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37 <br />Louisiana Purchase gave the new American government control of <br />the central and northern Great Plains as Far West as the <br />Continental Divide. Official exploration of the new lands began <br />with the Lewis and Clark expeditions. During the first decade of <br />American ownership fur trapper Baptiste LaLande reached the <br />Colorado Front Range to hunt, followed by many others including <br />Ezekiel Williams and James Purcell. In 1806 the first government <br />exploration of the area was led by Zebulon Pike. Pike did not <br />reach the Dowe Flats area, but his reports spurred further <br />governmental activity (Goetzmann 1959: 36-39). <br />The next, and most famous, federal exploration of northeastern <br />Colorado came in 1820 when Major Stephen Long led a party of <br />soldiers and scientists along the South Platte River to the Front <br />Range and then south to the Arkansas River before returning to <br />the Mississippi Valley. While it is very doubtful that Long <br />actually crossed the Study Area, his reports had a lasting impact <br />on it and much of the rest of the Great Plains. Long, in his <br />official descriptions, labelled the lands from the central plains <br />to the foothills of the Rockies as the Great American Desert, <br />proclaiming the land to be fit only for grazing and homelands for <br />nomadic Indians. The image of the desert lingered and influenced <br />the ways that later settlers envisioned using the lands <br />(Goetzmann 1966:90-69). <br />Longs expedition ushered in a new, more intense use of the South <br />Platte Valley region that witnessed an increased presence of <br />Euro-americans, but not the development of permanent settlement. <br />Between 1820 and approximately 1895 fur traders and trappers <br />frequented the South Platte Valley. During this same period a <br />number of fur forts appeared there as well, including the first <br />Fort Vasquez or Fort Convenience, located at the confluence of <br />the South Platte River and Clear Creek. The post, built in 1832 <br />by Louis Vasquez, remained active only three years, when Vasquez <br />moved his operations north to near modern Platteville, Colorado. <br />At the same time Lancaster Lupton operated a post at Ft. Lupton <br />(Carrillo and Mehls 1992). Also, a number of trappers, including <br />Ceran St. Vrain, who lent his name to the Study Area's primary <br />