A one-room sandstone cabin stands beside the Fremont River at a dirt lot on Highway 24, suitable for cars and RVs, with limited room for large vehicles. It's a look-from-the-lot stop. Elijah and Tabitha Jane Behunin built it in 1883 and left about a year later, after flash floods washed out their crops. The size of the building is the point, since the older children had to sleep outside it altogether. Further east along the same stretch, a waterfall lot is closed to entry. The falls exist because the state rerouted the river for Highway 24 in 1962, and the fast, narrow channel it cut has proved dangerous. Visitors should stay out of the river, which also carries a health advisory.
Easy through these curves. A sandstone cabin is coming up on your left, so small you'll wonder who fit in it. Not everybody did. The dirt lot beside it is fine for cars and most RVs, and this is a look from the lot. Elijah and Tabitha Jane Behunin built it in eighteen eighty-three, the same Elijah who cut the wagon road through the Capitol Gorge narrows, and it held the parents and the youngest children. The older boys slept in a sandstone alcove. The older girls slept in a covered wagon box. Floods took the crops, and after about a year they moved on. Nettie, who went on to teach in Fruita, was a daughter of this family. The lot you passed by the river back there is closed, and so are the falls below it, so don't turn around for them. That waterfall is the highway's doing. In nineteen sixty-two the state moved the river to make room for the road, and the water has been cutting a narrow slot in soft sandstone ever since. Five near drownings are on record there. Don't wade anywhere on this river.
Photo: NPS / C. Roundtree · Public domain (U.S. Government work)