Edward Abbey - The Bard of Moab, Utah
As I first read author
Edward Abbey's book, "Desert
Solitaire - A Season in the Wilderness”, I
loved both his writing style and his subject
matter. In that book, his style was simple,
direct and observational; yet personal, all at
once. His subject was the old
Arches National Monument near Moab, Utah.
With rye humor, he wrote about the
animals, plants, hoodoos and summer tourists that
populated the area around Devils Garden campground.
It was there, as a mid 1950’s park ranger that Abbey
lived for part of two seasons. His second season
ended with a train trip home to the east coast that
started at
“Thompson” (Springs). Can one think of a more
ignominious way to leave Canyonlands than at a
railroad whistle-stop on a cold, rainy night?
That night, one Jeep with 4-wheels
spinning, drove north of Moab on
Valley City Road. With the heavy rain,
mud flying from the wheels and the engine
floored-out, the wipers swept across the windshield
just fast enough to smear the red mud away. They
were late to the station and flagging down a
cross-country passenger train at Thompson was rare
and dangerous. With no time to take the paved road,
they continued northeast, their wheels barely
touching the muddy ground.
The driver, squinting through the
muddy glass, was sad to see his friend go. The other
was heading east to a promised job and money. That
need drove the man back home. At Arches, he had
experienced the secrets of God’s creation. Later, he
was to live in Oracle, Arizona. Between his birth
and death, he like to say that his life took him
from Home to Oracle. Now he paid the stationmaster
to stop the Zephyr and get him onboard.
Thompson Springs had no Fred Harvey
restaurant or luxury hotel. It had one diner, one
motel and one eternal wellspring of water, which
accounts for half its name. Few passengers ever
boarded a Union Pacific passenger train at Thompson
Springs. The small stop was used mostly to ship
cattle or sheep to market. Situated half way between
Green River, Utah and Grand Junction, Colorado,
Thompson Springs could just as well have been half
way to nowhere.
While the bearded man pressed fifty
dollars into the stationmaster’s hand, the eastbound
California Zephyr had already passed both sets
of green lights. At that moment, no one on the train
expected to stop at Thompson Springs.
With throttles wide open, the
eastbound Zephyr pulled the grade on approach to the
old station. The thrum of the engines and the glare
of the headlight shot through the night sky. With a
touch of W.C. Fields ringing in his voice, the
stationmaster declared, “Sir, there is no time to
waste. You are leaving here on that train”. As a
powerful wavering light filled the depot, the
stationmaster realized that the train was about to
pass them by. With one hand, he shoved the fifty
dollars deep into his pocket and with the other he threw a switch,
activating the red lights on the station platform.
Seeing red, the engineer of the
Zephyr had no choice but to shut down the throttles
and actuate the air-brakes. As brake shoes applied
friction to each wheel, the engine of the
aluminum-clad streamliner shot past the passenger
platform. Grinding, creaking, and then shuddering,
the engine came to a halt in a cottonwood grove
beyond the station. “Peace at last, peace at last”,
was all that the U.P. engineer managed to say.
Luckily, the train was comprised of ten cars, so
Abbey could board the last car, which stood
quietly at the far end of the platform.
As a town, Thompson Springs survives
to this day for only one reason, which is water. As
strange as it may seem, at Thompson Springs there is
free flowing water in the desert. Even now,
residents can pull up to the town's water dispensing
station and fill truck-mounted water tanks as
needed. "Be sure to shut off the valve when you are
done", reads a nearby sign. First used to support
cattle and sheep ranching, the springs later made a
reliable water-stop for steam locomotives. As Abbey
so eloquently decried in Desert Solitaire, the West
was changing. When his train departed Thompson
Springs that rainy, autumn night, its gleaming
silver locomotive no longer required water-stops.
The diesel-electric motors powering its drive-wheels
made Thompson Springs obsolete.
In Edward Abbey’s early writings, a
prescient reader may spot evidence of both his
inconsistencies and his growing discontent. A serial
monogamist,
Abbey married often and spent money freely on
such icons of consumption as a
red 1975 Eldorado Cadillac convertible. Like the
pamphleteers of our early union, Abbey used his wit
and his pen to wage metaphorical war against
despoilers of the desert he loved.
First published in 1968, Desert
Solitaire elevated Edward Abbey to celebrity status,
especially in the Spanish Valley. In 1974, drawing
on his proceeds, Abbey bought a home at
2260 Spanish Valley Drive. There, he reputedly
wrote his breakthrough novel,
The Monkey Wrench Gang. I use the word
“reputedly”, but not to impugn or malign the
memories of Abbey’s family, friends and neighbors.
Publication of The Monkey Wrench Gang occurred in
1975. Is it reasonable to assume that Edward Abbey
could write, then have edited and published his opus
in one year’s time?
Thirty years after his death, if we
were to poll current Moab residents regarding Edward
Abbey’s legacy, half would love him and half would
revile him. If Abbey were to return today, his
spirit might align more closely with those who hate
him than with those who love him. Abbey was never
one to take himself too seriously. His style of
self-depreciative humor compares well to Will Rogers
or Mark Twain.
The Abbey House, as locals call it,
is currently on the market for under $300,000.
Although the house and grounds need some repair, the
current owner has done what she can to maintain a
mid-century home with style and grace. The day I
visited Abbey's Shrine, there were candles lit upon
the mantle. The grounds and outbuildings may look
like a Tennessee Williams stage set transported to
the desert, but then again, one person’s junk is
another person’s treasure.
Whether new owners repair the house
or tear it down, we hope that all future custodians
of the property will conserve and retain its large
stone fireplace. Local stone, chosen for its
pattern, texture and color dominates the outdoor
wall of the front entry. Inside, the opposite face
of the same structure makes up the fireplace and
living room wall. Harkening back to a time when
firewood heated most local homes, stone vents above
the hearth circulate warm air into the room.
That hearth, as heart,
architecturally defines the Abbey House. If
tomorrow, a tornado carried away every stick of the
Abbey House, that stone fireplace would stand.
Saving the heart of his former home would be
monument enough to Edward Abbey, the iconoclastic
author and onetime
Bard of Moab.
Email
James McGillis
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