Idiots Walk in Beauty Ep 5 Finding Beauty in old barns…

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jgh
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Joined: Oct 14, 2001 8:00 pm
Location: Plymouth, Minnesota zone 4

Idiots Walk in Beauty Ep 5 Finding Beauty in old barns…

Post by jgh »

Idiots Walk in Beauty Ep 5 Finding Beauty in old barns…

How do you pronounce Escalante? If you can get a person to say the name of the town, you will immediately be able to tell if they are local or a visitor.

In the same year the British colonies on the East Coast sent King George a nasty letter declaring their independence, the Spanish still maintained a firm hold on their American colonies and were attempting to find a land route from Santa Fe – the terminus of “The Royal Road” north from Mexico city – to their remote colonies on the Pacific coast.

In 1776, two Franciscan friars, Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, led a party of ten men on an expedition to explore the high Colorado Plateau. They were the first Europeans to see great expanses of current-day New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.

In the 1870s, an unsettled area of picturesque Utah canyon land was referred to as “Potato Valley.” Intrepid one-armed explorer John Wesley Power suggested they rename the valley after the great explorer, Vélez de Escalante. It didn’t seem to matter to him that the exploration team never came within 50 miles of the valley. The name stuck – but the pronunciation has varied over the ensuing decades.

Most tourists will be familiar with basic Latin American Spanish pronunciation, so they will say “es-kuh-LAHN-tay.”

But when those nineteenth century Mormons changed the rustic Potato Valley epithet to the tonier Escalante, they didn’t speak Spanish. Two different pronunciations are common among Utah locals – ES-kah-LAN-tee or the three syllable ES-kah-lant.

Who is right? Well… one could argue – none of them! Since Vélez de Escalante was born in Spain in 1750, there is good reason to believe he pronounced the ‘s’ in his name with a ‘th’ sound almost like a lisp… so he would have said something like “eth-kuh-LAWN-tay.

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Who doesn’t love an old barn?!

Whatever you call it, this little town – fewer than 800 permanent residents – is a backwater. As one of the jumping off points for exploring the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument and a half-day’s drive from Bryce Canyon, there is a small but vigorous tourist trade. But with limited shopping and no large employers, the transition between town and country is blurred. Nowhere is that more evident than in the number of barns (and livestock) within the “city” limits.

The Idiots appreciated the beauty of these rustic town buildings. They are often constructed of uncured pine, resulting in amazingly curved walls and great colors and textures. They speak of a time and way of life that is rapidly passing.

The Idiots are not the only people who appreciate the beauty of old barns. The structure in the final picture plays a central role in the next episode.


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