The first time I saw Lonely Dell Ranch at Lee’s Ferry was at the end of a five-day backpack through Paria Canyon. It was a welcome sight, a green oasis among the red rocks. My fellow hikers and I sat at picnic tables in the shade of tall cottonwoods eating lunch and recalling the highlights of the adventure we had just completed.
John D. Lee was sent to this remote location (some say exiled) by Brigham Young in 1873 to establish a ferry across the Colorado River to transport Mormon pioneers between Utah and Arizona. Because it was so remote, Lee and his two wives had to be self-sufficient. They found the ideal place to settle just upstream from where the Paria River empties into the Colorado. They built cabins and set up an irrigation system to carry water from the Paria to their fields.
After Lee was arrested and executed in 1877 for his part in the Mountain Meadow massacre, the LDS church bought the rights to the ferry and ranch from his widow. From then until 1928 when Navajo Bridge was completed a succession of families lived at Lonely Dell and operated the ferry. They each added buildings to the ranch and tried, often in vain, to improve the irrigation system.
Today, Lonely Dell and Lee’s Ferry are a historic district in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. From the parking area a short walk leads past an orchard to the ranch entrance. Visitors are free to explore the grounds and, when a Ranger is present, see inside the historic cabins and other buildings. Or you could do as I did and make the forty-mile hike along the Paria River, a truly spectacular way to get there.
Lonely Dell Ranch at Lee’s Ferry
To find your way to Lonely Dell Ranch, go to the 89A: Bitter Springs to Kanab Trip Guide.
I grew up in Page, AZ which is 12 miles by river from Lonely Dell or about 6 miles as the crow flies. By Highway 89 and then Highway 89A it is about a 50-mile trip. We went to Lonely Dell Ranch many times, to cool down after fishing for trout at Lee’s Ferry. Back then the orchards were still producing peaches, plums, and apricots, and we would picnic in the shade under the big cottonwoods. One of my ancestors is buried there in the little cemetery. The Mormon pioneers in Arizona first settled in the Gila River Valley in Thatcher. The best cotton in the world is grown there. When they wanted to get married in the Temple, the closest one was in St George, Utah. They, along with family or chaperones, would travel by wagon over 500 miles to get “sealed” in the church. Towns along what was called “the Honeymoon Trail” were set up to cater to these travelers and provide room and board. One of these was a young man named Hyrum Brown and his bride. I never learned her name. They made it to the temple and were sealed. Somewhere along the way home he got cholera from bad drinking water and died there at Lonely Dell. The graves there are so old that you can barely read the names of the people at rest in that beautiful place. Back in the 60’s and 70’s you still could, and there were often flowers left on the graves of those hardy pioneers.
There are still remnants of the Honeymoon trail. It is registered as a Historical trail and you can still hike, ride horses or follow it in 4×4 vehicles. Most of it is lost to time, but from Fredonia, AZ across Buckskin Mountain, down through House Rock Valley, and then along the base of the Vermillion Cliffs, on to Lee’s Ferry and then down to Tuba City, AZ on the Navajo Reservation, the trail is still there. That trail is really the origins of Highway 89 through a large portion of Northern Arizona. It goes through much of the same route and there are historical markers along the way just off the road. Down along the Echo Cliffs near a place called Moenave, a Paiute community surrounded by the Navajo Nation, there is a place where many of those “Honeymooners” carved their names in what is called “Register Rock”. Moenave itself is a little-known place worth seeing too. Some Archaeologists think that this little village has been continuously inhabited longer than any place on earth, even Jericho. It may have been as long ago as 6000 years ago that the ancestors of the people living there found its springs and started living and farming there.