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| Lees Ferry is located where the Paria River, draining from the north, enters the Colorado River. Shale of the Chinle Formation erodes faster than the sandstone upstream in Glen Canyon and the marble and limestone downstream in Marble Canyon. As a result, this was the only crossing along the Colorado River for hundreds of miles along the river corridor. Lees Ferry was named after a Mormon pioneer, John Doyle Lee, who established the crossing in 1871. The First Expedition of the John Wesley Powell Survey camped at Lees Ferry on August 4, 1869. John D. Lee was executed in 1877 for his part in the Mountain Meadow Massacre. |
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