Norman Nevills: Whitewater Man of the West

Norman Nevills: Whitewater Man of the West

BY P. T. REILLY

NORMAN DAVIES NEVILLS WAS NOT THE FIRST commercial operator on the Colorado River and he was not a native of Utah, but he popularized the running of western Whitewater and made Mexican Hat, Utah, — population less than ten — the capital of the river runner's world during the 1940s.

David D. Rust had boated in Glen Canyon in connection with placer mining since 1897 but he did not begin cruising the river for pleasure and profit until 1921. He had a charter river business established before Nevills came to Utah, operating entirely in Glen Canyon. Nevills ran every major Whitewater river in the West and maintained commercial schedules on the San Juan and Colorado River through Grand Canyon. The Snake, Salmon, upper and lower Green, and Cataract Canyon were run occasionally as his customers desired. In 1940 he retraced Powell's entire route.

Nevills undoubtedly was controversial and made enemies of several authoritative persons who have placed considerable prejudiced material pertaining to him in various archives. However, since his untimely death in 1949, nothing of a significant nature has been written about him. This account attempts to bring a measure of objectivity to the record.

Born in Chico, California, April 9, 1908, to William Eugene and Mae Davies Nevills, Norman received nominal schooling in the Golden State. He was not trained for any specific field of endeavor, although he leaned toward dramatics during the spring term of 1926 at College of the Pacific. But fate already had decreed that his talents would flower elsewhere.

Billy Nevills, a prospector and oil wildcatter, came to Goodridge in 1921, drawn by the most recent of several minor oil booms. Norman and his mother joined him in December 1928, and the young man became work-hardened by the only activity available to him — oilfield roughnecking.

Even at best, exploring for oil in the San Juan oilfield was a start and-stop operation. Early wells were shallow, usually less than 600 feet, seeking synclinal pockets between the Rico and Hermosa formations. Wells were drilled progressively deeper during the 1920s, some down to 3,000 feet. At least a dozen companies tried their luck but the deeper wells turned out to be dry holes. By 1931 all activity ceased. Operations closed down and most of the workforce drifted away, but the Nevills family remained. Billy had faith that the shutdown was only temporary due to the depression and the country had a positive future. He hunkered down and waited in one of the most depressed corners of an economically prostrate nation.

For more than a decade conservationist groups had proposed that approximately 3,000 square miles encompassing Rainbow Bridge, Navajo Mountain, and Monument Valley be set aside as a national park. The idea gained momentum through the publicity generated by the Charles L. Bernheimer expeditions, 1919 through 1923, and the Nell M. Judd explorations. Both received national exposure by the National Geographic Magazine in February 1923 and March 1924. The expedition in January 1931 in which Pat M. Flattum and John Wetherill took an outboard powered boat up the ice-filled Colorado from Lee's Ferry to Hole-in-the-Rock was part of this effort. The men used the river road to visit the arch, and their backer, Frederic A. Stearns of Los Angeles, generated public interest through an article in the Pacific Mutual News in October. The Flattum- Wetherill jaunt added little significant information about the region but did increase pressure to investigate it.

Although nearly a dozen explorers, archaeologists, geologists, hydrologists, and engineers had done field work in certain parts of the tract, Ansel F. Hall claimed the region was so little known that it was impossible for the government to admit or deny the recommendation for national park status; this lack of knowledge was the incentive for an official survey of the region. Thus was born the Rainbow Bridge- Monument Valley Expedition of 1933.

Thorn L. Mayes, an Oakland engineer, devoted his 1929 vacation to exploring Monument Valley, made the acquaintance of the Nevills family, and obtained young Norman as a guide to the various places of interest. He used a Brunton pocket compass and the odometer of his car to map the locations of the impressive monoliths from the few primitive roads. He repeated this activity for the next three years, and was in charge of cartography when the prestigious survey took to the field in June. As a result of their previous association, Norman Nevills was a field assistant to Thorn Mayes. The job was an undisguised blessing for the Nevills family.

Since the area to be surveyed was undeveloped, budget was provided for an airplane, pack animals, and a fleet of seven ten-foot rowboats that could be folded flat when the transoms were removed. Made by the Wilson Fold-Flat Company of Los Angeles, the small boats were selected for their portability and were barely adequate for use on the San Juan and Colorado rivers. They were constructed of marine plywood, open, shaped like a sadiron, and wide of beam at the stern. They did not carry much payload but could provide access from the rivers to some tributaries that otherwise were inaccessible. The boats were used from Nokai Canyon forty-four miles to the Colorado and thence to Lee's Ferry.

At the survey's conclusion in mid-August Norm had a little money in his jeans, a wealth of experience, and had made some significant contacts. One was Ernest P. "Husky" Hunt, an erstwhile Stanford University coach and a member of the archaeological team. Hunt was smitten by the country and envied Nevills the opportunity of living where he did. When they disbanded he had Norm's address and resolved to gather some friends and return to investigate the desert river that coursed through this intriguing region. Although Norm had not participated in either the aerial or boating phases of the expedition, he was impressed by both and was overjoyed at being given one of the flat boats which had sustained some damage. Before the month was out, he and Bill Wood, another member of the mapping team, put the craft in the river at Mexican Hat Rock and ran 4.2 miles down to the beach above the bridge.

Convinced that Congress would approve the proposed national park and that the country was on the verge of a tourist boom, Billy and Norm with three Navajos began constructing a building that fall, intending it to serve both as a home and as a possible hostelry. Using native stone and timbers salvaged from various defunct oil-drilling ventures, they completed the structure in 1934. Bold, engraved letters identified it as "Nevills Mexican Hat Lodge."

John A. "Jack" Frost of the U.S. Geological Survey accompanied Norm and Doris on a twenty-one-mile run from Mexican Hat Rock to the Honaker Trail. Then on March 9, 1934, Jack's wife Nana joined the trio for a two-day run of sixty-seven miles to Copper Canyon on a low flow of 577 second feet. Here they were met by the Taylor boys of Oljato and driven home. The boats were abandoned.

The year 1934 proved to be one of record low runoff. Even in June — usually when the Colorado's drainage peaked — the San Juan was only a trickle of five second-feet. On July 5 the river went completely dry and remained so for the next ten days. This was not encouraging for a man thinking of exploiting the stream for a livelihood.

Husky Hunt's ambition to traverse the unknown river began to be realized when he convinced two friends, Jake Irwin and Charles Elkus, to accompany him on the venture. Nevills agreed to pilot them in his boat from Mexican Hat to Lee's Ferry for a fee of fifty dollars. The passengers mistakenly believed that their guide had made the trip previously, but the country below Copper Canyon was as strange to him as to his guests. The men did not think Nevills was serious when they saw the horse-trough contraption he intended to use, but he assured them it was river-worthy.

They shoved off March 24, 1936, to launch the Nevills commercial career. After the third day the passengers became painfully aware that they had something in common with the guide on which they had not counted — all were seeing the country for the first time. N.J. Taylor had agreed to meet them with his Ford truck at Lee's Ferry on March 31, but when they did not appear he spent the night with U.S. Geological Survey employee Frank Dodge. Taylor was apprehensive untfl the party landed the following morning. Dodge could not see why Norm bothered to haul the socafled boat back to the Hat.

Norm and Doris became parents on October 7, 1936, when their first child, a daughter whom they named Joan, was born.

Lack of finances and the continuing depression limited Norm's river running to the planning stage during the following year. He and LaPhene "Don" Harris — then gauging the river at Mexican Hat for the U.S. Geological Survey—projected a future trip through Cataract Canyon, but it was very tentative. As 1937 drew to a close. Dr. Elzada Clover, professor of botany at the University of Michigan, stopped at Mexican Hat to discuss a river trip on which botanical specimens would be collected. She was especially interested in the theory that some varieties of cacti might exist solely in the river canyons. At that time she did not have a grant, so finances would be tight. Norm had no established business that would allow him to contribute his talents in the interest of science; in fact, he didn't even have an outfit. Clearly their greatest need was an "angel" with venture capital, but they could get by if they found some passengers willing to pay in advance.

Norm found a customer in William C. Gibson, a photographer he had met in Monument Valley. Clover came up with W. E. Atkinson of Ann Arbor and Lois Jotter, a postgraduate student. The three passengers and Clover advanced $250 each to make the expedition possible, and Norm went into action.

His problems were enormous, his experience limited. He had no boats for big water nor boatmen to oar them. He needed a camp outfit, supplies, and a trailer to transport the boats if and when they were built. Doggedly he set about to pull himself up by his bootstraps.

Part of his problem was solved by Don Harris, who agreed to lend him $230, help build three boats for ownership of one, and to handle it on the expedition until his vacation expired. After that Harris would be reassigned and Norm would need another boatman.

Nevills generally is credited, even by his critics, as having made two major contributions to Whitewater boating. These supposedly were the use of marine plywood and the extreme breadth of beam. Although he was the first to use these improvements in the major rapids, he did not bring them to the Colorado drainage, and he made two other contributions that have not been recognized.

The Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition of 1933 used marine plywood and the sadiron-shaped, wide-beamed hull in the flat boats on the San Juan and in Glen Canyon. Norm borrowed these features when he made his proportionally larger cataract boats in 1938. The feature that he introduced—which made his boats the most maneuverable up to that time — was the extreme rake built into the craft's bottom and the unusually stout oars. A closer look at these improvements is justified.

Powell, Brown, Stanton, and Eddy used keeled lake boats that were not maneuverable in fast water and had little pivoting ability. In fact, the boating techniques of their parties ignored maneuverability. Flavell used an open, high-prowed, flat-bottomed skiff that might have been a dory, but no photographs or exact descriptions of it exist. The meager descriptions available say it was wide of beam, but rake is not mentioned. He sat on a box to row and — seaman that he was—knew that a prow attacked the waves better than a stern, so he reversed his rowing position to face both his bow and downstream. This was a major revolutionary step in Whitewater boating, although its impact would not be recognized for more than half a century.

Nathaniel Galloway is credited with introducing the stern-first technique to the Colorado drainage, which is true, but it was not as efficient as Flavell's practice. The Kolb boats were built to the Galloway design and contributed nothing new. The 1903 E. B. Woolley boat was so close to Galloway's design that it probably was developed as a near copy after he viewed it at Needles.

Nevills struck a deal with Harbor Plywood and obtained special mill-cut material so that bottoms, sides, and decks would be single pieces with no lapping or splicing. The bottoms were sheets of marine plywood 9/16" x 5 ' x 16', protected by 3/8" x 4" oak rubstrips that ran lengthwise. Bow blocks, internal ribs, and posts were solid oak. Everything was joined by cadmium-plated steel screws. No glue was used but caulking was. Fore and aft decks were flat, with hatch frames projecting 1 1/2" above the surface. Hatch covers were fastened with standard hardware hinges and refrigerator clasps. Billy Nevills advised while Norm and Don Harris built three boats from this design in the spring of 1938. The craft were painted white, the interior cockpits a utility green. Six-inch block letters in red—NEVILLS EXPEDITION — adorned both sides. The boats were identified on both sides of the bow: Wen (after W. E. Nevills), Botany, and Mexican Hat.

A recurring weakness of previous river expeditions was the routine breaking of oars. Norm had never before had the benefit of factory-made oars, having gotten by with road signs nailed to wooden handles. Now he ended his own frustrations and contributed a solution to the old problem by ordering special oars from a New York firm, DeGrauw, Aymar & Company. He had 12-foot sweeps shortened to 8 1/2 feet. The 2 1/2 -inch diameter of the longer sweeps was left intact to provide heavier than normal looms. New hand grips were turned, and he had a sturdier oar than had ever been used on the Colorado. As far as is known, no Nevills oarsman ever broke one in normal use, although they were broken in prying.

The party left Green River, Utah, at 9 A.M. June 20, 1938, on a flow of 17,400 second-feet. Norm had never been down this river and did not know it or the canyons. His reliable aids were the USGS Plan and Profile maps. He had cut the sections out and glued them end-toend on a roll of brown wrapping paper. The various strips did not match the cardinal directions but they gave him the configuration of the river canyon, the major tributaries, and the mile points. He thus had a fairly good idea of his location and what was coming up. He wrote his brief notes on the margins of the wrapping paper and completed a log of the trip at its conclusion.

Once they were in Cataract Canyon, the magnitude of 52,000 second-feet pouring down the declivity made Norm's companions aware that the mantle of leadership did not rest gracefully upon their captain. A poor tie-up at the first rapid resulted in the Mexican Hat running several riffles without benefit of an occupant. The craft came through right-side-up and was found circling in an eddy. Confusion was rampant. Inexperienced, Norm undoubtedly took himself too seriously. He was inclined to be authoritative, guided more by emotion than reason. These deficiencies distorted his judgments and decisions. He described waves of fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five feet height. Once he regretted leading the party but was brave and stepped up to it as best he could. On June 25 at the head of the Big Drop he courageously resorted to prayer before casting off. The Botany capsized in another rapid. They lined and made backbreaking portages but finally put Cataract behind them. The difficult traverse of Cataract pointed up differences between Norm and Don Harris that never healed.

They arrived at Lee's Ferry the morning of July 8 to encounter reporters and photographers. A Pathe cameraman came late so they made a second landing to accommodate him. The present of the two women made the trip more noteworthy than if the party had been all male. Harris had run out of vacation time, and Atkinson quite here; Norm replaced them with Lorin Bell and Del Reed, who rowed the Mexican Hat and Botany when they shoved off on July 13. They were at Bright Angel on July 18, and when they departed on July 23 Emery Kolb was a guest for the final leg. By August 1 they were on Lake Mead where Buzz Holmstrom met them in a power boat and towed them seventy-five miles to Boulder Beach. They had traveled 614 miles, and the first women had traversed Grand Canyon.

The media people ate it up and Norm thrived on the publicity. His river career was launched. Of the initial one hundred individuals to make the river traverse through Grand Canyon, Nevills and his party comprised numbers fifty-eight through sixty-four.

Harbor Plywood acquired the Botany to exhibit in the promotion of marine plywood, while the Mexican Hat was left at Lake Mead for Harris to pick up; hence. Norm had to trailer only the Wen back to the Hat. He had become commodore of a single-boat fleet.

In mid-1939 chance brought an unexpected visitor to Mexican Hat who was destined to pick up where the Las Vegas media corps had left off. From 1935 to 1940 Ernest Taylor Pyle and his wife, Jerry, crisscrossed North America in search of material for a daily column that he wrote for the Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance. As the chain published Pyle's column in twenty-one newspapers from New York to San Francisco and syndicated it to others, any subject was guaranteed a large audience.

Ernie and his wife arrived at the Nevills Lodge on July 28, 1939. Next day Norm took them on a six-hour boat ride from the mouth of Comb Wash 19.5 miles to the landing above the Mexican Hat bridge. That evening Pyle employed considerable hyperbole when he typed his dispatch. He probably figured that since he had covered so much tortuous country to reach this godforsaken place, his subject could not possibly be a normal human being but a heroic figure who routinely performed great feats. Thus he presented a distorted view of the river, the rapids, and the man who prevailed over them.

Scripps-Howard readers absorbed and accepted Pyle's image immediately and the picture became indelible. No one took it more seriously than Norm himself, and forever after he attempted to fill the shoes of a river-running Paul Bunyan. Pyle had sacrificed his subject to his column.

During the winter of 1939-40 Nevills built two more cataract boats after the Wen design—Mexican Hat II and Joan. He made no improvements because he was sure he had the perfect craft for his purpose. Meanwhile he had promoted a trip to follow the river trail blazed by Major Powell in 1869 and, mindful of the publicity generated by Clover and Jotter in 1938, included his wife, Doris, and Mildred E. Baker. The three boats were oared by Nevills, Del Reed, and Dr. Hugh Cutler. Other passengers were B. V. Deason, John S. Southworth, and Charles W. Larabee.

The party shoved off from Expedition Island, Green River, Wyoming on June 20, 1940. A goodly crowd was on hand, but the river's flow was only 1,400 second-feet, a quarter of what had been expected. Low water continued with them in the middle Green, but the passage was uneventful to Green River, Utah. Here Deason took a temporary leave for a business trip to Salt Lake City, as Ann Rosner of Chicago and Barry Goldwater joined.

Headed downstream again July 10 on only 2,140 second-feet, the party still was hampered by low water, mosquitoes, and a merciless sun. The low water actually helped them in Cataract Canyon, the rapids offering rock-dodging sneaks down the sides instead of the booming maelstroms of two years previously. The Joan was pinned on a boulder at Mile 202.2, capsized, and had a hole smashed in the port gunwale. Nevertheless they came through Cat in fine style and on the tenth day after leaving Green River, pulled ashore at Hite where Arth Chaffin welcomed them for lunch.

They reached Lee's Ferry August 2, resupplied, and were headed downstream on August 4 on only 3,000 second-feet. Arriving at Bright Angel on August 9, Norm shuffled his party; Deason rejoined while Ann Rosner was sent up the trail because the skipper said he could not carry them both due to the extremely low water, and Deason had priority. Arriving at Separation Canyon on August 21, they met Harry Aleson and a friend, Lewis West, with some badly needed supplies. With his outboard, Aleson pulled them to Quartermaster Canyon where they met the government boat and all were towed to Boulder Beach that evening.

Nevills not only had retraced Powell's full route but conducted two women on it. He added 1,196.8 miles to his record—the distance from Green River, Wyoming, to Grapevine Wash—and had run every rapid. He now had a total of at least 2,900 river miles to his credit. He and Reed became the sixth and seventh persons to make a second traverse of Grand Canyon, standing with Galloway (1897 & 1909), Emery G. Kolb (1912 & 1923), F. B. Dodge (1923 & 1937), Clyde L. Eddy (1927 & 1934), Buzz Holmstrom (1937 & 1938).

Norm and Doris Nevills became parents a second time when another daughter was born March 18, 1941. She was christened Sandra Jane, and Harry Aleson was named her godfather. The spring of 1941 also brought more customers, and Norm made seven San Juan trips, the total adding 1,363 fast-water miles to his record.

His third Grand Canyon traverse consisted of three riding passengers plus Alexander G. "Zee" Grant, who elected to handle his own craft, a foldboat he called Escalante. The party embarked at Lee's Ferry July 15, 1941, and was met by Harry Aleson on upper Lake Mead August 1. At Boulder Beach, Zee Grant proved to be the main interest for the reporters and cameramen, although Nevills and Reed had become the first boatmen to have made three traverses of Grand Canyon.

Sandwiched between the San Juan trips that began in May and ended in September, Norm made his fourth Grand Canyon run July 15 to August 1, 1942. Two of his passengers, Ed Hudson and Otis R. Marston were destined to have an impact on river history, while cinematographer Ed Olsen made a hyperbolic film that won the Academy Award for the year's best one-reeler. Aleson met the party and towed it in, although he raised his price from $30 to $75.

The war stopped the burgeoning river business but it favored Nevills in another way. In February 1943 he was appointed hydrographic field assistant for the USGS at Mexican Hat, and in October he was raised to an engineering aide earning $1,800 per year. It was an ideal job for a resident of such a remote location.

Still, gasoline rationing prevented most public travel, and Norm's little potboilers—the San Juan trips—stopped entirely. An exception was when Life magazine photographer Dmitri Kessel appeared at the Hat and chartered a trip to Lee's Ferry in late May 1944. A week later, Otis Marston and six others ran the San Juan. This was Marston's first effort as a Nevills boatman. A Twentieth Century Fox crew for Movietone News ran when only 732 second feet were flowing and lost a $6,000 camera when Lynn Lyman impinged on a midstream boulder. Schedule had been held but production was nil.

Harry Aleson and Nevills enjoyed a friendly working arrangement for about four years. Apparently Aleson had resented Norm although he kept his feelings bottled until 1943 when the smoldering embers of acerbity burst into open flame. Aleson re-evaluated their relationship in an "onionskin letter" to which Nevills made a gentle refutation on December 16. From this time on they became rivals and their relationship deteriorated.

The war in Europe was concluded officially May 8, 1945, gasoline rationing ended overnight, and America's pent-up chaffing at travel restrictions exploded. It was too late to advertise for 1945 but Norm worked the post office overtime. He put two trips down the San Juan in June, then one from Moab to Lee's Ferry in July on which Otis Marston rowed the Joan and experienced his first big water in Cataract Canyon. Japan's surrender September 2 removed all wartime barriers, and Norm prepared for a postwar boom in 1946. One thing he had not counted on was the ready availability of surplus war equipment, including inflatable life rafts.

The San Juan was a unique trip that some people took repeatedly. Passengers came from all parts of the United States, from all walks of life. There were energetic teenagers, school teachers, active and retired executives, engineers, scientists, geologists, doctors, lawyers, artists, politicians, and blue-collar people. Some of them had read about Norm; others learned by word of mouth. Most newcomers considered him to be a famous person and hung on his words. A few were turned off by his overweening ego.

Norman Nevills was small in stature yet impressive physically. He was not taller than five feet seven inches, weighed less than 140 pounds, but he had the arms and torso of a man thirty pounds heavier. He had unusually large forearms and beefy, horny, capable hands. He was quick as a cat and was aware of it. He was affable but impersonal. One had to know him before realizing his amiable exterior was a facade that disguised a shy but highly competitive person with unresolved doubts about many things. He had no use for alcohol, barred it on his trips, but was a heavy smoker. His wife and chfldren adored him — a claim not all men can make.

Business was so good in 1946 that Norm had made eight San Juan trips by mid-June, then trailered his boats to Salmon City, Idaho, and ran down the Salmon to Lewiston. He took the outfit around to Brownlee Ferry and ran the Snake through Hell's Canyon to Lewiston. Otis Marston rowed the Joan on both occasions.

It had been a profitable season; there was money in the bank and Norm prepared to spend some of it. He had learned to fly but had no plane. That fall he constructed a strip about 100 feet wide by 2,300 feet long, with an open hangar at the southwest edge. The facility was completed in January 1947. Then he bought a Piper J3 Cruiser and named it Cherry II after his wife, Cherry being his pet name for Doris.

Early in 1947 relations with an old customer, Charlie Larabee, were ruptured when Nevills rejected his request for a special charter for his Boy Scout troop. Norm was justified because his five San Juan trips were nearly full and he lacked boats to accommodate forty teenagers. Angered, Larabee gave the charter to Aleson and advanced money to purchase ten neoprene life rafts. Harry brought the forty-six-person party to a landing at Lee's Ferry on April 5, 1947. The following year Larabee and Aleson formed Western River Tours, and Nevills had a competitor.

After the Last San Juan trip, the boats were trailered to Green River, Wyoming, and run 205 miles to Jensen, Utah. Then the outfit was taken to Lee's Ferry, and Norm led his fifth traverse of Grand Canyon.

Although inflatable boats appeared in Glen Canyon in 1946, their numbers increased the following year. Any novice, for a relatively small sum and with little outdoor experience, could purchase a war surplus life raft and run Glen Canyon. In 1947 several parties with inflatables put in at Bluff or the Mexican Hat bridge to run the San Juan and thence down to Lee's Ferry. Thus the neoprene revolution was brought to Norm's back yard. He placed himself unequivocally on record when he stated that amateurs could get by using neoprene on the tranquil water of Glen Canyon but it would never be of commercial value in the big water of Cataract, Marble, or Grand canyons.

Several writers publicized Norman Nevills in magazine articles or chapters in books. It undoubtedly brought him business but also distorted his sense of values and caused him to assume a position that was beyond his capacity.

Nevifls completed his sixth Grand Canyon traverse August 1, 1948. It was on this voyage that he decided Otis Marston had made his last run with him. Marston refuted his yarns to the passengers, belittled his leadership, and continuously advanced his own status as an authority. Norm did not actually discharge him; he simply did not include him in his plans for 1949. Strangely, Marston had no inkling that he had offended his leader.

Norm was generous with his airplane. He flew pregnant Navajo women or Indians too all to stand the rough trip by car to the hospital at Tuba City. In the spring of 1949 he flew to Hite to give Arth and Delia Chaffin, the teacher Mrs. Gearheart, and her twelve students flights over Glen Canyon.

The year 1949 was a busy one. Water was high and the San Juan trips started May 1. Yet there was time for only five because the boats were trailered to Green River, Wyoming, where the eightieth anniversary of Major Powell's 1869 voyage was being celebrated and a monument dedicated. Departure of the Nevills party was the culmination of the celebration. The nine-person, four-boat party landed at Jensen July 2, and the outfit was then taken to Lee's Ferry. There Norm's seventh traverse of the canyon began on July 12 and ended at Lake Mead August 1. This year the head count of those traversing the Colorado through Grand Canyon reached one hundred. Of this number Nevills had taken thirty-seven. Up to that time no riverman had come close to

this record, and it was considered that no one ever would. He was the Whitewater king of the river and thought his monopoly of the commercial business would continue indefinitely.

NORMAN D. NEVILLS BOATING RECORD COMPILED BY P. T. REILLY*

He retired his three oldest boats and ordered material for replacements— duplicates of the Wen with no changes. Frank Masland was given Mexican Hat II and had it shipped to his company museum at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Wen was dropped off at Grand Canyon where the National Park Service planned to put her on display. The Joan was presented to the state of Utah and exhibited at the Capitol.

Tragedy ended Norm's plans. Early on the morning of September 19, 1949, a telegram requested that Doris hurry to California because of an emergency. Norm decided to fly her to Grand Junction where she could catch an airliner. Cherry II barely had attained flying speed but was airborne when the engine died. Too close to the end of the strip — which ended in a twenty-foot drop — to stop and lacking sufficient speed to circle back to the strip, Norm evaluated his options and made a quick decision. He could have continued his course and crash-landed in the brush, probably wiping out the prop and landing gear but escaping unhurt. This solution would have eliminated any chance of getting Doris to Grand Junction, so he chose to bank left toward a sandy wash before it plunged over the cliff. From here he could pick up the empennage and walk his plane to the hangar where the fuel line could be cleared. It was a fatal decision. Having little speed, he lost elevation when he banked; instead of clearing the ledge and landing in the wash, he crashed head-on against the cliff just below the rim. The ship was consumed by fire as eight-year-old Sandra waited in vain for the flyover.

The cremation was completed in Grand Junction, a service was held, then Jim Rigg scattered the ashes over the canyons of the San Juan and Colorado.

Frank Masland commissioned artist Mary Ogden Abbott to execute a bronze cenotaph for Norm and Doris. Both had been passengers on the last Grand Canyon voyage. The memorial was fastened to a large boulder overlooking the river at the west end of Navajo Bridge and dedicated on July 11, 1952. Barry Goldwater was master of ceremonies. Nearly everyone connected with the river attended.

Norman Nevills was a transitional figure between the occasional river expedition and the financially rewarding commercialism of today's operators. He failed to recognize the neoprene revolution or its impact on his river business. He did not see the need to improve his boats or increase his payload. Without these changes, however, he could not have competed in the market that followed his operation. Far from being the ultimate answer to the Colorado's "big water" or being reversionary, the Nevills boat design should be regarded as an important evolutionary step between the keeled lake boats and the sporting dories of the 1960s. His contributions were necessary and worthy. They provided many people the unique pleasure of whitewater boating before it became the popular sport it is today.

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