1911

Ellsworth and Emery Kolb were photographers with a studio on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. They wanted to make a complete photographic record of the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers, and thus decided to run the rivers themselves.

Arriving in Green River, Wyoming in early September 1911, the Kolbs brought a relatively new invention with them - a movie camera. They were to take the first moving pictures of the rivers and canyons.

Ellsworth Kolb later recorded the town's reception of their plan, "The whole of Green River City, it seemed, had learned of our project, and came to inspect, or advise, or jeer at us. The kindest of them wished us well; the other sort told us 'it would serve us right'; but none of our callers had any encouragement. Many were the stories of disaster and death with which they entertained us."

The Kolbs' boat soon arrived on the Union pacific railroad. With the arrival of James Fagin, a young man from San Francisco hired to help the brothers with their camp gear, the expedition launched on September 9th, 1911.

The brothers made it all the way to the Gulf of California without incident. They returned to their photo studio and lived at the Grand Canyon until they died in the 1970's.

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Show me all markers in:  Green River, WY  |  Sweetwater County  |  82935  |  Wyoming  |  United States of America

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