Have you every had your children ask you for money? What did you do? If they really needed it, how did you get it? The story of how Alfred Fisk Stout got some money that his son, Lionel, needed is tied to Zion National Park
At top the of Cable Mountain in Zion National Park, there are a set of cable draw works, left over from the early 1900’s when an enterprising young man from Springdale, Utah, built a cable works to transport lumber sawed at a saw mill on top of the plateau above Cable Mountain 3000 feet to the Zion Canyon valley floor below. You can still see the cable works on top of Cable Mountain from the parking lot at Weeping Rock, or the view area at Big Bend.
Alfred Fisk Stout worked for a time at the cable works and nearby sawmill on the plateau on top of the mountain. There are a number of stories that relate to that enterprise and the Stout Family. This is the one of how Alfred Fisk Stout used it to get money for his son, Lionel. In the words of Alfred’s wife, Mary Emma Langston Stout, as written by his daughters, Sylvia and Annie Laurie:
Alfred was a good husband and father to our children. One example of this came when our son Lionel was attending the Branch Normal Academy at Cedar City. He needed some extra money badly so he wrote home telling us about how much he would need. Alfred had lumber up at the sawmill on Zion Ledges. The snow was deep up there and it had been freezing hard for weeks. He took his team up into Zion and left them at the foot of Cable Mountain, then he climbed the difficult frozen trail, having at times to crawl up the slick frozen surfaces for long distances. This trail is three miles long and most of it very steep; then there is another mile from the top to the sawmill. He stayed at the mill that night. His matches were wet so he crawled into bed but it had been leaked on, was wet and nearly frozen. The lumber he was intending to let down the cable had been hauled over to the cable, which is about 4 miles away. He walked this through the deep snow and was able to let only one load of lumber down, so he went back to the mill and started for home. It was evening by now so he spent the night on the trail and the next morning made his way down into Zion. His hands and feet were frozen and he was nearly exhausted, as he had eaten very little since he started up the trail. He finally got his team hitched to the wagon and he came home. He said he never knew how he did it. For many weeks he was laid up, unable to use his hands or stand on his feet. I worried that he would never walk again. I was able to nurse him back to health because of his great determination.
If you’ve been to Zion National Park and gazed at those tremendous red sandstone cliffs, you can begin to appreciate the feat that Alfred performed. If you’ve been there in winter and seen how slick the rock can get, you’ll realize how incredible this was and how much he must have been concerned for Lionel to do that much to get the money that Lionel needed.
What would you have done to get the money?
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