Norman Nevills

Norman D. Nevills (April 9, 1908 – September 19, 1949) was a pioneer of commercial river-running in the American Southwest, particularly the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

He led trips including Dr. Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter, the first two women to successfully float the Grand Canyon (which occurred in 1938), and Barry Goldwater.

Nevills' chance for fame came in 1938, when he had the opportunity to escort Dr. Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter, two botanists from the University of Michigan who wished to catalog the flora of the Grand Canyon, from Green River, Utah, to Lake Mead.

[3] At least one river historian, Otis "Dock" Marston, in reviewing all the journals after the trip, noted that the success of the cruise was due in large part to Dr. Clover's insistence new boatmen be found to replace the two that quit at Lee's Ferry.

[6] In 1940, Nevills took Barry Goldwater, a young man from a family which owned Arizona's largest chain of grocery stores, as a paying customer down the Grand Canyon.

In 1946, challenged by a Salt Lake City newspaper writer, Nevills went to Idaho to run trips on the Main Salmon and the Snake Rivers.

"[5] To overcome the challenge of getting around Mexican Hat, Utah, which was accessible only by bad dirt roads, Nevills took flying lessons and bought a small private airplane in 1946.

On September 19, 1949, Nevills and his wife, Doris, took off in his Piper J3 from his airstrip in Mexican Hat, Utah, en route to Grand Junction, Colorado.