Barely visible on the canyon rim are the ruins of a cableworks from the early 1900s. Mormon pioneers in the Zion area needed lumber for construction, but the good timber - ponderosa pine - was out of reach on the mesa above. Settlers had to haul lumber by wagon from as far away as Arizona's Kaibab Forest, a two-week trip.

In 1900 Springdale resident David Flanigan began looping 50,000 feet of telegraph wire through a series of drums and pulleys in the cableworks above and down to a second framework on the mound behind you.

When the cable system was completed, boards could travel down from the clifftop in 2½ minutes - not two weeks. With the cable operation modern building began in Zion. The park's original lodge and cabins, and many of the buildings in Springdale, made use of lumber lowered from the canyon rim.

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Show me all markers in:  Springdale, UT  |  Washington County  |  84767  |  Utah  |  United States of America

Zion Mt. Carmel Tunnel and Highway, Utah
Original Inhabitants / Living Traditions
Westward Expansion
Birth of a Park
Promised Land
Discovery of Zion Canyon
Rockville Bridge
The Historic Dixie-Long Valley, Utah Pioneer Trail
Settlement of Long Valley and Mt. Carmel / Dr. Priddy Meeks
Isaac Behunin

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