top of page
Search

The Vanishing of Glen and Bessie Hyde

Updated: 5 days ago

Glen and Bessie Hyde Disappearance

On December 19, 1928, an aircraft searching the Colorado River spotted a wooden scow near river mile 237 in the Grand Canyon.


The boat belonged to Glen and Bessie Hyde, newlyweds who had entered the canyon hoping to complete a record-setting honeymoon journey. It was still upright, and the supplies aboard it remained secured. Searchers recovered food, clothing, money, camping equipment, Glen’s rifle, Bessie’s journal and the couple’s camera.


What they did not find were Glen and Bessie.


Entries in Bessie’s journal showed that the couple had passed 231 Mile Rapid, placing them only a short distance upriver from where the scow was found. The condition of the boat suggested that it had continued downstream without them, but nothing aboard it explained when or how they had disappeared.


Their journey had begun almost two months earlier, with a homemade boat, limited river experience and a plan that could have placed both of their names in the history of Grand Canyon exploration.


A Marriage and an Ambitious Plan

Glen Rollin Hyde was born on December 9, 1898, in Twin Falls, Idaho. He worked as a farmer and had some previous river experience, including a 1926 trip on the Salmon and Snake rivers with experienced boatman Cap Guleke.


Bessie Louise Haley was born on December 29, 1905, in Parkersburg, West Virginia. She had been married once before and was awaiting the completion of her divorce when she met Glen aboard a passenger ship traveling to Los Angeles in 1927.


They married in April 1928, shortly after Bessie’s divorce became final.


During the summer, Glen and Bessie worked on family farmland in Idaho while discussing a trip through the Grand Canyon. Glen hoped to establish a new speed record for navigating the Colorado River. If they succeeded, Bessie would become the first documented woman to complete the journey through the canyon by river.


The trip also offered the possibility of publicity. Glen expected that a successful run could lead to newspaper coverage and paid appearances in which the couple would describe their adventure.


Neither entered the canyon entirely unaware of the risks. Glen had experience on rivers, while Bessie was new to river running. Even so, neither had previously navigated the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. Their knowledge of the route came largely from maps, books and the accounts of those who had gone before them. They would also travel alone.


Building the Scow

Glen and Bessie arrived in Green River, Utah, where Glen built the vessel that would carry them downstream.


The boat was a flat-bottomed wooden sweep scow approximately 20 feet long. Rather than being propelled by paddles, it was controlled using long sweeps that allowed a boatman to position the vessel as the current carried it downstream.


The design was familiar on some western rivers, but maneuvering a heavily loaded scow through the Colorado’s rocks and rapids demanded constant physical control. A sweep could strike an obstruction, become trapped or throw the person handling it from the boat.

Glen loaded the scow with food, clothing, blankets, camping equipment, a rifle, Bessie’s journal and a camera. On October 20, 1928, the couple launched from Green River and began traveling south through the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers.


The first weeks of the journey gave them reasons to believe their plan might succeed. They made steady progress and documented portions of the trip in photographs and journal entries. They also encountered people along the river, creating a record of their movement toward the Grand Canyon.


In Marble Canyon, a sweep reportedly struck Glen beneath the chin and knocked him into the river. Bessie watched as he was pulled through the rapid before managing to return to the scow. Glen survived, and the couple continued. The accident demonstrated how quickly one person could be separated from the boat while the vessel itself remained upright and moving downstream.


Out of the Canyon and Back Again

By mid-November, the Hydes had reached the area near Phantom Ranch. They left the scow and hiked out of the canyon along the Bright Angel Trail to restock their supplies.


At the South Rim, they met Emery Kolb, a photographer and experienced river runner whose studio stood near the head of the trail. Kolb and his brother Ellsworth had traveled and photographed the canyon for years, and Emery spoke with the couple about the route ahead.


Kolb photographed Glen and Bessie on November 17. In the surviving image, they stand together in their river clothes, Glen with one hand resting on Bessie’s shoulder.

Kolb reportedly offered them life preservers, but the couple declined. Whatever their reason, they returned to the river without them.


Glen and Bessie descended the trail and resumed the journey. River traveler Adolph Sutro accompanied them for part of the route from Phantom Ranch to Hermit Rapid before leaving the scow.


On November 18, Glen and Bessie continued downstream below Hermit Rapid. It was the last confirmed time anyone saw them. They had not yet reached the section of river where their journal and boat would later show they had traveled. For at least several more days, they continued downstream alone.


The Record They Left Behind

Bessie’s journal and the photographs recovered from the scow allowed searchers and later river historians to reconstruct part of the journey after Hermit Rapid. The camera contained images taken farther downriver, including a photograph identified as having been made near river mile 165. Bessie’s journal documented their progress beyond Diamond Creek and recorded that they had cleared 231 Mile Rapid.


Those records are important because they show that the couple traveled well beyond their last encounter with Sutro. They also narrow the unexplained portion of the trip to the river below 231 Mile Rapid.


The journal does not describe an emergency, an injury or a decision to abandon the journey. The supplies aboard the scow also do not suggest that Glen and Bessie deliberately prepared to leave the river. Their food, money, rifle, camping equipment and personal records remained with the boat.


If they had reached shore and planned to walk out, many of those items would have been useful or essential. Instead, the scow continued without them.


Rollin Hyde Begins Searching

Glen’s father, Rollin Hyde, had worried about the expedition before the couple became officially overdue.


Glen and Bessie intended to finish the river journey near Needles, California. When Rollin did not receive the communication he expected from his son, he traveled west and began organizing efforts to locate them. Searches were conducted from the air, on foot and along portions of the river. Emery and Ellsworth Kolb participated, using their familiarity with the canyon to look for the couple, their camp or evidence of an accident.


On December 19, an aircraft located the scow near river mile 237. It was floating upright and remained heavily loaded. When searchers reached it, they found a line extending from the boat and caught tightly on something beneath the water. Emery Kolb cut the line without determining what held the other end. That unanswered detail later became part of the case, although there is no evidence that the submerged object was connected to either Glen or Bessie.


Search parties examined riverbanks, side canyons and possible exit routes, but no confirmed remains, clothing or personal items belonging to the couple were found away from the boat.


Rollin continued searching long after others concluded that his son and daughter-in-law had died. He exhausted his savings, used Glen’s insurance money and mortgaged property to finance additional efforts. The National Park Service’s account, developed from letters and primary records, describes a father who accepted that the couple had probably died but could not stop looking for an explanation and sadly Rollin never found one. He died in 1945.


What May Have Happened Near Mile 232

The surviving evidence most strongly supports an accident on the river, but it cannot establish the exact sequence.


River historian Otis “Dock” Marston examined the Hydes’ route and concluded that they were probably swept from the scow near river mile 232. In that section, pieces of granite lie beneath the water and can catch, damage or abruptly redirect a boat.


A submerged obstruction could have caused the scow to turn sharply or stop while the current continued pushing against it. A sweep might also have struck a rock, throwing the person controlling it into the water, much as Glen had already experienced in Marble Canyon.


If Glen fell overboard, Bessie may have attempted to help him or lost control of the scow while he was in the water. If Bessie fell first, Glen may have entered the river after her. It is also possible that both were thrown out in the same collision.


Those are possible sequences rather than established facts. What makes an accident persuasive is that it does not require the boat to capsize. The scow could have shed its occupants, freed itself from an obstruction and continued downstream with its cargo still secured.


Without life preservers, Glen and Bessie would have had little protection against the current, cold water and submerged rocks. Their bodies could have traveled far from the place where they entered the river or become trapped in a location inaccessible to searchers.


The intact scow was once treated as an argument against an accident. In reality, it may be one of the details that best explains it.


The Stories That Followed

Because neither Glen nor Bessie was found, later accounts gradually expanded beyond the surviving evidence.


In 1971, an older woman participating in a Grand Canyon river trip reportedly claimed that she was Bessie Hyde and had killed Glen before escaping the canyon. She later withdrew the story, and no evidence connected her to Bessie.


A different theory emerged after the 1992 death of pioneering river guide Georgie White Clark. Among Clark’s belongings were a pistol and a copy of the Hydes’ marriage record, while Clark’s birth name was Bessie DeRoss.


The similarities encouraged speculation that Clark had been Bessie Hyde living under another identity. However, Clark’s life before and after 1928 is extensively documented. Historians who studied both women concluded that they were not the same person. The Hyde material in Clark’s possession was likely connected to her interest in Grand Canyon river history.


Another enduring story involved skeletal remains found in a boat house on the Kolb property after Emery Kolb’s death in 1976. The skeleton had a bullet wound in the skull, and its discovery inspired claims that the remains belonged to Glen.


Later forensic examination excluded Glen. The remains belonged to a younger man who had died under different circumstances, and subsequent research connected the skeleton to an unidentified suicide victim found in the park in 1933.


Neither discovery produced evidence that Glen was murdered, that Bessie survived or that Emery Kolb played any role in their disappearance.


The legends reveal how easily an unresolved case can accumulate new mysteries around it. They do not change what was found in 1928.


What the Canyon Gave Back

The surviving record follows Glen and Bessie farther than the original witnesses could.

Emery Kolb’s photograph places them at the South Rim on November 17. Sutro’s account follows them to Hermit Rapid the next day. Their camera carries the journey farther downstream, while Bessie’s journal establishes that they cleared 231 Mile Rapid.


The scow reached river mile 237 with the couple’s food, money, equipment, rifle, journal and camera still aboard. Glen and Bessie did not.


The available evidence cannot establish which of them entered the water first or exactly where the accident occurred. It cannot explain the line caught beneath the scow, and it cannot identify where their remains came to rest. It does, however, show that Glen and Bessie continued well beyond their final encounter with another person. They remained together, kept documenting their progress and passed one of the last major landmarks recorded in Bessie’s journal.


Their plan had been to leave the Colorado River in Needles and return with a record, photographs and a story they could tell publicly.

Instead, the boat carried their story out of the canyon without them.


Sources


Have a question or thought about Glen and Bessie Hyde's case? You’re welcome to leave a respectful comment below.


Comments

bottom of page