Below is a short quote from an article written by my friend Clyde Denis and published in Canyon Legacy back in 2010 about the likely origin of the name Chesler Park and Chesler Canyon in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.
The identification of an inscription near Chesler Park, close to the southern regions of Red Lake Canyon in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, has led to a reassessment of the origin of the name for Chesler Park. The inscription reads, “H. Shisler Feb. 6. 92”
Its apparent age and cursive script style, and the remoteness of the location, suggests that this inscription has a late 19th century origin. Moreover, a local historian writing in 1918 mentions a German named Shisler in nearby Bluff in the winter of 1893.
“Chesler” might have come into being as the garbled version of another man’s name and that H. Shisler was the original eponymous cowman.
You can view a PDF copy of the article here: The Origins of Chesler Park
A big reason I’m bringing this up now is because when Jared and I were searching for rock art and ruins in The Needles back in October, we found a nice petroglyph panel that had an old inscription on it. Well, I recently took a closer look at that inscription for Clyde and found that it said:
This inscription was created only six days after the one in Red Lake Canyon, and is now the third known inscription that H. Shisler has left behind in the area (the second one is an H.S. located along the road in Indian Creek Canyon that is discussed in the article).
The full trip report can be found here: Searching for Starvation Pocket
This is a close-up photo I took of the H. Shisler inscription.