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William Wallace Bass Collection, 1848-1976

AHS-ND 1065
AHS.AV.0602
AHS.PC.181

Biographical Note

William Wallace Bass was born on October 2, 1848 in Shelbyville, Indiana. He came to Arizona in 1883 for his health and became one of the first settlers on the south rim of the Grand Canyon when he located a camp there in 1884. Realizing the Canyon's great tourist potential, he constructed a stage road to his camp, first from Williams, then from Ashfork, both approximately seventy miles distant. He began advertising for the tourist trade in 1885, although at this time his principal activities in the Canyon were mining and prospecting.

From 1885 until 1926, when he sold his interests to the Santa Fe Land and Improvement Company, Bass played an important role in the evolution of the mining and tourist industries at the Grand Canyon. He traced and built over 140 miles of roads and more than forty miles of trails, connecting his mines, camps and scenic viewpoints. He built cisterns and dams to collect and preserve rain water and established first a boat, then a cable ferry, across the Colorado River. He was also a photographer and built a darkroom below the Canyon rim to accommodate the photographers who frequented his camp. He was instrumental in starting a school at the Grand Canyon in 1911.

Bass' tourists facilities were located twenty-seven miles west of present day Grand Canyon Village. When the railroad arrived there in 1901, Bass built a house five miles from its terminus to provide an overnight stop for his guests. Later, when tourist traffic increased and drives along the rim became popular, he constructed yet another house, one mile from Grand Canyon Village, in order to make his business more competitive.

William Wallace Bass was endowed with great intellectual curiosity. He was a self-taught geologist who had his own theory of how the Grand Canyon was formed. He also wrote poetry, though he was too modest to call it that, referring to his verse as "rhymes and jingles" instead. In fact, he published some of them under that very title, and, later, another book entitled, "Adventures in the Canyons of the Colorado".

Bass was a good friend of the Havasupai Indians and often visited them, alone or with tourist parties. He gave them seeds and was instrumental in having a school and post office established there. He also employed some of them from time to time and interceded on their behalf in Washington.

William Wallace Bass' wide ranging interests, intellectual curiosity and desire to learn were qualities unique among the early tourist operators at the Grand Canyon. He was called a "visionary" by some of his contemporaries, and, indeed, with justification. He not only foresaw some of the later developments at the Canyon but took the necessary steps to adjust to them. This was characteristic of his entire forty-two years at the Canyon.

Bass realized the Canyon's tourist potential from the beginning and built his stage roads to accommodate the tourists who were sure to come with the completion of the Atlantic-Pacific Railroad, the forerunner of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. He saw the need for a spur line to the Grand Canyon and actively lobbied for its construction, chairing the first organizational meeting of the Grand canyon Railroad at the town of Williams in 1894. Although his own efforts were unsuccessful, the railroad was eventually built, reaching the Canyon twenty-seven miles east of his tourist facilities. Bass was ready; he had constructed a stage road from t he railroad to his camp. Then, as the number of visitors increased over the years, he moved his tourist operation closer and closer to the railroad terminal at Grand Canyon Village.

Bass was quick to recognize the importance of the automobile and the change it would create in travel patterns; he welcomed it and the opportunity it presented to break the railroad's monopoly on travel to the Grand Canyon. He bought the first automobile for his business in 1914 and added another one later on. He lobbied for good roads and put up road signs between Ashfork and the Canyon at his own expense. Finally, as his Canyon years drew to a close, he dreamt of incorporating the airplane in his tourist business, anticipating thereby yet another development that was to change tourism at the Grand Canyon. He shouldn't, perhaps, be faulted if he did not see the problems signs, automobiles, airplanes and an ever increasing number of visitors would create half a century later.

Through his Washington contracts, William Wallace Bass played an active role in the various legislative proposals affecting the Grand Canyon from the initial establishment of Grand Canyon National Park in 1919. He often did not agree with the proposals and his opposition resulted in lively correspondence with this Washington friends. He frequently carried his arguments into newspapers near and far.

When the Fred Harvey organization was given the contract as the principal concessionaire at the Grand Canyon National Park, the days of the Bass tourist business were numbered. The seventy-one-year-old Bass had neither the energy, nor the resources, to compete with Fred Harvey and the Santa Fe Railroad. In 1923, he entertained his last guest and the family moved to Wickenburg, Arizona. Characteristically, the first thing Bass did there was to open a tourist camp in a grove of mesquite trees along the Hassayampa River. In 1926, he completed the sale of his Canyon holdings to the Santa Fe Land and Improvement Company. He died in Wickeburg in 1933, at the age of eighty-four. In accordance with his last request, his ashes were deposited by airplane on Bass Tomb, a prominent peak in the Canyon that commands a view of the section he explored and developed.

Ada Lenore Diefendorf was born on August 29, 1867 in New York. She was a music teacher and came to Arizona to teach in Williams. She met William Wallace as a tourist to the Grand Canyon in 1894. They were married on January 5, 1895. They had four children, Edith Jane born August 22, 1896; William Guy born July 26, 1900; Hazel born October 5, 1903; and Mabelle Melba born April 25, 1905.

Ada helped William W. with secretary work for the mining companies and even owned shares in some of the mines. She occasionally taught music. She wrote in her diary regularly from 1895 to 1929. She had her hands full with children, water shortages, visiting tourists, loneliness when William W. was away prospecting and touring. Ada survived William by eighteen years and passed away, also at the age of eighty-four, in 1951.

Publications of William Wallace Bass

"Poems" (no date, three editions)

"Rhymes and Jingles"(1909)

"Adventures in the Canyon of the Colorado" (1920)

"The Grand Canyon in Poem and Picture" (by W.W. and W.G. Bass, 1925, three editions)

And many newspaper articles

Scope and Content

The manuscript collection consists of 13 boxes (7.5 linear feet) of manuscript material arranged in eight series. These consists of the diaries of William Wallace and Ada Bass (1894-1929), Business Correspondence (1901-1971), Financial Records (1883-1946), Mining Documents (1896-19246 and 1954-1956), Personal Correspondence and Family History (1849-1963), Manuscripts (1881-1919), Scrapbooks, (1891-1903), and Printed Material (1864-1976).

The bulk of this collection consists of diaries by William Wallace and Ada Bass covering life at the Grand Canyon and of business correspondence dealing with development at the Grand Canyon in the early 1900s. The collection contains information on tourism, the establishment of the Grand Canyon National Monument and National Park, the Santa Fe railroad, mining, Grand Canyon and Arizona history and the Havasupai Indians.

The oral history collection consists of two series. The first includes nine cassette tapes of interviews with W.G. Bass, W.W. Bass' son with accompanying transcripts. The second includes tapes of interviews with Ed Kahle (driver of automobile for W.W. Bass), Harry Phillips (hauled ore for W.W. Bass) and Jack Fuss (worked for W.W. Bass for a year).

The photograph collection consists of 24 boxes (13.5 linear feet) of prints, lantern slides, and glass plate negatives. There are nineteen boxes of photographic prints, dealing primarily with W.W. Bass and the Bass family. The majority of the photographs were taken in the Grand canyon where the Bass' camps, mines, and homes were located, and include images of and around the White House, Tin House, Bass Camp, Bass Cave, Shinumo Camp, and Rock Camp. Some photographs portray Ada's family and home in New York. There are numerous images of Havasupai Indians, including individuals (Chicakpanage and many unidentified), school children, homes, dancers and a sweat lodge. In several of these, Bass family members, particularly W.W. Bass, are present. There are also a few photographs of Navajo and Hopi Indians, including a trip to Hotevilla and a Hopi Snake Dance.

The hand-colored lantern slides, which were used in lectures given by F.H. Maude and W.W. Bass are mostly of the Grand Canyon (with an emphasis on Bass' holdings), along with views elsewhere in Arizona and the Four Corners region. Some are duplicates of images within the rest of the collection. The remaining five boxes are the glass plate negatives of the photographic prints in the collection.

Organization

Restrictions

Conditions Governing Access

No restrictions on use, except: not available through interlibrary loan.

Conditions Governing Use

It is the responsibility of the user to obtain permission to publish from the owner of the copyright (the institution, the creator of the record, the author or his/her transferees, heirs, legates, or literary executors). The user agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the Arizona Board of Regents for Northern Arizona University, its officers, employees, and agents from and against all claims made by any person asserting that he or she is an owner of copyright.

Related Material

William G. Bass Collection, NAU.MS.290, NAU.PH.96.24, NAU.MI.96.24

The Bass Photo Collection, Lantern Slides is a part of the Arizona Memory Project

Controlled Access Terms

Administrative Information

Custodial History

The William Wallace Bass collection was first donated to the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, Arizona in 1986. It was transferred to the AHS Northern Division in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2012. It is now housed in Special Collections and Archives at Northern Arizona University's Cline Library.

Preferred Citation

William Wallace Bass Collection [manuscript], AHS-ND 1065, Box [ ]. Special Collections and Archives. Northern Arizona University. Cline Library. Flagstaff, Arizona.

William Wallace Bass Collection [sound recordings], AHS.AV.6020, Box [ ]. Special Collections and Archives. Northern Arizona University. Cline Library. Flagstaff, Arizona.

William Wallace Bass Collection [photograph], AHS.PC.181, Box [ ]. Special Collections and Archives. Northern Arizona University. Cline Library. Flagstaff, Arizona.

Acquisition Information

Donated by Lenore (Mrs. W.G.) Bass on December 24, 1986.

Processing Information

Processed in 1996.

Container List