2018-01-03_PERMIT FILE - C1981010 (33)

Home Browse Search

and western portion of Colorado." (Swanton 1953:372). The Bannock and Shoshoni roamed over the extreme northwestern corner of the state (ibid.:370). John Wesley Powell notes the presence of Utes west of the Green River as well, in the Uintas (Powell 1961). The animosity between the Coloradoans and the Utes accelerated to such an extent that the Utes rose up against Agent Meeker and the detachment of cavalry sent to subdue them; the outcry against the Utes was terrible indeed. They were led by Major Thomas Thornburgh from Fort Steele in Wyoming. The White River Utes and US Army fought an engagement referred to as the Battle of Milk Creek. Major Thornburgh was killed by the Utes during the battle. This battle resulted in the forced removal of the White River Utes and the Uncompahgre Utes from Colorado, and the reduction in the Southern Ute bands' land holdings within Colorado. It was the final defeat of the Utes in Colorado and opened millions of new acreage to white settlement by 1881. Hunting and Trapping Trapper activity in the region started as early as 1820 when Baptiste Brown (Jean - Baptiste Chalifoux) discovered Brown's Hole on the Green River. There were also trappers in Rio Blanco County before the full development of the fur trade. Among them were half- breed French trappers who worked for whomever paid the best price (Atheam 1977). Thereafter, the William Ashley party was sent out by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company from St. Louis in 1824 to trap the central Rockies -- Wyoming, the Yampa Valley, Steamboat Springs, and Brown's Hole (History of the Routt National Forest 1975:1-4). They reached Brown's Hole on the Green in 1825. This year also marked the incursion of Antoine Robidoux into west -central Colorado and up into Brown's Park, and the boom was on. Exploration Northwestern Colorado was visited by many famous (and some not so famous) explorers as they made their way through the West. They came for a variety of purposes: exploration, science, pleasure, adventure, and profit. The earliest explorers included the Escalante expedition (1776), Captain Benjamen L. E. Bonneville (1826), Dr. Fredrick Wislizenius (1839), E. Willard Smith (1840), who traveled to the Little Snake River area, and Col. John C. Fremont (1844). Later, miners began making forays into the region: George Way (1860), and Joseph Hahn (186 1) worked the placer gold deposits. Captain E. L. Berthoud traveled both the White and Yampa River valleys in 1861, looking for a more direct route from Denver to Salt Lake City (Powell 1961). John Wesley Powell visited northwestern Colorado in 1868-1869 during his exploration of the Colorado River. The influence of this journey on the later location of a railroad into the region is suspected. The Hayden Survey passed through northwestern Colorado in the mid -1870s.