2002-05-13_PERMIT FILE - C1980004A

• Permit No: C1980004A
• IBM Index Class Name: Permit File
• Doc Date: 5/13/2002
• Section_Exhibit Name: Appendix J Cultural Resource Inventory
• Media Type: D
• Archive: Yes

• Rivers; aware of the value of these agricultural lands, however,
the commission charged with enforcing the terms of the treaty
(under the direction of Otto Mears) manipulated the location
process using a loophole in the treaty language, and the Uncom-
pahgres were given lands in Utah near the Uintah Reservation.
The .Southern Ute bands were left on the small reservation in
southwestern Colorado that had been given them by the Treaty
of 1873. On 1 September 1881, the last of the Utes were moved
to their new reservations in Utah, and western Colorado was
completely opened to white settlers.
2. The following section should be added after the discussion of Ute
Culture:
Fur Trappers/Explorers/Settlers
Aside from the few Spanish expeditions of the 1600s and
1700s, western Colorado had not been penetrated by whites prior
to 1800. However, a boom in prices for beaver pelts in the
1820s precipitated an influx of trappers and traders in western
Colorado, most of whom gravitated to the White and Yampa River
drainages. In the vicinity of Grand Junction, Mary Rait points
out that
• ...records of fur traders and prospectors are
meager, for the valley was typical desert coun-
try and had little to offer. (However) all _
Colorado was overrun by adventurous trappers in
the 1820s because of the high value of beaver
skin (Raft 1932: 6).
In 1828, Antoine Robidoux, a French trader from St. Louis, estab-
lished a trading post named Fort Uncompahgre at the junction of-
the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers near the present site of Delta
(Hafen 1948: 79). But Robidoux's enterprise never prospered and,
furthermore, the Utes didn't tolerate his presence for long, set-
ting fire to his log buildings not long after they were built
(Rockwell 1956: 60). Robidoux also attempted to establish a post
on the White River, as attested by a petroglyph of his making
dated 1837 in Nay Canyon, approximately 20 miles west of Douglas
Pass:
ANTOINE ROBIDOUX
PASSE ICI LE 13 NOVEMBRE
1837
POUR ETABLIRE MAISON
TRAITTE A LA
RV VERT OU WIYTE
•
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