“Contents,” Ensign, Aug. 1975, 1
Ensign
August 1975
Volume 5 Number 8
On the cover: Left, top row: device from the Korean flag; Filipino water buffalo; Korean temple dragon; traditional Korean house; Japanese sister, Sachiko Hotta. Bottom row: Korean in traditional dress; map of countries involved in Far East Area Conference; torii gate with device from the Japanese flag; young Brother Mei of Taiwan; devices from the flags of Taiwan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong; Hong Kong junk.
Inside back cover: Hole in the Rock. Painting by Farrell R. Collett. Seeking access to the San Juan Valley in southeastern Utah in 1879, Mormon road scouts (Andrew Schow and Reuben Collett, the artist’s grandfather) spotted a huge crevice in the 2,000-foot rock wall of the Colorado River, near the base of Fifty Mile Mountain. They sent word to the Saints that they could get their wagons down through this hole with comparative ease, and then across the river and be on their way.
Pioneers arriving in the area did not share this optimism. When winter snows made it impossible to retreat, however, they agreed to try.
After lowering men over the edge of the narrow crevice by ropes in half-barrels, they succeeded, with hand drills and blasting powder, in widening the big crack so that a wagon could scrape through. Widening the crevice and clearing the rocky slopes below took the pioneers six weeks in bitterly cold weather.
On January 26, 1880, facing a perilous 45-degree angle of descent with hind wheels rough-locked and some 20 men and boys holding it back with ropes and hands, the first wagon was driven down. Another 80 wagons followed within the next two or three days; 250 men, women, and children either rode or slid down on foot. A thousand head of cattle and horses were then crowded through the narrow gorge. This passage served as a major access to the area for a year.
The artist, Farrell R. Collett, has been a professor of art at Weber State College in Ogden, Utah, for 36 years. He serves as seventies quorum teacher in the 70th Ward, Ogden Utah Weber Stake. The painting hangs in the Pioneer Memorial Building, Salt Lake City, and is used by permission of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.