Get a Little History

George Hereford is generally conceded to have been one of the best riders the West has ever seen. “Nothing fancy,” old-timers agreed, “just damned fine riding.” “It was his legs,” one told us. “With them stout legs he couldn’ve squoze a horse in two...”

Once the most feared rapid on the Green River, Ashley Falls has been entombed deep in the waters of Flaming Gorge Reservoir since before the dam was completed. This major rapid is only a few miles upriver from Flaming Gorge Dam, so as soon as the cofferdam was completed in 1957 Ashley Falls was covered. For over 100 years before that, however, Ashley Falls was the stuff of nightmares for anyone trying to navigate the canyons of the upper Green River in Daggett County...

Before Flaming Gorge Reservoir, the Green River in Red Canyon was a wild, remote place. Just below Skull Creek, about ten miles above where the dam now stands, the river made a hairpin turn around Gold Point, and passed the mouths of Trail and Allen Creeks. There, in 1922, Ralf Woolley, one of the engineers on the U.S. Geological Survey dam-site survey was surprised to find a hermit living in a hole in the ground. His name was Amos Hill...

The Green River was once a place of mystery and danger, at least according to the wags who hung out at Jake Fields Store in Green River, Wyoming. One of the most dangerous places was the mythical but nonetheless dreaded “Green River Suck.” “The Suck” was supposed to be a deadly cataract somewhere on the Green River that was impossible to pass safely; to even attempt it was to court a certain death in its roiling, dangerous waters. During high water periods, the water pooled and swirled as it entered Flaming Gorge, and the resulting whirlpools gave rise to the legend of “The Suck...”