Signature Rocks tell stories of the Honeymoon Trail

JACOB LAKE, Ariz. — Graffiti is frowned upon these days by most people, and it’s against the law in most places.

But a few generations ago, it was a common way for pioneers to mark their travels. Over time, those inscriptions have come to be valued for the link they create to the history of the Old West.

An exceptional example of this is found in a secret place near the Utah-Arizona border along a route that is remembered in history as the Honeymoon Trail.

These days, the old trail is largely buried under gravel roads or modern pavement. But if a traveler gets off the main highways and knows where to look, it’s still possible to see remnants of the historic trail.

“You can see the old wagon tracks where they came right up through here,” said John Rich, of Jacob Lake, Ariz., as he pointed to a dusty pathway through the sagebrush. “This is part of the old Honeymoon Trail.”

Rich escorted a reporter to a place called Signature Rocks. It’s on private land near the Utah-Arizona border. The property owner gave permission for the visit on condition that its exact location not be publicized.

Rich pointed out a signature on a cliff that is dated 1883. As he hiked further up a canyon, many more names came into view. Some were carved into the cliff. Others were apparently written on the rocks with axle grease.

“A. Johnson, March 17, 1876,” Rich said, reading aloud one of the signatures.

Nearby there was evidence of tragedy on the trail. A well-tended grave is marked “May Whiting, 1862-1882.” According to local lore, she died at age 20 of an unknown sickness as her parents desperately took her by wagon back to Utah for medical attention.

But much of the story here is a happy one. That’s the story of the Honeymoon Trail.

Many of the signatures are dated 1876, the year Brigham Young sent a wagon train of Mormons from the Salt Lake area to settle in northern Arizona. Many of them stopped at Signature Rocks because there was a spring providing good drinking water. Many wrote their names on the rocks before proceeding south to found several Arizona communities such as Snowflake, Woodruff and Sunset.

As Mormon children reached marriage age in Arizona, though, they had a geographic problem.

“They believed that the only way you could have an eternal marriage would be to have that marriage solemnized in a temple,” Rich said.

For that, they had to hit the trail in wagons and travel hundreds of miles back to Utah. Crossing the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry, they journeyed on to the temple in St. George. It was completed in 1877.

“That was the closest temple anywhere in the area,” Rich said. “And they would get married in St. George and then go on back.”

Former National Park Service historian Allen Malmquist says the wedding parties typically spent the winter in St. George before completing the round-trip.

“This whole thing was a honeymoon,” he said. “And I’ve always thought that for most of these pioneers, this was their only vacation.”

Far from being an ordeal, Malmquist said he believes the wedding parties viewed it as a wonderful adventure.

“It was definitely fun,” he said. “It was something they looked forward to and something that they talked about and wrote about in their journals for the rest of their life.”

“They’d save for years, a lot of times, to be able to make that trip,” Rich said. “They had to get their farms in a condition that they could leave them for long enough to go and be married. It was a major undertaking for them.”

On the stretch of trail near Signature Rocks, the Honeymoon Trail was also known as the Arizona Road. It was the main route between Salt Lake City and northern Arizona. Those travelers moving to Arizona may account for most of the signatures.

But Rich likes to believe that some inscriptions were made by happy wedding parties eager to leave their history written on the rocks.

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