DELLENBAUGH] MEMORIAL TO JOHN WESLEY POWELL 434 
for the purpose of procuring and erecting on the brink of the Grand Canyon in 
the Grand Canyon Forest reserve in Arizona, a memorial to the late John Wesley 
Powell, with a suitable pedestal, if necessary, in recognition of his distinguished 
public services as a soldier, explorer, and:administrator of government scientific 
work, 
The design was to be subject to the approval of the Secretary 
of the Interior. The Secretary at that time was the Hon. Walter 
L. Fisher who immediately appointed, as his advisory committee, 
three long-time intimate friends of Major Powell: W. H. Holmes 
of the National Museum, C. D. Walcott of the Smithsonian, and 
H. C. Rizer of the Geological Survey. This committee entered 
wholeheartedly into the effort to secure the best design and the 
best results for the amount appropriated, and consultations in 
many directions were instituted. The smallness of the appropri- 
ation for so large a task was a handicap. Not only were preliminary 
expenses in the way of tentative designs and models to be consid- 
ered but there were the very serious questions of transportation of 
men and materials to the Canyon. The site chosen was Sentinel 
Point about one mile west of Hotel El Tovar. Even the water 
for mixing the concrete would require to be hauled (as all water 
for all purposes is hauled for the hotel and other buildings at Grand 
Canyon station) from a point about seventy-five miles back from 
the rim. Although the great river is so near it must be remembered 
that it flows at the bottom of a gorge five thousand feet deep. 
Another difficulty in working out a design was to provide against 
the vandalism of tourists and cowboys. ‘There would be few of the 
latter at the Canyon but many of the former, and the practical 
obliteration by vandals of the Custer monument on the Little Big 
Horn was a clear warning. 
The Art Commission, too, must pass on the design. At last, 
a design of a huge seat with a bronze record tablet set into its back, 
reared on a stepped platform, from which the chasm could be viewed, 
was prepared and all requirements fulfilled, only to find that its 
cost was beyond the funds available. Congress refused to add 
anything and although the Santa Fé railway offered to transport 
materials to El Tovar free of cost and the Southwestern Portland 
Cement Company of El Paso unhesitatingly contributed an entire 
