New $7M visitors center unveiled at Utah national monument’s birthday celebration

Cedar Breaks National Monument • As birthday bashes go, the one that kicked off at Cedar Breaks National Monument this week couldn’t get much higher.

Situated at over 10,000 feet and overlooking a half-mile-deep redrock amphitheater, the site President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed a national moment on Aug. 22, 1933, was dressed up in its birthday finest Thursday.

As high as the elevation is, it was matched by the high spirits of the federal, state and area dignitaries gathered there to celebrate the dedication of a new $7 million visitors center.

“This has been a very long time coming,” a jubilant Cedar Breaks National Monument Superintendent Kathleen Gonder remarked at the ceremony attended by National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service officials, Paiute tribal leaders, U.S. Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, and Stephen Lisonbee, rural adviser to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.

Making their voice heard

The occasion had extra significance for Paiute leader Roland Maldonado, who said tribal members’ parents and grandparents once had to ask permission to leave the reservation and were deemed to be disrespectful if they attended funerals and other important occasions without asking.

“Thank you for allowing our southern Paiute voice to be heard today …,” the chair of the Kaibab Band of Paiutes told the crowd. “This [is] a moment for us to remember, for our future generations to remember, that you gave us a voice here, that you allowed us to come, be recognized and to be acknowledged.”

Cedar Breaks’ new 2,800-square-foot visitors center is equally welcomed by park staffers who now have a new abode to call their workplace home. Until now, a 1937 600-square-foot log cabin perched near the edge of the Point Supreme Overlook has doubled as an information center and park store.

Kate Hammond, regional director of the National Park Service Intermountain Region, who oversees 85 national parks across eight states, said a new center with extra space was long overdue. Roughly 22,000 people visited Cedar Breaks in 1937, she noted, compared to about 700,000 a year today.

“It is about time, almost 90 years later, “ she said, “to have a facility that is fitting of that kind of visitation.”

The new visitors center is built from organic materials that are closely linked to the landscape, according to park officials. Its amenities include a park store, staff offices, an outdoor covered patio and new restrooms. The facility will be home to interpretive exhibits and dark sky, wildflower and other events led by park rangers.

Aside from its extra space and amenities, the new center will enable the park service to expand the number and quality of the programs at the monument, while offering visitors an indoor respite from wind and wintertime cold.

As for the old cabin, the former information center won’t be relegated to history. It will now be used as a self-guided museum to better acquaint visitors with the site’s rich human and geologic past, according to park service officials.

Paying for the center

The new center is funded from a variety of sources, including a $3.2 million grant from the Zion National Park Forever Project, the official nonprofit partner of Zion National Park, Cedar Breaks and Pipe Spring national monuments, along with Dixie National Forest.

In addition, the park service kicked in a matching $3.2 million grant from its Centennial Challenge Program, which consists of money generated by park passes sold to senior citizens. Iron County contributed more than $500,000 to pay for a land analysis to ensure the site was suitable for the center and for its architectural design. Not to be outdone, the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation provided $500,000 to help with programming costs at the center.

Lisonbee, the governor’s adviser, touted the economic return on such investments, noting that visitor centers at the state’s national parks and monuments play a key role in the $12 billion in direct visitor spending tourism generates each year. He said annual tourism dollars also support nearly 160,000 jobs and generate more than $2 billion in state and local tax revenues.

For Corrina Bow, chair of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Cedar Breaks is part of the tribe’s ancestral homeland. It is the tribe’s responsibility to protect the land, she and other tribal leaders said, and make their voices heard to preserve their language and their heritage.

“We’re encouraged to speak our language when we come here so the mountain recognizes us …,” said Bow, who sang several Paiute songs at the dedication. “The ancient stories of our history, culture and genealogy are written in the stones throughout the canyon walls and the cliffs of this [monument].”