Utah's original tour-finder

The scenic wonders of southern Utah inspire stories not unlike those of ancient mythology, capturing the imagination of all who read them.

Frank Gay, one of the many whose imagination was captured, broke into near sonnet while writing for the Deseret News on Aug. 25, 1923:

"In spite of all the wise old saws which teach us time is ever fleeting, there are places and occasions, -- yes, even eons, when time has apparently stood still. Like vaults of infinite memory, locked for the endurance of all eternity they mark the spot where time has paused for a million years to contemplate a masterpiece, and having pondered, moves on to wreck delayed haste in jumble and confusion.

"Several such sacred precincts as these we have in southern Utah where time must have retired from the rest of the world and gone into seclusion, there to work out an empire unlike any other region on the earth. Weirdly fantastic, wildly colored, grotesquely beautiful. This seemed to have been his secret workshop, his private laboratory from whence came the pigments to paint the heavens and guild the sunsets."

Gay's reflections on southern Utah's geologic beauty would lead him to become one of Utah's greatest promoters.

In the spring of 1920, the Deseret News hired Gay to head the Deseret News Tourfinding Department based in Provo. Equipped with a Hupmobile touring car purchased at Hyland Motor Co. in Salt Lake City, Gay set out to map and log the roads of the scenic west in a regular feature for the newspaper.

On May 29, 1920, the front page of the paper's automotive section introduced readers to the Deseret News Hupmobile Tourfinder and its pilot. In the weeks following, readers were provided with maps and logs of roads leading to Utah's best scenic features and beyond to places such as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

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Frank Dyer Beere Gay, or F.D.B. Gay as he became known to Deseret News readers in the 1920s, was born Feb. 5, 1878, in Taunton, Mass. A graduate of Harvard University, Gay often traveled around the country with different newspaper jobs that eventually brought him to the American West. He would settle in Provo sometime near the turn of the 20th century.

Frank's greatest interest became selling the scenic attractions of the West to America. This, and an interest in travel by way of the automobile, led him to begin a career as a pathfinder around 1909.

"We all desire to travel, to see what lies beyond the distant horizons, to explore the lands beyond the setting sun," Gay wrote in the Deseret News in 1920.

Gay kept detailed notes of his travels and began publishing a guide for others who shared his passion for automobile tourism. "Published from the standpoint of the man in the car," Gay's tour guides became known as the "Whitebook." Tourbooks like those made by F.D.B. Gay became as essential as gasoline to motorists wishing to navigate the wagon trails of rural Utah.

The whole idea for the Tourfinder was the brainchild of Elias S. Woodruff, general business manager of the Deseret News and a Utah promoter who once said that Utah had more south than north.

Logs were often the most useful in navigating the unimproved trails in southern Utah. A log was simply directions to your destination that included mileage to each point. Directions such as "turn left at the red barn" or "take road on the right side of the tracks" were common.

In 1922 the News published a collection of these maps and logs in tour guides borrowing the established name of "Whitebook." The News also erected two large billboard-size maps, one near Toquerville showing passing motorists how to find Zions Canyon and other scenic attractions, and the other near Crescent Junction north of Moab. The Hupmobile Tourfinder covered 16,337 miles its first year of service.

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The Tourfinder and its pilot were often found advertising Utah's scenery in Los Angeles. Mayor C. Clarence Neslen of Salt Lake City accompanied Gay on several occasions to the Pacific Coast city to boost Utah as the "Center of Scenic America." On May 21, 1921, the Deseret News proudly featured a story bearing the headline "Deseret News Tourfinder reaches Los Angeles after remarkable trip."

The story then continues, "The Deseret News Tourfinder arrived in Los Angeles today in an easy four-day running time from Salt Lake City. The run was made without trouble of any kind, not even having to change a tire. For the most part the roads are in excellent shape, considering the remote country covered in southern Utah, Arizona, Nevada and the desert section of California. The trip was made on 42 gallons of gas, an average of 22 miles to the gallon, which is another tribute to the good roads."

In the spring of 1923, Gay and Woodruff met with civic leaders and other interested parties to further campaign for Utah's southern scenery by forming an organization to be known as the Scenic Highway Association. Formally organized on April 10, 1923, the association became one of Utah's biggest boosters.

Members of the Scenic Highway Association worked to improve roads, provide services for tourists and build awareness of the great scenic attractions Utah had to offer. Civic leaders of southern Utah communities discussed means of bringing tourism to their home towns, and efforts were made to provide adequate road signs along the dusty, unmarked trails in rural Utah.

In November 1923, through efforts of the Scenic Highway Association, the Utah State Road Commission granted permission to the Auto Club of Southern California to provide directional signing for highways in southern Utah.

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Through the years, at least three different cars would bear the name "Tourfinder," the last of which was a Nash. By 1925 the Nash Tourfinder had covered 40,000 miles visiting many cities of the great Mountain West.

In 1936, Gay was still making headlines. "F.D.B. Gay of the Federal Writers Project is the first man to take breakfast at West Yellowstone and dinner on the north rim of the Colorado's Grand Canyon without leaving the ground," reported the Deseret News on Sept. 26, 1936.

"Mr. Gay, Chamber of Commerce officials report, negotiated the 765 miles separating the two great western national parks in fifteen hours driving over the 'Park-to-Park Highway' which the Chamber and other organizations have been promoting for many years." After finishing his breakfast, Gay left West Yellowstone at 4 a.m. in a Lincoln Zephyr bound for Arizona, arriving at the Grand Canyon just before 8 p.m. the same day.

The end of the road for Gay would come just days after his 63rd birthday in February 1941. He died from a lingering illness at his home in Provo.

Today, more than 9 million tourists visit Utah's national parks each year. Highways, accommodations and services for tourists are taken for granted in a world of modern convenience. But all of it stands as a tribute to motoring pioneers who promoted scenic southern Utah. In this effort, F.D.B. Gay stands out as a leader whose title could appropriately remain: The Tourfinder.

E-mail: johnc@desnews.com

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