From Powell to Power: A Recounting of the First 100 River Runners through the Grand Canyon

This will just take six months ...or so Dock Marston thought in 1947 when he began to write a simple review of the earliest expeditions along the Colorado River. He soon realized what had been previously written was woefully incorrect and incomplete. Marston resolved to compile as thorough a recounting of the first 100 river runners through the Grand Canyon as he possibly could. Dock began his history of river running on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon at a time when many of the pioneering river runners from the late 1800s and early 1900s were still alive. Over the next thirty years, Dock amassed a huge collection of first-person accounts of these river runners, from James White on a log raft in 1867 to the first powerboat runs of 1949 through 1951. This book is his opus magnum, establishing an accurate narration of these sometimes contradicting recollections. The work was almost completed in 1979 when Dock ran his last rapid. Restrictions placed on the manuscript expired in 2012, and this incredibly rich story has finally made it into book form. Tom Martin, author of several Grand Canyon books, brings Marston's work to the forefront of Grand Canyon river running literature.

Dock Marston ran rivers throughout the West from the 1940s to the 1970s. He ran his last rapid in 1979. He ran on some of the lowest and highest flows on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. He also ran many types of watercraft from a one-man Sportyak, through sadiron cataract boats, dories, rubber rafts, and a variety of power boats. His collection of river materials at the Huntingdon Library is highly valued by all Grand Canyon river buffs.