William Wallace Bass was born in Shelbyville, Indiana on October 2, 1849. Like hundreds of others with the hope of getting rich, his father headed west to join the California Gold Rush where he died of yellow fever. Hearing the news the family moved from Shelbyville to New Jersey were Bill attended school through the sixth grade. He learned the carpenter trade and studied telegraphy, and by the time he reached 17 got a job as a conductor on the Erie Railroad. Bill Bass was never very strong or robust and possessed an extremely nervous disposition. As he grew older his health deteriorated, and while working as a dispatcher on New York's elevated railroad his doctors found a heart aneurysm and diagnosed him as beyond relief and suggested he might extend his life a few months by moving to the arid Southwest. Thus, the slightly built 27-year old man, standing five feet six inches and sporting his trademark moustache headed West and spent the early l880s in southwestern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and even ventured for a short time across the border in Chihuahua, Mexico. Finally he wandered north in July l883 to Williams, Arizona, a frontier town which boasted thirty saloons along the tracks of the A&P Railroad, and unsuccessfuly sought employment in the railroad yards. For two months he worked at odd jobs around Williams, including house construction, fiddling for dances, and serving as deputy sheriff. Then with marked improvement to his health and enough money saved for a grubstake he moved seven miles north of town where he lived in a cave and went into cattle ranching on the Scott Ranch. He first encountered the Grand Canyon when Havasupai Indians guided him to the rim in the autumn of 1883, and by the spring of 1884, he erected a small cabin and began homesteading near Havasupai Point while exploring and prospecting in the Canyon. After a Supai chief showed him a reliable water supply below the rim and with the help of two Supai Indians he improved an Indian track which he named the Mystic Spring Trail. During the cold winter months he studied books on geology in nature's college below the rim. His rustic camp soon served served as a haven for photographers, artists, writers and geologists, while another camp under an overhang at Mystic Spring became a base for visitors exploring the Esplanade. About this time he began using the title of Captain and like Captain Hance, he and three hired hands continued improving the old Indian path to the river affording tourists the total rim-to-river experience. Here he established a river camp, built a rock cabin, and a crude wooden boat from lumber packed in on burros for crossing the Coloraado river at a placid location below some rapids. He called this Bass Ferry. Less