Historic Lee's Ferry In The Rearview

 March 12, 2025

   Nothing makes me much happier than when something from the past reverberates across the ages and resonates into my life in the present.

   In the next issue of True West we are featuring a rare photo of Buffalo Bill at Lee's Ferry in 1894. This will be in our coveted Opening Shot department, where readers can take time to look at the minute details of an old photograph, printed extra large—across two pages—so you can really dive in and savor the details.

That's Bill in the Checked Vest

   For my editorial I thought it might be fun to revisit my own first experience at the historic site back when I joined an expedition as a cartoonist-journalist at New Times Weekly. I was assigned to cover The 1982 Recession Artists River Trip put on by two Phoenix College art professors, Merrill and Jeanne Mahaffey. The ten day trip down the Colorado River and into the Grand Canyon National Park was a crazy adventure and, of course, I took a ton of photos, but, I'll be damned if I can find them now! So I reached out to the Mahaffeys and they couldn't locate theirs either. Finally, when I was about to give up I got an email from Jeanne with the name of a photographer on the trip, James Cowlin. I called him and after catching up on the last forty-plus years, he sent me this:

Same Cliffs 88 years later
Photo by James Cowlin

    Yes, we are on the same shore Buffalo Bill's crew were approaching only we were loading the most important ingredient for our trip and that is beer. That is a big stack of the stuff on the nearest boat and the other one was stacked sky high with the stuff as well. I seem to remember we brought 22 cases of beer. Priorities, Man.

   I asked Jeanne if she could ID anyone in the photo and to give us a bit of the back story. . .

  "Around 1974 when Merrill and I first started dating, we took some students from Phoenix College up to the First Grand Canyon Paint-Off.  we painted from the south Rim and a park ranger did the judging at camp.  After Merrill started to seriously paint the canyon and was commissioned to do the large 'Ultimate Landscape' for Terminal 3 at Sky Harbor, our lawyer suggested we join one of his yearly trips down the river.  (He retired after 51 consecutive trips.  I produced a video of his adventures several years ago which premiered at the Historical Society.) I think Merrill and I did several more trips before we decided to ask some artist friends to join us. Ted Hatch agreed to accept half the cost in art and the show was exhibited in several places starting at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. As for the photo, you are right about Billy Ellwanger, the head boatman (standing in the nearest boat) and Merrill (in the baseball cap, foreground). At the bottom left is Karl Dowhie, a former student of Merrill.  Above him is William La Jeunesse who since is an international reporter for Fox News with a questionable reputation!  He lost his plate and utensils early on and had to eat his meals with a spoon and a tin can. Most nights he simply dropped down and slept on the sand. I see Wilma Parker who is an artist from San Francisco and showed at Suzanne Brown along with Genevieve Reckling and Anne Taylor. We all met down at Lee's Ferry the night before the trip and painted the boat."

—Jeanne Mahaffey

   Yes, I am somewhere in this photo loading my gear and no doubt intersecting with the ghost of John D. Lee. You know normally I like to walk where they walked, but, in this case, I was wading where they waded.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

—Mark Twain