Brandy Blank river running video collection, 1940s

Before it was flooded by the rising waters of Lake Powell, Glen Canyon was a popular river running and destination. Led by guides like Albert "Bert" Loper, boaters experienced redrock canyons and Anasazi ruins alongside the Colorado River. Born in Missouri in 1869, Loper traveled west to the rivers of the Desert Southwest, where he spent the majority of his life in his adopted hometown of Green River, Utah. In 1916 Loper and Ellsworth Kolb became the first people to boat through Utah's Westwater Canyon. In 1920 Loper served as lead boatman for teh United States Geological Survey (USGS) mission to find a location for the future Hoover Dam. In 1939, at the age of 69, Loper ran every rapid in the Grand Canyon with fellow riverman Don Harris. He died in 1949 at the age of 79 when he flipped his self-made boat in the Grand Canyon's Marble Gorge. Glen Canyon Dam was dedicated in 1966.