Archives West Finding Aid

The William E. Rice papers (1946) contain the Hite booklet, or as a note on the front of the booklet suggest, the Colorado River booklet. It is one of the two-hundred souvenir copies commemorating the dedication ceremony of a ferry crossing for the Colorado River at Hite, Utah, that would help connect San Juan County with Wayne County and Garfield County. The booklet contained twenty photographs of people and scenes from the ceremony, and was handmade by William E. Rice, a court reporter form Richfield. It was expected that these programs would be sold as souvenirs for this occasion, but the demand for them never materialized. To keep the booklets from going to waste, it was decided that copes would be sent to fifty public libraries, and as many high school libraries as copies were available. It was believed that as tourism flourished in Southern Utah, these booklets would become popular.

The booklet itself contains transcripts of the speeches given at the occasion. Most of the speeches were about thanking others for making the ferry and new roads possible, the beauty of Southern Utah, some of the history of the area, and the benefits from possible tourists that would help the building of new roads in scenic Utah. The meeting was lead by E. P. Pectol, and speeches were heard from Arthur L. Chaffin, Zeke Johnson, John D. Rogers, J. M. Adams, M. C. Moffit, Gordan T. Hyde, Arthur L. Crawford, Martin Guyom, and Utah Governor Herbert B. Maw. The lyrics for several songs composed and performed for the occasion are also included in the text.