Georgie White

Georgie White Clark (1911–1992) was a river-running guide in the Grand Canyon. She was the first woman to run the Grand Canyon as a commercial enterprise, and she introduced several innovations and adjustments to the way that guides ran the Colorado River. In particular, she used large army-surplus rafts, often lashing together multiple rafts, to maintain stability in the large rapids. In 2001, the United States Board on Geographic Names renamed Mile 24 Rapid in her honor.

Early years Born Bessie DeRoss in Oklahoma, she was raised in Denver, Colorado, from the age of nine. She married Harold Clark while still in high school and had a daughter, Sommona Rose, at the age of 17. She moved to Chicago for several years, then to New York City with her husband, finding office work at Radio City Music Hall, and divorced him not long after a cross-country bicycle trip in 1936. She was briefly married to James White. and on October 11, 2001, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names followed the Arizona State Boards on Geographic and Historic Names and approved renaming Twenty-Four Mile Rapid as Georgie Rapid in a split 3–2 vote.