Although our focus here is the exploration of the American West in the 19th century, it is not our intention to diminish the accomplishments of earlier explorers. The native people possessed a vast knowledge of the geography of North America, both from their own travels and through trade contacts with other tribes. Indeed, they often drew remarkably accurate maps of the terrain for later, European explorers. The history of Spanish explorations includes the remarkable travels of De Soto, Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, De Anza, Father Kino, Father Garces, Father Serna, Manuel Rivera, and of Dominguez-Escalante, among others. The memory of French explorers La Salle, Jolliet, and Marquette lives on in the cities bearing their names but there were also others: Radisson, Verendyere, and the lesser known voyageurs du bois who criss-crossed the north woods of Canada. The British too, made major contributions to contemporary knowledge of the geography of North America, through employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company, most notably David McKenzie and Peter Skene Ogden.
American explorations of the lands beyond the Mississippi can be divided into five distinct periods, starting with Lewis and Clark in 1804 and ending with John Wesley Powell in 1879.
1804 - 1820
Lewis and Clark (1804-1806) explored up the Missouri River and across the Continental Divide, then followed the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.
Lt. Zebulon Pike (1806-1807) traveled up the Arkansas into present day Colo rado, where he was captured by Spanish soldiers on the Upper Rio Grande and taken to Santa Fe and then to Mexico via the Camino Real. Pike's real mission was to reach Santa Fe and spy on the Spanish. By the time of his subsequent release in Texas, he had had the opportunity to reconnoiter much of New Spain. Pike coined the expression "Great American Desert," describing the Plains.
Maj. Stephen Long (1820) journeyed up the Platte and South Platte rivers, down the Arkansas, then down the Canadian River. His map of 1821 was based on fixed geographical points and was one of the most significant maps produced to that time.
1807 - 1840
Mountain men explored much of the West in years following the Lewis and Clark expedition.
John Colter, a member of the expedition, crossed into Jackson’s Hole and was the first European to see the wonders of Yellowstone (1807-1808). George Drouillard, who was also with Lewis and Clark, explored the Big Horn basins. In 1811 Ezekiel Williams discovered the beaver-rich mountains and parks of Colorado. Other mountain men filtered into the Spanish territories of the Southwest (which became Mexican territories with Mexico’s independence in 1821). William Wolfskill trapped and explored the upper Rio Grande and the San Juan rivers in 1822-23, Sylvester and James Ohio Pattie trapped along the Gila River in Arizona in 1824. Two years later, with a band led by Ewing Young, they traversed the West diagonally, from the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, to the Grand Canyon, and then northward as far as the Wind River Valley. In 1827 the Patties opened a new route from Santa Fe to the Pacific via the Gila and Colorado rivers to the Gulf of California and thence across the desert to the coast.
Jedediah Smith (1824-1831) was perhaps the greatest mountain man and American explorer of the West. He had traversed the West from the upper Missouri to the far Southwest, explored in California and Oregon, and along the Columbia River. He was the first European to cross the Great Basin and he personally informed the government about the rich possibilities of settlement in California and Oregon.
Joseph Reddeford Walker came to know the West almost as well as Jedediah Smith. In his long life (1798-1876) he crossed the Great Basin north of Great Salt Lake and, with Capt. Benjamin De Bonneville was the first European to see the Yosemite country. He found the pass now named for him, which became the chief emigrant gateway to California.
1840-1845
Capt. Charles Wilkes (1841) explored the Oregon coast and the Oregon country as part of a larger exploration of the Pacific Ocean.
John C. Fremont (1842, 1843-1844, 1845) in three separate expeditions circumnavigated the West, correctly deleniated the Great Basin for the first time, and prepared the first overall map of the West based on astronomical observations. He followed this map with another one of the California and Oregon emigrant trails including precise distances, detailed information on landmarks, river crossings, grazing lands and Indian tribes.
1853-1855
The Corps of Topographical Engineers launched six different explorations and surveys for a transcontinental railroad route. Isaac I. Stephens led a northern survey between the 47th and 49th parallels to connect the Great Lakes with the Pacific Coast. Lt. John W. Gunnison led another party along the 38th parallel south of the Uinta Mountains to Great Salt Lake. Gunnison and his men were killed by the Ute Indians on the Sevier River, whereupon Lt. Edward G. Beckwith traced the route from Great Salt Lake to California. Liuetenant. Amiel Weeks Whipple surveyed along the 35th parallel west from Santa Fe, Lts. John G. Parke and John B. Pope explored from each end of the 32nd parallel for a southwestern route. Finally, Lt. Henry L. Abbott surveyed north and south along the Pacific Coast for a route to link coastal ports.
1860-1879
Between 1860 and 1870 Josiah Dwight Whitney surveyed California and mapped the whole state for the first time. Whitney and his men also persuaded Abraham Lincoln to grant Yosemite Valley to California as a public park in 1864, thus setting a precedent for the national wilderness park idea.
John Wesley Powell Survey (1869-1879) explored the Colorado Plateau and the Colorado River region including the first and second trips down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon. Powell’s monumental work on the arid regions of the United States, published in 1878, called for restraint in the settlement of the West and warned againstthe wasting of scarce resources.
Clerance King Survey (1867-1872) was sponsored by the War Department--to explore and map a 100-mile swath across the West, along the 40th parallel from the Sierras to the front range of the Rockies. Prior to this survey, King was with the Whitney survey in California.
Lt. George Montague Wheeler Survey (1869-1879) explored and mapped the deserts of the Great Basin south of the 40th parallel to the Mexican border. Wheeler boated up the Colorado River as far as Diamond Creek. By 1879 he had mapped almost one-third of the country west of the 100th meridian.
Ferdinand V. Hayden Survey (1867-1878) explored the Yellowstone geyser region, and promoted a Yellowstone Park bill, which Congress passed in 1872. After Yellowstone, he explored and mapped Colorado, working through some of the most rugged country in the West; his men discovered ancient cliff dwellings in southwestern Colorado, as well as ruins in Chaco Canyon and Canyon de Chelly.
The government had, year after year, at great expense, sent parties of scientific men to traverse these countries; to gather up, describe, and publish all that could be found out relative to beasts, birds, insects, fishes, and every concievable creeping, crawling, or flying creature; also correct reports of its geology. But I have never known any one charged to learn and report that most important of all items, whether it is good for agriculture.
-- General W. B. Hazen, 1866
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| Depiction of a trapper, Louisiana Territory, early 1800s |
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