This medallion (installed in 1992) at the Four Corners Monument marks the exact spot where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah converge. The Bicentennial hiking team from Meredith, New Hampshire, stood at that spot on July 1, 1970.
This medallion (installed in 1992) at the Four Corners Monument marks the exact spot where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah converge. The Bicentennial hiking team from Meredith, New Hampshire, stood at that spot on July 1, 1970.
AFTER WALKING through the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, during the night of June 12-13, 1976, the two long-distance hikers from Meredith, New Hampshire, continued westward.
Scott King and George Hormell had been making their way through the state as part of a cross-country journey that had started in Portland, Maine, on March 15. The third member of their team was Chris Hurd, who drove the van and provided general support. The purpose of their effort was to honor the Bicentennial of the American Revolution on behalf of their community club, the Meredith Jaycees. They planned to reach the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica, California, in July.
The hikers had been interviewed on June 11 for The Garden City Telegram, a newspaper published in that city seven miles east of Holcomb. In the article titled, “Stamina the Measure of ‘Birthday’ Trek,” Hormell is quoted as saying, “We’re just trying to do a down-to-earth Bicentennial project. We’re getting a good vacation and meeting the U.S. face-to-face. Everybody told us Kansas was just a flat tundra where they grow nothing but wheat and you might see only three or four people. But Kansas people have been the friendliest so far.”
On June 14 the men reached the tiny town of Holly, Colorado, located four miles west of the state’s border with Kansas. It had taken King and Hormell 20 days to cross Kansas, a distance of 445 miles. The extreme daytime heat had become a factor, so they were doing some of their walking after sunset and before sunrise. While hiking through Colorado, the men varied their schedules. As Hormell didn’t mind the heat as much, he mostly walked during the day, while King preferred walking at night, so slept in the van during the day. They both covered the same territory, but at different times.
They and Hurd had been fortunate in Kansas, where the local Jaycees clubs had been eager to host them in their homes overnight, but their luck ran out in Colorado. The transcontinental hiking project attracted little interest from either the Colorado Jaycees or from the general public. The three men had to camp out most nights while crossing the state.
In Colorado, King and Hormell continued following the roads that had originally been laid out as the dirt paths of the Santa Fe Trail, the famous 19th century trade route that connected Missouri and New Mexico. However, when they arrived at La Junta on June 18 they began walking in a different direction. Rather than continuing southward on the Santa Fe Trail route toward this New Mexico city, the hikers headed for Colorado’s western border.
The hiking team passed through Durango on June 28, and spent the next night in the beautiful Mesa Verde National Park. The men were now in the Four Corners region of the vast Colorado Plateau, which is named for the geographical point where the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. This arid territory is divided up into federally-designated jurisdictions that serve as the homes for several Native American tribes, including the Ute, Navajo, Zuni and Hopi.
In crossing through Colorado, King and Hormell walked nearly 470 miles over an 18-day period. They left the state on July 1 at its southwest corner when they crossed into New Mexico on U.S. 160. The elevation in that area is 5,000 feet above sea level. Soon after entering New Mexico, King, Hormell, and Hurd visited the Four Corners Monument, located about a half-mile from the highway. There they viewed the concrete and brass marker that had been installed in 1931 to designate the exact spot where the four states converge.
Afterward, the hikers returned to U.S. 160 and finished walking the one-mile or so stretch of the road that cuts through the northwest corner of New Mexico. They were now in Arizona.
The terrain had changed. Hormell wrote in his journal, “Right at Four Corners we seemed to run smack into desert. It was very hot and dry all day. The sand is a very pretty shade of red-orange that seems to burn around sunset. Small cacti are reopening. There are no trees, but there are still a lot of small shrubs.”
Next week: A quiet Fourth of July in the Painted Desert of Arizona, then onward.
