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Cisco, Utah 84515 [Column_Cisco Range]

cisco_roadmap.jpg: Cisco shown in 1969 Texaco Touring Atlas (our travel route traced in yellow)

The town of Cisco lay in the middle of the barrens of southeastern Utah, along the US Hwy 50 & 6 between Grand Junction, CO and Green River, UT. Our family went through the town in the summer of 1971 in our white 1964 Oldsmobile, en route from the Rocky Mountain National park to the Bryce Canyon National park.

The route in Utah was boring for a ten-year-old boy. My interest was only devoted to the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad track running along the route. I had certainly been there, but remember little of the town: Cisco was almost dying at that time.

On the contrary, the town is well known to some kinds of people from that time to this day. Not only movie creators but musicians and passing travelers are also fascinated by the town. The dying town must have had some sort of glamour for them. Why? We will closely examine the glamour of Cisco in the following posts.



Here is a brief history of Cisco.

Cisco was settled as a railroad siding/water stop on the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway in 1883: the rail reached Cisco from the east on February 3 and the first through passenger train ran on April 8 from Salt Lake City.
The origin of the name is uncertain, but it might be named for nearby Cisco Wash. Cisco Wash itself is a revised geographical name of Alkali Creek.

The latest appearance of the original name Alkali Creek along with the nearby Muddy Creek and Desert Creek was found in the map surveyed in between 1874 and 1876 and printed in 1881 by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden(1829 ー 1887)[1].

The renaming of Alkali Creek to Cisco Wash, Muddy/Saleratus Creek to Sagers Wash, and Desert Creek to Cottonwood Wash, all on the right bank of the Colorado(Grand) River where the railroad was constructed, arose at the same time between 1881 and 1883.

It seems that they were renamed during the planning/construction of the railroad, because the streams on the left bank of the Grand(Colorado) River bank like Granite Creek and Little Dolores River, keep their names to this day.

The sidings/stations along the railroad settled in 1883 claimed the revised Wash names in this section: "Cottonwood", "Cisco", and "Sagers" from east to west. The railroad possibly thought them more attractive to the passengers and settlers than "Desert", "Alkali", or "Saleratus".


The word Cisco itself is said to be a French Canadian borrowing from Ojibwa for a kind of whitefish of an oily nature[2]. But, a Spanish word meaning slack(dust coal), or a Spanish word meaning disturbance, or a Spanish boy's name meaning Frenchman or free man, and or the sidekick name of Francisco would be more adequate for the origin of Cisco/Cisco Wash.

Here are some hints:
The Cisco Wash rises in the Book Cliffs coalfield not far from the Sego mine which produced anthracite coal until 1955.
St. Louis-born Frenchman Antoine Robidoux(1791 ー 1860) left one of the oldest inscriptions in the region at nearby Westwater Creek in 1837.
A surveyor Francis Hodgman(1839 ー 1907) attended one of the thirty-six surveying and locating teams the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway dispatched to the region between 1881 and 1882[3].


The Cisco Post Office was established in 1887 by John Samuel Martin(1852 – 1918). When the railroad relocated and standard-gauged its tracks in 1890, the depot and the post office also relocated two miles southeast to the present location. The Cisco Townsite was established in 1910 by Victor Putman Hanson(1841 ー 1920) within his 160 acres homestead patented on June 16, 1906[4, 5, 6].

Cisco was a loading point for ore, wool, sheep, and cattle produced in the region. According to 1951 Rio Grande General Traffic Department Circular, Cisco had three pens for cattle, five pens for sheep, two chutes, and water & scales facilities. However, unfortunately, the water facilities were dismantled in 1958, and the corrals were removed by 1972[7, 8].

Cisco was also a supply point for daily necessities among farmers, miners, and railroad workers living in the region. The town had a population of over 100 at its peak in 1930 according to the Census. Two hotels, three stores, two restaurants/saloons/pool bars, and a garage served the community according to the 1919 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) Valuation Map.


Nevertheless, the town stretched only a one-third mile along with the Railroad Street, later US Highway 50 & 6, at its peak. Dieselization of the railroad in the 50s led the water point to decay, so as did the town because it also relied on the railroad for the water. The discovery of natural gas, uranium, and crude oil temporarily sustained the town. However, inevitably, the passing traffic, which was the town's mainstay, dried up when Interstate 70 bypassed the town in 1973.


Cisco isn't a town anymore, Hemphill wrote in 1985[4]. The attempt and the failure of constructing hazardous waste incinerating facilities through consolidating the townsite plats from the 70s to 1988 sealed the tiny town's fate[9, 10].

[1] Hayden, F.V., (1881) Composite: Colorado. V-X., Department of The Interior. United States Geological and Geographical Surveys of the Territories;
[2] Gannett, Henry (1905) The Origin of Certain Place Names in United States, Washington Government Printing Office
[3] Thode, Jackson, Ozment, James L., (1993) In the mountains of utah, Dreams, Visions and Visionaries: Colorado Rail Annual, No 20, Colorado Railroad Museum
[4] Hemphill, Mark W., (July 1985) The Unknown Rio Grande, Trains, Kalmbach
[5] Stocks, Verona, (1972) Grand Memories, Daughters of Utah Pioneers
[6] Cisco Homestead patent-Victor Hanson;
[7] May 28, 1972 Daily Sentinel;
[8] Ozment, James (1958) Water Tank@Cisco, UT;
[9] Nov. 4, 1987 Deseret News;
[10] Nov. 11, 1988 Deseret News;
revised, Feb. 3, 2015
revised, Dec. 8, 2015
revised, Aug. 29, 2016
revised, Jan. 11, 2017
revised, Mar. 17, 2019
revised, Jun. 21, 2020
revised, Dec. 22, 2020
revised, Jul. 31, 2021
revised, Jan. 26, 2022
revised, Jan. 29, 2023

drgw_12.jpg: Dotsero, CO. Summer, 1971
moab_01.jpg: Emery, UT. Summer 1971
 
 
ユタ州を走るD&RGWの沿線にある(あった、という方が的確かもしれない)Ciscoという町を紹介する。

ロッキー山脈を越えたD&RGWはユタ州の乾燥地帯を横断してSalt Lake Cityに向かう。そのルートは、イエローストンやロッキーマウンテン国立公園からブライスキャニオン国立公園へ向かう観光ルートに重なる。しかし、ユタ州におけるその沿線の風景は、下の画像にもあるように、とても退屈なものだ。家族旅行で1971年に通ったときにも、筆者の関心は並行する線路にのみ注がれ、このCiscoという町については、何も憶えていない。

Ciscoは、1883年にD&RGWの機関車に給水するために設けられた停車場の前にできた町である。1890年に、線路の付け替え・改軌に伴い、現在の場所に町ごと移転してきた。給水ポイントであると同時に、一時は町周辺で産出する鉱石・羊毛・家畜の積み出し駅としても賑わったらしい。

最盛期の町には、ホテルや店、レストラン、酒場、撞球場などがあり、人口も1910年には200を越えていた。しかし、鉄道の無煙化により、給水ポイントとしての使命を終えると時を同じくして衰退し始め、現在はほぼゴーストタウンと化している。それでも筆者が1971年に通った頃には、ガソリンスタンドが数軒営業していたはずだ。


コメント(2) 

コメント 2

Smithe837

An interesting dialogue is value comment. I feel that it is best to write extra on this subject, it won't be a taboo subject but generally persons are not sufficient to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers gacgekedafbdaacd
by Smithe837 (2014-05-23 19:51) 

arx_ph.D.

Smithe837, thank you for your comment.

Indeed, it maybe a taboo to write personal matters here.
But I think adding personal matters to the almost turning to earth wreckages left at Cisco bring a kind of value to both of them; Integrated information brings both persons and objects irreplaceable identities.

No one vandalize gravestones without hesitation because gravestones indicate irreplaceable identities. Why not the wreckages indicating irreplaceable identities at Cisco?

Therefore, I think my historical study is worth representing here.


by arx_ph.D. (2014-05-24 14:41) 

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