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Show 'MAIL ESTABLISHED AFTER 50 YEARS ; The following is taken from the I Kane County Xews, pubMshed a: j Kanab, and gives in brief form j the history of the mail service between Kane and Washington counties, which has just been reestablished re-established after fifty years: After a lapse of ftTty years, mail service on the old route between Kane and Washington counties has been re-established. In the bid days, fifty years ago. the mail was raised and lowered by bailing wire over the Schonesburg ledge. It was here in the Long valley fork of the Virgin river that the carrier from Washington county met the carrier from Kane county. Before they discovered that the use of bailing w:ire would precipitate precipi-tate matters, each carrier hobbled his horse while he went on foot to meet the other and exchanged the mail on the trail. It took a whole day to reach this spot, so the carriers often camped together for the night before they began their homeward journey. The first contractors were Joseph Jos-eph Hamblin and Nephi Johnson, and the first mail carrier from Kanab was Thomas Greenhalgh. Since that time the route has been abandoned and for many years there w-as no mail service between the two counties. July 1, 1930, brought a star mail route direct from Cedar City. Instead In-stead of pulling the mail up over the ledge by wire, it is brought by truck through a tunnel more than a mile in length which pierces the towering walls of Zion park, and which is considered the greatest and most expensive bit of road engineering in the world, j Te outgoing mail will leave Kanab upon the arrival of the mail j from Bright Angel at about 11 o'clock each day, arriving in Cedar : City at 6 o'clock in the evening in time to go out on the evening train for Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Under this schedule a letter posted in Kanab at 10 o'clock will be in Salt Lake City at 6:30 the next morning, or one may leave Kanab and for $14.00 be in Los Angeles within thirty-six hours. Charles B. Petty and Wilson N. Lunt, Ford dealers of Cedar City, have the contract for the new Cedar City-Kanab route. |