The People

It took over 1000 pounds of photographic equipment hauled halfway across the continent by horse, boat, and sweat for John Wesley Powell’s 1872 Expedition (including his photographer, John Hillers) to document the story of a people who should have never survived there in North America’s desert southwest – the Southern Paiute Tribes.

Now the untold story of how the Paiutes helped insure Powell’s success comes to life in this new one-of-a-kind book (including all 116 original photographs – 90% never seen before outside the exhibit).

"If you are one of the 215 million people from all over the world who have visited the Grand Canyon since February 26, 1919, when it was established as a National Park, you will understand my feelings standing for the first time on the North Rim’s trail to Bright Angel Point. Seeing the canyon walls fall away 5,000 feet on either side of the trail, I felt as I might when jumping out of an airplane. It is a view so overwhelmingly enormous that my fear of heights overcame me and I never made it all the way out to the point itself. I felt as small, insignificant, and exposed as if I had been in a life raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I had no idea that two days later, I would be standing in front of nearly 150-year-old photographs of a people who had successfully lived in this Plateau Province for hundreds of years-a people, the Southern Paiute tribes, I had never heard of, a photographic history I had never seen, a collection that needed to be preserved, and a story that needed to be told.

Just as a “chance” encounter with John Wesley Powell gave John K. Hillers the opportunity to become Powell’s expedition photographer and take the 116 photos, my “chance” encounter with Paul and Susan Bingham led to my opportunity to preserve them in this book.

Numerous books, articles, and scholarly studies have been made of John Wesley Powell, and, to some extent, photographer John K. Hillers. This book draws upon some of those studies and on Powell and Hillers’ observations. The scope is confined to the period in which the photographs were taken, and is meant to provide context for the photographs.

Some of the photographs in this book have been used to illustrate other books. All of them are in the public domain. But the Binghams estimate that 90% have not been seen, outside the museum, and the entire collection has never been seen in book form. The only other complete collection of these photographs is owned by the Smithsonian Institution.

If you are someone who has had the good fortune to discover this collection and personally view it, this book gives you a chance to dig deeper, explore more completely, and discover more fully, the stories behind the people in the photographs. If you are someone for whom Mount Carmel, Utah, is as remote now as the Grand Canyon was in 1872, this book gives you that same opportu...