THE ARCHES NATIONAL PARK extends about 15 miles
north-to-south and about 10 miles east-to-west,
and covers around 115 square miles ( 73,400
acres). It contains over two thousand natural
sandstone arches and a variety of unique rock
formations that are emphasised by contrasting
colors and textures.
For over 300 million years, water
and wind deposited materials from a variety of
environments onto what is now the Colorado
Plateau. Over time, the remains of these various
environments were cemented into the layers of
sedimentary rock visible today.
Roughly 15 million years ago, the
Colorado Plateau began lifting and the Green and
Colorado rivers, which cut through the layered
sandstones, became trapped and later carved the
deep, meandering canyons visible today. Rain and
melting snows from local mountain ranges such as
the Abajos and La Sals drained into these rivers
and caused the formation of a network of
tributary canyons.
Significant faulting of the rock
strata occurred in some areas when a deep layer
of salt (Paradox Formation) liquefied under the
weight of overlying sandstones. The shifting salt
caused the surface rock to bow and fracture and
even collapse downward. The result of this
movement is dramatic in both Arches and the
Needles District of Canyonlands. Over time,
floods and the action of water freezing and
thawing enlarged these fractures and eroded the
sandstone into a variety of spectacular
shapes.
Hunter-gatherers migrated into the
area about 10,000 years ago at the end of the Ice
Age and found pockets of chert and chalcedony,
microcrystalline quartz which were perfect
materials for making stone tools. By chipping or
knapping these rocks they formed dart points,
knives, and scrapers. While no ancient dwellings
have been found in Arches, the are forms the
northern edge of ancestral Pueblo territory,
People living in modern-day pueblos like Acoma,
Cochiti, Santa Clara, Taos, and the Hopi Mesas
are descendants of the ancestral Pueblo
people.
The first Europeans to explore the
Southwest were Spaniards. The Old Spanish Trail
linking Santa Fe and Los Angeles ran along the
same route, past the park visitor centre, that
the highway (191) does today. 
In 1855 the Mormons tried to
establish a mission in what is now Moab but
fights with the local tribes, resulting in the
death of three settlers, forced them to abandon
the project. In the 1880s and 1890s, Moab was
settled permanently by ranchers, prospectors, and
farmers. Around 1898 John Wesley Wolfe, a veteran
of the Civil War, built the surviving homestead
known as Wolfe Ranch on Salt Wash and it can be
seen at the start of the Delicate Arch Trail.
Wolfe and his family lived there for about ten
years before moving back to Ohio.
Loren “Bish” Taylor,
who took over the Moab newspaper in 1911 when he
was only eighteen years old wrote frequently
about the beauty of the red rock country around
Moab and in particular about the spectacular
Arches formations. In 1923 a prospector named
Alexander Ringhoffer wrote to the Rio Grande
Western Railroad in an effort to publicise the
area and gain support for creating a national
park, The railroad executives visited the area
and were impressed to the extent that a
presevation campaign was started.
On 12 April 1929, President
Herbert Hoover signed the legislation creating
the Arches National Monument in order to protect
the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other
sandstone formations. On 12 November 1971
Congress changed the status of Arches to a
National Park. See also a history of Moab here.
The map above shows park entrance
just five miles from the town of Moab and the
first part of the road through the park.
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