As a young man working on the Boysen Dam on Wyoming’s Wind River, Birl Lynch was one of those daring enough — or foolishly reckless enough — to navigate the dangerous rapids of the river in a rowboat.
“We were young and energetic, and it looked like fun,” the Thermopolis resident said.
And he wasn’t alone. For a brief time from 1948-1951, Lynch and others braved the wild rapids in the dangerous, exciting and world-famous Wind River Canyon White Water Race on Memorial Day.
“We had a canoe and even though it tipped over in the white-water race, it was a lot of fun,” Lynch told Cowboy State Daily, remembering the adventure more than 70 years later.
It was 1951, and the Thermopolis Chamber was hosting the famous Memorial Day race. The course took competitors through 12 miles of turbulent water on the Wind River. Mechanix Illustrated magazine dubbed the race the “world’s toughest boat race” and the winner was declared “Champion White Water Boatman” of the world.
The annual affair was started in 1948 by the Thermopolis Road and Gun Club and drew thousands of spectators each year to watch the rugged whitewater riders who attempted to negotiate the course down the rapids of the Wind River.
Only a few successfully finished the race each year.
“I got to do it twice,” said Lynch. “Most the town came out and watched. We met a lot of people and just had fun. Lots of good times.”
His brother Aubrey had won the year of before in a decked-over canoe in a time of 1 hour, 27 minutes and 59 seconds. He won $1,000 and was ready to race again.
The brother borrowed a canoe from their good friend and fellow racer, Johnny Well, but they lost the boat after negotiating Pink Canyon, a section of rocky rapids through pink granite. They were unable to finish the race and their boat was recovered miles away.
Wells crashed his custom boat into a boulder in the same canyon and also didn’t finish that year.
They weren’t the only racers to take an icy bath. Six men were even hospitalized from shock and exposure, but all were released the same day.
Good sportsmanship awards were handed out to two Cowley, Wyoming, racers who rescued a Billings man when he was thrown from his boat. They followed him for about 7 miles before successfully fishing him out of the river.
Lloyd Barnes was also rescued by fellow racers after his boat broke up in the infamous Pink Canyon.
Any Boat Will Do
In 1951, 26 boats were entered and 13 finished. They ranged from crude homemade affairs to specially designed river boats.
Skill and daring were prerequisites, which explained why Wells, the top competitor in the race, had won in 1949 when he raced in the converted belly gas tank of a P-38 airplane.
“There was a big prize money, so it drew quite a bunch of guys to race,” Hot Springs County historian Ray Shaffer said. “And boy, they came with every kind of boat and floating device you could think of to get into that thing.”
In the 1950 race, six boats out of 15 finished the race, which began at the highway tunnels and ended at Wedding of the Waters.
Aubrey Lynch and partner Arnold Blanton had placed first in his decked-over canoe and second place went to two Green River men who were riding a cataract boat. Third place was won by another pair of Thermopolis racers in a raft they had made of two sealed tanks on a metal frame.
A Casper racer, Bill Mumma, finished sixth and became the first man to navigate the river in a four-man rubber life raft by himself.
The whitewater race was about skill as much as speed. The race was held in the Wind River Canyon from 1948 to 1951. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum) 
A parade complete with bikini girls was held each Memorial Day in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Pictured are the fourth-place winners sponsored by the Klamath Klub in California, Ronnie Gensaw and Jack McKeller. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum) 
The white-water race in the Wind River Canyon was a tricky course that took preservation, skill and sometimes just plain luck to even finish. This racer was trying to negotiate around the rocks. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum) 
By 1951, the white-water race in the Wind River Canyon had attracted national attention. Dean Langford from Klamath, California, competed in the race and told reporters that it was one of the toughest courses he had raced. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum) 
Sometimes, walking the boat through a treacherous section can be a racer’s best option. During the white-water race through the Wind River Canyon, not everyone would make it to the end successfully. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum) 
Before the Boysen Dam was completed in 1952, the Wind River would be swollen and muddy from the snowmelt. This made the race through the Wind River Canyon to be considered by competitors as one of the most dangerous whitewater course in the world. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum) 
The Wind River was littered with rock obstacles that made the annual whitewater race that much more treacherous. It didn’t stop men of all ages from entering, however, and vying for the $1,000 purse. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum) 
The Pink Canyon claimed many boats during the annual races through the Wind River Canyon. (Klamath Club via Hot Springs County Museum)
Risky Race
“When I was a little kid, my Uncle John decided to get into that boat race, so he got an old raft, probably a military army surplus. He said it wasn't much,” Shaffer said.
It was the first race in 1948, and no one knew what to expect.
“Uncle John lost his course halfway,” Shaffer said. “He started out and sank. He got to shore, and that race was over with. The next year, Uncle Ted and my Uncle Joe joined him and got themselves a boat. It was kind of a leaky thing, as I remember. They patched on that thing and messed around with it. This is spring of the year on Memorial Day and the water was icy cold. They got that thing all ready and they took it out there.
“And, boy, they took off with high hopes, but before they got very far, they ran into trouble. That water was really boiling down through there. There was nothing to stop it, no dam or anything. Pretty soon, they hit those white rapids going through Pink Canyon. It tipped them over and dumped them out in the water. Uncle Joe, he was hanging underneath the boat, and they didn't know where he was.”
Uncle Ted was one tough dude, just out of the Marine Corps.
“As tough as he was, he got the cramps. It was so cold he couldn't swim and he about drowned,” Shaffer said. “He finally got over to the shore and he laid there.”
Thousands of spectators lined the Wind River Canyon highway to watch the race. They could only watch helplessly when the boats would capsize and sink.
“I can remember mom,” Shaffer said. “We were going along with the car, watching them and she was crying — and she never cried. She says, ‘We've lost the boys.’ She was scared that they'd drowned in the river, you know. Finally, they saw Ted hanging on the bank, and they went down there and fished him out. John was already out, and they looked like drowned rats.
“Joe was hanging underneath the boat and they got him out of there. They survived it, though they nearly froze to death. That water was ice cold coming right off a snowbank and Memorial Day. So it was it was pretty traumatic to him. They didn't ever win anything, but they had a story to tell out of it anyway.”
Game Over
Just when the race was getting national attention as the toughest whitewater course in the world and had drawn a record number of racers and spectators in 1951, it was over.
The Boysen Dam was completed and the “grueling run over the hazardous 12 miles of roiling river water” was no longer the same.
In May 1952, the Casper Star-Tribune reported that the Thermopolis Chamber, which put on the annual event, voted to replace the whitewater race with a boat regatta on the Boysen Dam Reservoir to protect the fish.
“It was explained the boat race down the 18-mile stretch of river would require the release of a large amount of water from the dam,” the Associated Press wrote. “This would endanger the stock of 5,000 6-and-a-half-inch rainbow trout planted in the stream below the dam. It also would destroy fish food in the river.”
The construction of the Boysen Dam had made the waters of the Wind River clear so that it was possible to plant these fish in the streams. However, that also meant the rapids had been tamed and the world-famous wild race quickly became a distant memory.
“Uncle Ted worked on the dam out there where they were building Boysen Dam,” Shaffer said. “When they put that in, they could control that flow in the river. It still gets a little high in the spring, but nothing like it was then.
“It was a rip roaring, wild ride through there. That river used to really boil.”
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
