Pipe Spring National Monument

Pipe Spring is a reliable water source on the dry plateau between Zion and the Grand Canyon's North Rim, and that reliability made it a crossroads long before it was a monument. The National Park Service's National Register documentation records construction at the site from 1863 through about 1885, and the two-story sandstone fort built between 1870 and 1871 for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints still stands over the spring with its original rooms, gunslots, and livestock yard. President Warren G. Harding proclaimed the monument on May 31, 1923, to protect the spring and its layered history, and Pipe Spring was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

For the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians the spring is part of a much longer story: Paiute families used the water and surrounding land for generations, and after decades in which the fort and ranch economy displaced that use, the site is now interpreted together. The visitor center and cultural museum are jointly run with the tribe, and the entrance fee structure sends three of every ten dollars collected directly to the Kaibab Band. Tribal exhibits, Paiute guides, and demonstration programs present the spring as Paiute home ground and Mormon frontier station at once, which is an unusual and honest arrangement in the national park system.

Visiting

The National Park Service operates the monument: open daily 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Arizona time (Mountain Standard Time year-round). Fees: $10 per person age 16 and up, valid 7 days; children 15 and under free; $3 of each admission goes to the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians; America the Beautiful passes accepted; card only. Tours of Winsor Castle run with seasonal programming; check the ranger desk at 928-643-7105.

Photo: [public domain (NPS), via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winsor_Castle_at_Pipe_Spring_National_Monument.jpg). Winsor Castle, the 1870s fort over the spring.