Dr. J.W. Williams

Before there was a hospital for a hundred miles, there was one doctor on a horse. Moab's settlers wanted a physician so badly that in 1896 the county pledged a hundred and fifty dollars a year to lure one; the next year Dr. J.W. Williams stepped off the stagecoach as the first doctor in Grand County. His practice was the whole canyon country — sheep camps, mining towns, cowboys hurt on the range, reached by buggy or horseback with his medicine in the saddlebags. Moab would not get a hospital until 1919.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Corona Arch Trail — 2.6 mi
  A massive arch you can hike to without a national park fee
• Potash Road Dinosaur Tracks — 4.2 mi
  Dinosaur footprints embedded in a cliff face along the Colorado River
• Grandstaff Canyon — 4.7 mi
  A shaded creek-bottom walk to Morning Glory, the sixth-longest natural rock span in the country
• Moab — 4.8 mi
  The adventure capital of the American Southwest

More markers nearby

• Bates E. Wilson — steps away
• Moab Veterans Memorial — 4.9 mi
• Early LDS Church — 4.9 mi
• Elk Mountain Mission — 4.9 mi