guarding the excess tunnel down into the canyon. He had his own metal shack that he stood guard at, and when there was no traffic going into the canyon, he would feed the big rock squirrels that would come over and visit his guard shack. He would reach down and feed them nuts or something out of his hand. I was there one day and watched him feed them. They would come across the road from the rocks, and cautiously come into the guard shack and snatch up what food he had and skimpier across the road again, over to the rocks and eat what they had.

When we lived in Page, my brother and I use to deliver the Phoenix Gazette, and the Page Signal. I would deliver in the large trailer park, while my brother had a paper route in the Government homes.

Behind the MC&S apartments was a 7-11 and the second year or so we lived there, they finally built a Diary Queen and we use to spend our hard earned paper money at the Diary Queen buying sodas and ice cream cones. Then a movie theater went in, and we would sneak over to it and go in and watch the movie that was showing that day.

Just west of town on the lower part of the mesa before you got into town they put in a radio station. The first one, and everyone could listen to music and hear the news. My brother and I use to ride our bikes up that gravel road to the stations tower and do some rock climbing near there.

We use to drive up to the new western movie site just about 35 miles north of Page on the main Highway. Several western's were made there also an old townsite set just about a mile toward the river, where early settlers built some homes there.

Another past time was going toward the dam and go into the canyon where you could hike all the way down to the bottom of the canyon. There you could swim in the muddy Colorado, or fish, or whatever you found to do that day.

On a Sunday, dad would drive us over to Marble Canyon, that was about 40 miles to the south of Page on the main highway. We would have a picnic, and me and my brother would do some fishing there in the Colorado River.

My mother use to babysit two little girls all of the time. Their parents were x-ray techs at the local hospital there. Their names were Sandy and Sharon Altman. When it snowed there in Page they would play out in the yard in it.

There was no local law in the city, and they had to depend on the county sheriff for law enforcement. Page had a small volunteer fire department in case your home burned down.

We lived in Page, until the spring of 1963, when the dam was almost finished, and they were installing the power plant in the bottom of the dam. We moved from beautiful Page to the crowded city of Dallas, Texas. My brother was disappointed, because he wanted to finish his High School in Page, he only had one more year to go. He went into the Navy after his High School year was over.

After a family reunion in June of 1998, I left Reno, Nevada, and drove down through Las Vegas, Nevada, and from there down to Phoenix, Arizona. Then I drove the 300 miles up to Page, AZ. I wanted to go back to one of my old growing up places. I wanted to go back to Page, Arizona and see how it had changed since I left the area in the summer of 1963 after my 9th grade. They were building the Glen Canyon Dam when I was there. They started from bedrock and up, first putting the bridge across the canyon. I went back to my old High School that I had attended. It was about the same but they had added some more buildings to it. The church row was still the same. The apartments that I once lived in, were made into small motels. Each unit was a separate motel. I went toward Walweap, which is a Marina at the Lake. Well, they had installed a toll booth there and you had to pay to get down to the Lodge area. I toured the dam and went to the bottom of it. I saw the big turbines that were installed to provide electricity for Page and other areas in Arizona. These turbines were installed after I left Page. I walked down to the lakes edge, where it used to be a canyon when I was there, 700 feet down. There were buildings and stores in Page, where there was just a desert field that I use to walk out into. Page had turned into a tourist town. There were a couple of hotels that were just built and not opened yet. I went down to the access tunnel where dad had his guard shack, and the scenery was the same, but they had a fence up where the access tunnel was. I drove over to a sight, about 35 miles north of Page, called Parrie Townsite. This townsite was in the State of Utah. We used to go there all of the time. It has an old western movie set, just before you get to the townsite. The buildings were run down now, and some of them were missing. There is also a camping site next to the movie set. The townsite itself used to have buildings also, but they moved them because the area flooded, and ruined the buildings. It was an old settlement town in the mid 1800's, along the Colorado River area. It has an old grave yard dating back to the mid 1800's. The landscape around Page never changed, it's still the same as it was when I was living there. Page has a Police Department now and a Volunteer Fire Department, which it didn’t have when I was living there. Somedays I wish I had gone back to Page to find work after I left the service. It's still part of my life.