Canyon of Lodore, Green River. Looking up the Canyon.
Walls 2000 to 2500 feet. “Wheatstack” in distance.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
He was mistaken about the trappers, not having ventured, for, as we have seen, there are traces of at least three parties: that of Ashley, that of the missionaries mentioned by Farnham, the trappers also mentioned by him, and the one indicated by the wreckage discovered in Lodore by Powell’s expeditions, though the latter and that mentioned by Farnham are possibly the same.
The fur trade, which up to about 1835 was principally in beaver skins, had now somewhat changed, and buffalo robes were the chief article of traffic. But the buffalo were also beginning to diminish. They were no longer found on the western slope of the mountains, and no wonder, as the fur companies annually gathered in about ninety thousand marketable skins during the ten years ending with 1842, yet it was only those animals killed in the cold months whose pelts were suitable for the fur business. The largest number of buffalo were killed in the summer months for other purposes; therefore one is not surprised that they were soon exterminated in the Colorado River Valley, where they never were as numerous as on the plains, and apparently never went west of the mouth of White River.
Las Vegas, Southern Nevada, on the Old Spanish Trail.
Oil sketch by F.S. DELLENBAUGH.
Frémont went over to the California region, returning through Nevada by way of the Spanish Trail, past Las Vegas (see cut, page 137), and up the Virgen, which he called the most dreary river he had ever seen, till he reached the point where Escalante had turned east. From here he followed Escalante’s trail back to Utah Lake, passing through Mountain Meadows (1844), afterward the scene of the terrible massacre of emigrants by a body of Mormons under John D. Lee.[[2]] His route was full of interesting adventures, but it is not possible to give details here.[[3]] Passing over the Wasatch by way of Spanish Fork, he again entered the valley of the Colorado on the head-waters of the Uinta, pausing briefly at Roubidoux’s Fort on Uinta River. Soon after he left, the fort and its occupants were annihilated by the Utes. Crossing Ashley Fork he climbed on the trail high up the mountain, where he had “a view of the river below shut up amongst rugged mountains;” Whirlpool Canyon and the Canyon of Lodore. Descending then to Brown’s Hole, he crossed the river in a skin boat, and camped just above Vermilion Creek, opposite the remains of an “old fort,” which was doubtless Fort Davy Crockett. “Here the river enters between lofty precipices of red rock” (now the Gate of Lodore), “and the country below is said to assume a very rugged character; the river and its affluents passing through canons which forbid all access to the water.” After journeying to the head of the Platte, and south through the Parks, he went east by the Arkansas, and came again in 1845 to cross the Green a little farther south on his way to California.
[2] For an account of this unfortunate affair see The Rocky Mountain Saints, chapter xliii., by T. B. H. Stenhouse. I knew Lee. Personally he was an agreeable man, and to me he disclaimed responsibility in this matter.
[3] See Frémont and ’49 by F. S. Dellenbaugh.
By this time the relations between the United States and Mexico were at the point of rupture, and in 1846 Kearny’s forces moved on New Mexico and California, the Mormon Battalion marking out a waggon-road down the Gila. Frémont, being in California, took an active part (1846) in the capture of the region, but the story of that episode does not belong here, and may be found in any history of California. The same year in which the formal treaty of peace was signed (1848) another event occurred which was destined to have a vast influence on the whole country and lead streams of emigrants to the new Dorado across the broad wastes of the Colorado Valley; gold in enormous quantities was discovered on Sutler’s California ranch. There were three chief routes from the “States” across the wilderness of the Colorado River basin: one down the Gila to the Yuma country, another by South Pass and so on around Salt Lake and down the Humboldt, and the third also by South Pass and Salt Lake and thence south, by Mountain Meadows and west by the Old Spanish Trail. On the northern road Jim Bridger had, in 1843, established a trading post on Ham’s Fork of Black’s Fork of Green River, and this now was a welcome stopping-place for many of the emigrants,[[4]] while on the southern trail a temporary ferry was established at the mouth of the Gila by Lieut. Cave J. Coutts, who had arrived in September, 1849, commanding an escort for some boundary surveyors under Lieutenant Whipple. For a couple of months he rendered great assistance to the stream of weary emigrants, who had reached this point on their long journey to the Golden Country of their dreams. A flatboat, built on the shore of Lake Michigan, and there fitted with wheels so that it could be used as a waggon on land, was launched on the Gila at the Pima villages and came safely down to the Colorado, bearing its owners. Coutts is said to have purchased this boat and used it till he left, which was not long after. The junction now began to be a busy place. The United States troops came and went, occupying the site of Coutt’s Camp Calhoun, which Major Heintzelman, November, 1850, called Camp Independence. In March, 1851, he re-established his command on the spot where the futile Spanish mission of Garces’s time had stood, and this was named Fort Yuma. It was abandoned again in the autumn of the year, as had been done with the camps of the previous seasons, but when Heintzelman returned in the spring of 1852 he made it a permanent military post.