The First in my Famous People Buried in Northern Arizona Series

William Wallace Bass
Birth: Oct. 2, 1849
Shelbyville, Shelby County, Indiana, USA
Death: Mar. 7, 1933
Wickenburg, Maricopa County, Arizona, USA

American Folk Figure. He was a pioneer of the Grand Canyon, where he built a cabin in 1884 with the help of the Havasupai Indians, whose causes he supported locally and in Washington. Established a river camp at Bass Ferry and made mineral claims. Guided the first geological survey of the Canyon in the 1890s. Constructed a cableway across the Colorado River in 1906 and helped found the first school at the Canyon, 1911. Bass's properties were bought out at the establishment of the National Park. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage and was cremated, his ashes scattered over the Canyon - the stone in the American Legion Cemetery is therefore a memorial only.