Chapter 11
Brothers Ellsworth and Emery Kolb were as much an integral part of the Grand Canyon as the Colorado River itself. No living person today will ever discover all the wonders, magic, and mysteries this canyon is concealing, but the Kolb Brothers possibly came the closest to uncovering all the canyon’s hidden secrets.
Ellsworth was born on January 4, 1876, in Springfield, Pennsylvania, to Minister Edward Kolb and his wife, Ella. Five years later, on February 15, 1881, the Kolb family was blessed with another son, Emery. Ellsworth and Emery also shared their childhood with two more brothers and an adopted sister. Ellsworth and Emery were boys through and through and liked a good adventure and scare. In May of 1889, a torrential rainstorm swamped the area around their home in Springfield. Rivers and creeks were overflowing their banks and when terrified homeowners were fleeing for higher grounds, Ellsworth and Emery saw a potential to become pirates and sail the high seas. The two brothers built a wooden raft to try to navigate the high waters, but mind you neither of the boys could swim. As the raging flood waters swelled even higher and was littered with fallen trees and debris, the young pirates’ shoddy raft started to break apart. Quickly thinking, Ellsworth grabbed both ends of the wooden raft with his feet and hands to keep his brother and himself from perishing. Ellsworth was able to get what was left of the broken raft and his terrified brother to dry ground without either boy containing any serious injuries.
When Ellsworth became a teenager, he held different jobs to bring in money to help support his parents and siblings. When he turned twenty-four, Ellsworth decided it was time for him to start his own life so he headed out west. He lived in several states including Colorado and California and became a jack of all trades. While Ellsworth was in California, he met some men who convinced him to join them on a ship bound for the Orient and his passage would be free if he signed on as a member of the crew. A day before he was set to sail to Asia, Ellsworth saw an advertisement saying “Come to the Grand Canyon” and he believed the article was specifically meant for him. The next day, with very little money left in his pockets, Ellsworth packed what little belongings he had left and headed off towards Arizona. When he finally reached the Grand Canyon, he was flat broke. Luckily, Ellsworth met Martin Bugguln, who owned the Bright Angel Hotel and Tent Cabins, almost immediately upon his arrival and Bugguln was in need of a maintenance man, so he hired Ellsworth on the spot.
Back home in Pennsylvania, Emery had found a new passion in the form of photography—so much so that he saved up enough money from his side jobs to purchase a small camera. He loved taking pictures of anything that caught his attention and was so uniquely talented with it that he was able to make some extra money by selling some of his photos to the town folk. After some time, Ellsworth was able to save up enough money working for Martin Bugguln that he was able take a trip back home to Pennsylvania to visit his family.
While on his visit, he convinced Emery to relocate to the Grand Canyon with him. Their parents on the other hand were not too thrilled with the idea of Emery leaving without some kind of employment. Ellsworth said he would return back to the canyon and find a job that would be suitable for Emery. In October 1902, Emery received a letter from Ellsworth saying he had found a job for him working at the Hance Mine at the canyon and also a train ticket. Almost immediately, Emery was on a train that departed from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and his final stop was going to be in Williams, Arizona.
Emery already knew he wanted to become a professional photographer, and after hearing all the stories from Ellsworth about the Grand Canyon, he knew that’s where he would make it rich. After he arrived in Williams, he walked around the old west town until he came across a photography shop operated by a man named Mr. Arbogast. He spoke to Emery for a short while and informed him that his store was for sale. This opportunity greatly intrigued Emery, so he told Mr. Arbogast that when he eventually made it to the canyon, he would talk to his brother and see what he thought about the possibility of purchasing the store. Later that day, when Emery finally arrived at the Grand Canyon, he discovered that the Hance Asbestos Mine had permanently closed and he was out of a job. He told Ellsworth about the photography store in Williams, but he claimed that he didn’t have any money to purchase it. The next day, Ellsworth boarded the train to Williams to talk to Mr. Arbogast about the store. Emery had remained at the canyon and helped Martin Bugguln out where he could. When Ellsworth returned later that day, he was ecstatic to tell his brother that they were the proud new owners of the photography store.
Emery moved to Williams for a short time while he ran the store, but his heart still yearned for the Grand Canyon. The two brothers discussed opening up a photography studio near the rim, but Ellsworth’s employer Martin Bugguln did everything he could to sabotage their plans. Unfortunately for Bugguln, the Kolb brothers found a guardian angel in Ralph Cameron. If you remember correctly from the Bright Angel Lodge chapter, Cameron owned the area around the Bright Angel Trailhead. He gave the brothers land to open up their own photography studio. Bugguln and the railroad fought hard to keep the Kolb brothers from going into business, claiming that their studio would hurt Bugguln and the Santa Fe Railway’s souvenir sales, but when all was said and done, Ellsworth and Emery were granted permission to start their new business at the head of the Bright Angel Trailhead.
The brothers realized that starting a photography studio at the Grand Canyon was going to be difficult, however Ellsworth and Emery proved to everyone that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Their studio started out as a crude tent. The tent let in too much light, so finding a suitable darkroom to develop the negatives of the pictures they were going to take was critical. Emery came up with the best solution. Below the rim were several abandoned mines, and some went far enough back to block out all of the sunlight.
The next road block was that Emery would need an ample supply of fresh water for the development of the pictures. The Grand Canyon’s Southern Rim to this day does not have its own water supply. It needs to be imported in by a pipeline from the North Rim, around eighteen miles away. The water source on the South Rim of the canyon back in the early 1900s was brought in daily by the train. Emery knew exactly what he had to do. The closest water source to the South Rim from the head of the Bright Angel Trailhead was 4.6 miles one way down into the canyon at the Indian Garden Campground. Here he would be supplied with enough water for the development of the photos. Emery ran this trail several times a day to make his business a success, and a success it was. Every morning the brothers would meet the cautiously optimistic tourists riding the mule train down the Bright Angel Trail into the depths of the canyon. They would take photos of the riders on their reliable, sure-footed, and smelly mode of transportation, and after the mule train departed down the trail, Emery would always follow to get fresh water so the pictures would be developed and ready for sale when the mule riders arrived back later in the day.
In 1903 the brothers started construction on a permanent resident/business near the head of the Bright Angel Trail. The structure began as a small studio on a ledge next to a sheer drop into the canyon. As time went on and after the brothers made more money, they would add more rooms onto the studio. Ellsworth and Emery hiked and learned as much about the canyon and its topography as they could by going into the canyon as often as possible and taking photographs of areas deep within the abyss that had only been previously seen by the canyon’s ancient tribes.
In 1905, Emery had met, fell in love with, and married a young lady by the name of Blanche Bender. As soon as they were wed, she moved into the small house/studio with Emery and Ellsworth. By 1908, the newlyweds were blessed with the birth of a daughter they named Edith. Besides caring for her new daughter, Blanche also helped the brothers with their business by running the gift shop, handling the bookkeeping, and occasionally helping with the photography development.
In 1910, Ellsworth and Emery decided they were going to do something that no person before them had ever done. They were going to buy a Pathé brand movie camera and run the Colorado River by boat through the Grand Canyon, recording the trip on film. They started their journey in 1911 and it ended in the early winter of 1912. They traveled the river in two custom-made boats that had been constructed in Wisconsin by the Racine Boat Company. This was considered a historical event and they even received attention from Hollywood film producer Cecil B. DeMille, who printed the movie for the now famous, Grand Canyon’s own, Kolb Brothers. The siblings added a theater to their expanding home/studio, and beginning in 1915, the movie was shown continuously every day for the massive droves of tourists. Due to it having been a silent movie, a narration was performed at all showing by Emery himself up until 1932. This movie was so popular with the Grand Canyon tourists that it was shown for sixty-one years at an estimate of over fifty thousand times until Emery’s death in 1976. This well-documented homemade film by two adventurous brothers is said to be the longest running film in the history of the world.
By 1911, the Fred Harvey Company had done everything they could to have Emery and Ellsworth close the photography studios doors. The brothers were not going to leave their home and place of business. The Fred Harvey Company and Santa Fe Railway had the Lookout Studio built purposely in front of the Kolb Studio to take business away from them. This plan didn’t work, and the Fred Harvey Company finally gave up trying to destroy the Kolb Brothers’ life dream.
As with all siblings, the Kolb brothers had a disagreement, and a certain falling out would make Ellsworth say his goodbyes to the Grand Canyon and head west to make a new life in Los Angeles California, even though he would return occasionally to the canyon to visit his brother. A financial agreement was eventually reached that Emery would send Ellsworth $150.00 every month until Ellsworth’s passing in 1960. Emery continued building onto the Kolb Studio until it reached five stories tall and contained an astounding twenty-three rooms.
In 1963, Emery sold the Kolb Studio to the National Park Service for $65,000 on the condition that he and his family could continue to live and work there until his passing. Emery passed away on December 11, 1976. He is buried next to his loving and faithful wife Blanche, and their daughter Edith’s grave is near her parents within the Pioneer Cemetery. Ellsworth was also interred within the Pioneer Cemetery. The Kolb Studio is now run by the Grand Canyon Association. Most of the studio is off limits to visitors. There is still a gift store and guest are permitted to walk down the stairs to the auditorium where there is a little museum in honor of the Kolb Brothers and where you can still enjoy watching Ellsworth and Emery’s movie as they journeyed down the Colorado River. This fascinating building is on the National Register of Historic Places list, plus it seems to have a few ghosts residing in it.
Ghostly Lore
A couple of months after Emery Kolb passed away, his grandson Emery Lehnert was going through some of his grandfather’s personal belongings that were left behind in the garage of the studio. Inside a canvas boat that was perched up in the rafters, grandson Emery discovered a human skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull bundled up inside the boat. Rumors were running rampant as to why Emery Kolb was hiding a human skeleton. There are two competing theories as to whom the remains might belong. The first theory continues to remain an unsolved mystery. In 1928, newlyweds Glen and Bessie Hyde were hoping to achieve worldwide fame by becoming the first man and woman team to successfully raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Bessie would have also become the first woman to ever run and survive the river’s deadly rapids through the canyon. Unfortunately, the Hydes disappeared forever while traveling the river through the Grand Canyon.
In 1927, Bessie Louise Haley had been living and attending school in San Francisco, California, and shared an apartment with an aspiring model and actress Eraine Granstedt. Bessie, a petite and pretty girl, was originally from Parkersburg, West Virginia, but at nineteen years of age, she married her high school sweetheart and resided with him temporarily in Kentucky. Their marriage sadly lasted only two months. After the separation, Bessie felt compelled to move to California and attend the California School of Fine Arts. Bessie and Eraine one day decided to board a ship in San Francisco that was heading to Los Angeles. For Eraine, heading to Los Angeles meant riches and fame for her. Here she would become an actress, but it was not clear why Bessie wanted to travel there.
Glen Hyde, a handsome and adventurous man, was visiting California and was also aboard the ship. During the voyage to Los Angeles, Glen and Bessie met and fell in love. The two became inseparable and when it was time for Glen to return home to Murtaugh, Idaho, Bessie went with him. A little over a year later and after her divorce from her high school sweetheart was finalized, Glen and Bessie were pronounced husband and wife on April 28, 1928, and resided on the Hyde family farm.
When Glen and Bessie married, it was at the beginning of the Hyde farm’s busy season and the honeymoon was going to have to wait until after the fall harvest. Glen, being the adventurer he was, wanted to do something special for their honeymoon that no other husband and wife had ever done before. Glen discussed his plan with Bessie that only the two of them would raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and document their journey. The first husband and wife team to ever navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon’s deadly rapids would have to become headline news. He believed that they would become rich and famous if they wrote a book about their experience, and Hollywood would hear about their adventure and make a movie about their story.
Glen was personally involved in constructing a boat known as a sweep scow, which he was well experienced at piloting, for him and his new wife’s journey down the Colorado River. This kind of a boat resembles a huge horse trough. It was twenty feet long, five feet wide, and three feet deep, and the pilot used an oar that stretched out of the bow and stern—not the kind of boat someone would want to take over ominous rapids. On October 28, 1928, the honeymooners set off in their newly constructed sweep scow from Green River, Utah. The boat was stocked with food and provisions, a rifle, and mattresses to sleep on. Glen, however, refused to put any kind of life preservers on the boat. Glen had an ego and said he could handle anything the Colorado River would throw at him and his bride. If everything went as planned, their journey would end on December 9, 1928 in Needles, California, where Glen’s father would be waiting for the couple.
Things seemed to be going well at first for the newlyweds. By November 7, the adventurers reached Lees Ferry on the Colorado River. This is where Glen Canyon, which is mostly located in Utah, ends and the Grand Canyon officially begins. Things quickly began to turn dicey, when Glen and Bessie reached an area known as Marble Canyon. At this point of their doomed adventure, they were besieged with seemingly endless areas of violent white-water rapids that were just relentless on their physical assaults on the Hydes. One set of rapids were so harrowing, they knocked Glen into the freezing white water, but Bessie somehow found the strength to drag him back into the boat.
Glen didn’t seem fazed by this almost deadly encounter with the river rapids, but it was obvious that Bessie was terrified for their lives. The next day the two exhausted newlyweds made their way to the beach that connected them to the South Kaibab Trail. Having become depleted of some necessary supplies, the weary couple hiked up the steep trail towards the Grand Canyon Village. Once at the top, they were recognized by many people as the first couple trying to navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyons deadly depths. Glen was getting a taste of fame by being acknowledged as a celebrity. Emery Kolb happened to be in the crowd of adoring fans and introduced himself to the Hydes. He opened up his home to Glen and Bessie so they could rest. Here, Emery offered Glen his own personal life jackets for them to use. Emery knew just how dangerous the upcoming rapids were and expressed to Glen that what was coming was possibly the most deadly part of their whole journey and they probably would not survive without any form of a life preserver. Glen flat out turned Emery down, saying they didn’t need any artificial aid. Emery pleaded with Glen to at least buy an inner tube or two, which angered the egotistical boatman. Glen claimed they were going to finish the trip the way they started, with no assistance from anyone or anything. Bessie on the other hand was now a frail, tattered woman from what she used to be. It was obvious she wanted nothing more than for this journey to come to an end. There was no excitement or thrill left in her eyes. She did not care about fame and riches, and the only reason she continued with the trip was because Glen demanded she did.
Glen realized they were short on money when it came time to buy their desperately needed items that they had ran out of. A businessman from San Francisco named Adolph Sutro was visiting the park at the time that Glen and Bessie ascended the trail from the abyss. Adolph made a deal with Glen that he would furnish them with two weeks’ worth of food if he could hitch a ride with them on their boat roughly seven miles to Hermit Rapids. The stipulation would be that they would receive the groceries by his partners only after he was dropped off at the arranged designated spot. Glen agreed, and after they had a little bit of rest they headed back down the South Kaibab Trail towards the river. Bessie had become friends with Emery’s daughter, Edith, in their short stay. As they walked towards the trailhead, Bessie looked down at Edith’s shoes and said, “I wonder if I shall ever wear pretty shoes again?” Edith had informed her father, Emery, about Bessie’s troubling statement. Emery was outraged with Glen. Emery knew they would not survive the upcoming rapids without any kind of life preservers. Emery had fallen into the river a couple of times himself and almost didn’t make it out alive and he was wearing a life preserver.
The last time Glen and Bessie Hyde were ever seen alive again was on November 18, 1928. On this date, Glen dropped off Adolph Sutro at the agreed spot on Hermit Rapids, and as promised, there was food waiting for Glen and Bessie on the banks. Mr. Sutro and some men claimed that Bessie also tried to leave the boat at that time, fearing for her life. But Glen physically picked her up and placed her back in the boat. On December 6, Glen’s father, Rollin C. Hyde was waiting in Needles, California, for his son and new daughter-in-law’s adventure to come to an end. When they didn’t arrive, Mr. Hyde assumed the honeymooners were just running late on their trip. By December 16, with still no sighting of Glen or Bessie, Mr. Hyde contacted as many possible agencies to help in the aide of finding his missing family. On December 19, a search plane spotted a scow like the one Glen and Bessie were on floating in an eddy at river mile 237. A land search crew was dispatched to the area, which included Emery and Ellsworth Kolb. The boat and all of Glen and Bessie’s provisions were still pretty much intact, but the couple were never seen again. There was a journal on the boat that belonged to Bessie that was in good shape. However, there was nothing in it to help the search party find the lost couple or their fate.
The disappearance of the Hydes is considered an unsolved mystery even to this day. What happened to the two honeymooners? Did they drown? Did they run into trouble and had to hike out from the canyon’s floor? Once the skeleton was found in Emery Kolb’s garage hanging high in the rafters, many people speculated that Glen Hyde met his death not by the hands of the deadly Colorado River, but by Emery Kolb’s hands himself. The theory is that Emery was so outraged by Glens dismissal of Bessie’s life that Mr. Kolb took things into his own hands. It’s believed by some that Emery, knowing the canyon better than most, hiked down to the river in a secret spot known only by him to meet the couple and beg Glen to consider Bessie feelings and either end the trip or use life preservers.
Things got out of hand between the two men, which resorted in Glen’s death. Emery then took Glen’s remains to his studio and hid the body from the rest of the world. Bessie then supposedly took on a new identity and began a new life. A woman years later was on a river rafting trip through the Colorado River. Her name was Georgie White Clarke and claimed she was, in actuality, Bessie Hyde. This woman knew a lot about Bessie’s life before her supposed death and Georgie also had some resemblance to the late Mrs. Hyde. Critics, of course blasted Ms. Clarke’s allegations and she was considered a liar. Even on her death bed in 1992, Georgie White Clarke never wavered about actually being Bessie Hyde. After her passing, actual items that belonged to Glen and Bessie Hyde were found among Ms. Clarke’s possessions. Now mind you that this story is far-fetched and a medical examiner, after a careful examination of the skeleton, cleared Emery Kolb of any wrongdoing, claiming that the skeleton was much older than Glen Hyde would have been and also smaller in size. There are still some, though, who believe that regardless of this evidence the skeleton is still the remains of Glen Hyde.
The second possible theory about the skeleton’s true identity boils down to it being an old prospector that was looking for gold and silver inside the canyon walls back in the 1800s and had committed suicide many years before the remains were found in sand and rocks. Either way, having any human remains without a proper burial on anyone’s property gives ripe condition for a haunting.
When the Grand Canyon Association took over the Kolb Studio, a few employees started noticing strange things occurring within the building that were unexplainable. When employees arrive for work in the mornings, books will be scattered across the floor in the gift shop. Some books have been discovered facing backwards even though the night before the employees straightened everything up. When the park’s security are making their nightly patrols, some officers have witnessed a man peering out from different windows, watching their every move. When they enter the studio to check for trespassers, the building is always empty of anything living.
One evening, Craig, a Grand Canyon Association employee, was closing up the building alone. He had done a sweep earlier in the downstairs theater area to make sure all the visitors had departed. While he was upstairs cleaning, Craig distinctly heard footsteps on the creaky staircase that lead down into the theater’s room. Thinking he must have accidentally overlooked a guest in the building, Craig walked over towards the downstairs door and called out, “I’m sorry folks, we’re closed. You are going to have to come back tomorrow.” When Craig didn’t receive a response from anyone, he became annoyed because now he had to go back downstairs and search for the trespasser. Before he started heading down the stairs, he heard a gruff man’s muffled voice from the farthest back portion of the theater. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked everywhere for the intruder but never found a living soul. He departed the theater in record time, grabbed his keys, and left the building.
Another employee, Brent, was opening up the Kolb Studio one morning. Brent went downstairs into the theater room to make sure everything was up and running. He heard someone walking on the staircase and looked up to see who had arrived. Hovering on the staircase was a black mass in the shape of a human. He said it was just floating about a foot above the stairs and he knew it was watching him. Before his eyes, the being slowly dissipated into thin air. He didn’t have to be told twice to get the hell out of the basement. No one knows just who is haunting Kolb Studio, but if you enter into this building, show some respect just in case its Emery or Ellsworth Kolb making sure their home is being well cared for.