Roads and Resources of San Juan County Kenneth R. Bailey
In my early memories of road developments in San Juan County, I recall the first road cut through the Comb Reef west of Blanding by contractors Whiting and Haymond with Jim Wardle their superintendent. Western Mine Supply Company, which I then owned, leased them a compressor and they started from the top with the cut through Comb Reef. Difficulties with fractures and slides made it desirable to come up from the bottom some 300 yards away. Whiting and Haymond said they would keep renting this compressor if I would deliver it to the bottom of the Comb. This made it necessary to take the compressor to Blanding, over Elk Mountain, through the Bears Ears, then across a road just brushed out with a cat to the bottom of the Comb, a major undertaking in itself. Âť About this same time my partner, E. J. Hall, and I furnished the compressors, steel, bits, dynamite, and supplies for Nick and Felix Murphy of Moab, Utah, to put in the first road off the rim of Dead Horse Point down the Shaeffer Trail. Many roads in the county have been built by private and public financing to reach and extract the natural resources of San Juan County. Several are still being built for this purpose, and there is cooperation between agencies to build these roads to county road standards, after which the county takes over the maintenance. In years past there has been a superhuman effort made to develop water, roads, and private property in San Juan County. The development of natural resources and the rise in 259
