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Show KT MDiulliigiintDiiTliIkeit an Indian lahe is destined to cover historic bottle hollow by George E. Stewart T way came to Bottle Hollow. I IE WAGON road winds over the red hill, down the leaning slope, across the small valley and enters a narrow defile known as Bottle Hollow. This natural causeway cuts through a small, low mesa from a valley in the west to the Uintah River bottoms to the east. It is only about a quarter of a mile long, and where it spreads onto the plains of the Uintah, stands old Fort Duchesne. , , as IT IS HARD to realize now, driving the old road, that this was once the track of empire, but, in days gone by, this was a segment of the main road carrying all the traffic between The Outside, and the Ute Reservation, Fort Duchesne, and the entire Uintah Basin. A mile or so to the north rumbles modern Highway 40, and what was once the mainstream lies almost forgotten, wrapped in its aura of bygone days. The little pass got its name from the Boys in Blue." The enlisted men at Fort Duchesne were not allowed to bring hard liquor onto the post. These soldiers w'ere hardbitten men, to whom w'hiskey was the staff of life. They had to drink somewhere. The hollow, next to the post, was a good place to cache red eye, and to drink it. As time went by, the dead soaccumulated at this ldiers, drinking place until there were hundreds, and so the passage I be known There are many stories about this place, most of them have been lost in the limbo of yesterdays. But if they could be found and written, they would add many pages to the colorful history of the West. PASS is a of its because haunting place tongueless past. Down its length THE NARROW the painted warriors of the Utes once rode, their feathered headdresses waving in the breeze. Along this way flew the maroon and white pennant, proud with the big red 7 on its center-piecand the regimental band played the war song, Gairy Owen," as the legendary Seventh U.S. Cavalry of The Little Big Korn fame came riding here, one day, long ago. It W'as under the command of Cap-tia- n Bentecn, a man whom Western history will never forget, for he extricated himself and his command from the massacre of Yellow' Hair, on the distant river of the Greasy Grass in Montana. homesteaders came with their wives and children and milk cow's, all traveled down the hollow on their wa to the Land Office in Vernal. e, The heavy-lade- n freight outfits creaked and groaned in the deep, rutted wheel tracks of this road. The stagecoach jingled and jostled, carrying its mail and passengers through this pass, to places far away. The Opening," the Alter TODAY THE OLD ROAD can still be traveled, the rocks still lie on the hillsides to throw back echoes as they did in times gone by. But one day soon, the wheels of progress will make one more turn and what w'as, will fade into oblivion. Then, a much needed Ute Indian called meaning Indian Lake) will begin, and Bottle Hollow' will be dammed. The defile and the valley behind it will fill with w'ater. Never again will things be the same; the bulldozers and heavy equipment will change the old things to new; the bones and bottles will be uncovered and moved and drowned. Once again an old landmark will pass, with its ghosts, into the past, only the memories of it will live on. Project , Tlie Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday, February 23. IfKifl 3 |