Historical Badass: Bill Lipe

In the summer of 1958, a crew of University of Utah graduate students launched a fleet of rubber baloney rafts and motored upstream on the Colorado River. With boats anchored, the young men, adorned with Army surplus gear, stepped ashore. They were greeted by sculpted Navajo sandstone walls amplifying the sweltering summer heat. Their task: systematically survey and “salvage” archaeological materials from the extensive cultural landscape of Glen Canyon that would be flooded after the completion of Glen Canyon Dam.

Among the crew, twenty-year-old William D. Lipe, a grad student from Yale, hitchhiked to the job after his old Chevy died. Despite his scrappy arrival, Lipe had archaeological experience—two field seasons—so he was hired as a crew chief for the Glen Canyon Dam Archaeological Salvage Project, one of the largest in U.S. history.

Lipe recalled, “I learned a lot about setting up and running a camp, driving a motorboat. But throughout, I was in awe of the landscape and totally immersed in the