The Southwest has had a most romantic history. It is the oldest portion, both in the way of interior exploration and in the way of settlement, in the United States.
The Coronado Expedition of several hundred Spaniards left Mexico in 1540 and journeyed up into what is now central New Mexico. The convoy consisted of soldier aristocrats on their caparisoned horses and in their picturesque regalia, and of common soldiers, fortune seekers and servants. Accompanying the train were hundreds of horses packed with supplies and hundreds of cattle, sheep and hogs for food purposes.
They established themselves at Tiguex, New Mexico and spent two years, 1540-42, conquering the Indians and searching for treasure. One party went west and discovered the Grand Canon and another went east as far as Kansas. They found no riches but explored, mapped and named the country and took possession of it for Spain.
New Mexico was settled in 1595, permanently, except for a short period when the populace fled because of an Indian uprising. The first capital was San Juan though it was soon moved to nearby Santa Fe. It should be noticed that this settlement preceded colonization on our eastern coast.
No one knows when the Spanish first entered Colorado but the country seemed well-known and named when Juan Rivera made his first trip into it in 1765. He led a party across the southwestern part of the state to the Utah border and back to the Gunnison River near Hotchkiss. Within the next ten years he made three more trips of the same kind.
The Escalante expedition of 1776 wanted to find a northern route from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. They followed the same trail as had Rivera to Hotchkiss but from there went north and then west to Utah Lake. Because of a shortage of food they started home, crossing Utah, the Colorado River and Arizona and arriving at Zuni, New Mexico. This party very thoroughly mapped and named everything in the course of the journey.
The most commonly traveled route across Colorado was the “Old Spanish Trail”, used in the 1830’s and 40’s by trade caravans operating between Santa Fe and Los Angeles, woolen goods going to the west and horses and mules to the east. It traversed Colorado, Utah and southern Nevada. All of these caravans, incidentally, crossed the Animas River and Ridges Basin Pass just at the south edge of Durango. This last part was later used by the American pioneers.
Meanwhile, trappers were thoroughly working every stream in southwestern Colorado and selling their furs at Taos or Santa Fe.
After the war with Mexico and due to the treaty of 1848 the United States acquired all of the southwestern part of the country.
Gold was discovered on Cherry Creek, the Denver area, in 1859 and a rush to that place began. The same year Captain Baker led a prospecting group into what was later Silverton and named the spot “Baker’s Park”.