Journey through the thousands of years of human presence in Zion, from ancient indigenous cultures to pioneering settlers.
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Eight Thousand Years of Canyon Life
This series, Voices of Zion: A Human Story, traces the people who have called these canyons home, from ancient hunters to modern communities whose lives are still shaped…
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1
Stone Rooms Above the Canyon Floor
The Ancestral Puebloans stored corn in granaries tucked into cliff alcoves so inaccessible that some have never been reached by modern archaeologists.
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2
Mukuntuweap: The Canyon's Sacred Name
The name Mukuntuweap, meaning straight canyon, is what the Southern Paiute called this place long before any European set foot here.
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3
Isaac Behunin Named This Place Zion
In 1863, a farmer named Isaac Behunin built a one-room cabin along the North Fork of the Virgin River and declared the canyon Zion — the Hebrew word for sanctuary.
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Renaming a Monument for the Nation
President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation in 1909 creating Mukuntuweap National Monument, preserving these canyon lands under a name rooted in the Southern…
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5
Blasting a Mile Through Solid Rock
The Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel required workers to blast through one point one miles of solid Navajo Sandstone, making it the longest tunnel in the country at the time of…
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