The Colorado is one of the great rivers of North America. Formed in
Southern Utah by the confluence of the Green and Grand, it intersects
the northwestern corner of Arizona, and, becoming the eastern boundary
of Nevada and California, flows southward until it reaches tidewater in
the Gulf of California, Mexico. It drains a territory of 300,000 square
miles, and, traced back to the rise of its principal source, is 2,000
miles long. At two points, Needles and Yuma on the California boundary,
it is crossed by a railroad. Elsewhere its course lies far from
Caucasian settlements and far from the routes of common travel, in the
heart of a vast region fenced on the one hand by arid plains or deep
forests and on the other by formidable mountains.
The early Spanish explorers first reported it to the civilized world in
1540, two separate expeditions becoming acquainted with the river for a
comparatively short distance above its mouth, and another, journeying
from the Moki Pueblos northwestward across the desert, obtaining the
first view of the Big Canyon, failing in every effort to descend the
canyon wall, and spying the river only from afar.
Again, in 1776, a Spanish priest traveling southward through Utah struck
off from the Virgin River to the southeast and found a practicable
crossing at a point that still bears the name “Vado de los Padres.”
For more than eighty years thereafter the Big Canyon remained unvisited
except by the Indian, the Mormon herdsman, and the trapper, although the
Sitgreaves expedition of 1851, journeying westward, struck the river
about 150 miles above Yuma, and Lieutenant Whipple in 1854 made a survey
for a practicable railroad route along the thirty-fifth parallel, where
the Santa Fe Pacific has since been constructed.
The establishment of military posts in New Mexico and Utah having made
desirable the use of a waterway for the cheap transportation of
supplies, in 1857 the War Department dispatched an expedition in charge
of Lieutenant Ives to explore the Colorado as far from its mouth as
navigation should be found practicable. Ives ascended the river in a
specially constructed steamboat to the head of Black Canyon, a few miles
below the confluence of the Virgin River in Nevada, where further
navigation became impossible; then, returning to the Needles, he set off
across the country toward the northeast. He reached the Big Canyon at
Diamond Creek and at Cataract Creek in the spring of 1858, and from the
latter point made a wide southward detour around the San Francisco
Peaks, thence northeastward to the Moki Pueblos, thence eastward to Fort
Defiance, and so back to civilization.
That is the history of the explorations of the Colorado up to forty
years ago. Its exact course was unknown for many hundred miles, even its
origin being a matter of conjecture. It was difficult to approach within
a distance of two or three miles from the channel, while descent to the
river’s edge could be hazarded only at wide intervals, inasmuch as it
lay in an appalling fissure at the foot of seemingly impassable cliff
terraces that led down from the bordering plateau; and to attempt its
navigation was to court death. It was known in a general way that the
entire channel between Nevada and Utah was of the same titanic
character, reaching its culmination nearly midway in its course through
Arizona.
[Illustration: The Colorado, Foot of Bright Angel Trail.]
In 1869 Maj. J. W. Powell undertook the exploration of the river with
nine men and four boats, starting from Green River City, on the Green
River, in Utah. The project met with the most urgent remonstrance from
those who were best acquainted with the region, including the Indians,
who maintained that boats could not possibly live in any one of a score
of rapids and falls known to them, to say nothing of the vast unknown
stretches in which at any moment a Niagara might be disclosed. It was
also currently believed that for hundreds of miles the river disappeared
wholly beneath the surface of the earth. Powell launched his flotilla on
May 24th, and on August 30th landed at the mouth of the Virgin River,
more than one thousand miles by the river channel from the place of
starting, minus two boats and four men. One of the men had left the
expedition by way of an Indian reservation agency before reaching
Arizona, and three, after holding out against unprecedented terrors for
many weeks, had finally become daunted, choosing to encounter the perils
of an unknown desert rather than to brave any longer the frightful
menaces of that Stygian torrent. These three, unfortunately making their
appearance on the plateau at a time when a recent depredation was
colorably chargeable upon them, were killed by Indians, their story of
having come thus far down the river in boats being wholly discredited by
their captors.
Powell’s journal of the trip is a fascinating tale, written in a compact
and modest style, which, in spite of its reticence, tells an epic story
of purest heroism. It definitely established the scene of his
exploration as the most wonderful geological and spectacular phenomenon
known to mankind, and justified the name which had been bestowed upon
it—The Grand Canyon—sublimest of gorges; Titan of chasms. Many
scientists have since visited it, and, in the aggregate, a large number
of unprofessional lovers of nature; but until a few years ago no
adequate facilities were provided for the general sight-seer, and the
world’s most stupendous panorama was known principally through report,
by reason of the discomforts and difficulties, of the trip, which
deterred all except the most indefatigable enthusiasts. Even its
geographical location is the subject of widespread misapprehension.
Its title has been pirated for application to relatively insignificant
canyons in distant parts of the country, and thousands of tourists have
been led to believe that they saw the Grand Canyon, when, in fact, they
looked upon a totally different scene, between which and the real Grand
Canyon there is no more comparison “than there is between the
Alleghanies or Trosachs and the Himalayas.”
There is but one Grand Canyon. Nowhere in the world has its like been
found.