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We are also reminded of the canyon's namesake, Ebenezer Bryce, who settled in the valley just below the canyon in 1870. Bryce was a shipbuilder who journeyed west with Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers to assist in the construction of buildings essential to community life throughout the new land. Bryce lived here for only five years, but in that time, the canyon became known as Bryce's canyon to the people who knew him. Ebenezer Bryce was a pragmatic man, constructing roads to facilitate lumber transport and surveying the route for a 10-mile irrigation ditch from the top of the plateau to the valley that would later lead to larger, more permanent settlements. If he had romantic ideas concerning the land on which he struggled to survive, they are lost in history. All he is known to have said concerning this striking scene behind his home is, "It's a hell of a place to lose a cow."

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