Explorer & Trapper Trails

Spanish adventurers searching for more treasure after the conquest of the Aztecs and their gold began venturing farther north. In 1542, twenty-five years after Cortez and his men landed on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led an expedition all the way to present-day central Kansas, pursuing the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola.

In 1776 two Franciscan friars, Francisco Dominquez and Silvestre Escalante, made their way through southern Utah and the Gunnison River valley in Colorado. The Escalante Trail is now designated by numerous roadside markers on rural roads in southwest Colorado.

After the Louisiana Purchase and the subsequent Lewis and Clark Expedition, the government assigned the military to determine the southern river boundaries of the newly acquired land. In 1806 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike led his troop into the Spanish territory of the San Luis valley in Colorado. They wintered there in 1806-1807, nearly freezing to death, and eventually ended up in jail in Santa Fe. Another U. S. Army expedition led by Major Stephen Long in 1819-1820 went up the Platte River, turned south along the front range of the Rockies, and then east to follow the Arkansas River back to the Mississippi. The empty, arid Great Plains induced Long to label this part of his map the "Great American Desert."

Twenty years later, the Army sent Captain John C. Fremont to map the Oregon Trail and promote the West for settlement. Fremont was assigned the task because he was married to the daughter of influential Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Benton was a proponent of Manifest Destiny, the concept that America had a divine right to "overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions."(1)

Fremont was a flamboyant and controversial figure. His eloquent and enthusiastic report, with specific descriptions of campsites and glorious scenery, was written mostly by his wife Jessie. The report encouraged pioneers to move west.(2)

In addition to the military probes into the wilderness, solitary trappers and fur traders had long been pioneers of the American frontier, venturing into the mountains and streams of the Rockies seeking beaver. Their trails were often developed as they traveled, and confusion to the point of getting lost became a frequent experience. Osborne Russell, in the 1830s, wrote:

“A dispute arose about the part of the country we were in. Our Leader maintained that this was a branch of the Yellow Stone river but some of the Trappers had been in this valley before and knew it to be a branch of the wind river...But our man at the helm ... had a right to call the streams by what names he pleased...Finally he gave it up and openly declared he could form no idea what part of the country we were in.”(3)

Nevertheless, men such as John Colter, Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, the Sublette brothers, and others trapped up to the headwaters of the North and South Platte, the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, harvesting up to six hundred furs a season. They cultivated relationships with many tribes in the West, , married tribal women, and learned the country so well that they guided numerous government expeditions. Happily they shed the veneer of civilization at the fifteen rendezvous held in various locations between 1825 and 1850. Arranged by fur traders, Rendezvous were announced well in advance, and held in early summer so that the trappers could sell their pelts and stock up on staples and trade goods. Participants included traders and tribal members from all over the West. The huge gatherings included dancing, gambling and drinking. A rendezvous in Pierre's Hole, west of the Tetons, in 1832 is depicted in this William Henry Jackson painting.

Pose of Hunters Walker Art Studio Courtesy Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College

Studio photographs of mountain men were taken in their later years. They still convey the rugged reality of their lives in their clothing and weathered faces. As with the cowboy twenty years later, the rugged mountain man fascinated people in the East.

1. O'Sullivan, John L. (1845). Democratic Review, XVII (July-August, 1845), 5-6, 9-10.

Fremont, John C. (1856) The life of Col. John Charles Fremont, and his narrative of explorations and adventures, in Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon and California. Retrieved from the Making of America project at: http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AAZ9580.0001.001

3. Russell, Osborne. (1914). Journal of a trapper : or, Nine years in the Rocky Mountains, 1834-1843 : being a general description of the country, climate, rivers, lakes, mountains, etc., and a view of the life by a hunter in those regions. Retrieved from: http://roxen.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/russell.html