Promised Land

Promised Land. . , The early Mormon settlers of Springdale and other Virgin River communities were resourceful and enterprising farmers. Taking advantage of the natural water resources available on the canyon floor, they dug irrigation systems and planted corn, vegetables, fruit, and tobacco. Timber was harvested from atop the plateaus and livestock grazed in the canyons and on the surrounding mesas., [Blue marker below] , When the settlers first arrived, the high plateaus around Zion were thickly forested with old-growth ponderosa pine. Before this valuable resource could be harvested, a method had to be found for moving timber from the mesa tops down into the valley., The pioneers first tried rolling logs off the canyon rims, but they shattered to kindling on impact thousands of feet below. Then a local man named David Flanigan devised an ingenious mechanism of pulleys and cables to carry cut boards from a sawmill atop the plateau to the canyon floor. The Zion Cableworks operated for 26 years before being abandoned in 1927.