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• central and northern Great Plains as far west as the Continental <br />Divide. IInited States citizens did not waste any time in exploring <br />the new lands beginning with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. <br />During the first decade of American ownership fur trapper Baptiste <br />LaLande reached the Colorado Front Range to hunt, followed by many <br />others including Ezekiel Williams and James Purcell. In 1806 the <br />first government exploration of the area came in the form of <br />Zebulon Pike. Pike did not reach the Study Area, but his reports <br />spurred further 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 the <br />Mississippi Valley. While it is very doubtful that Long actually <br />crossed the Study Area; his reports did have a lasting impact on it <br />and much of the rest of the Great Plains. Long, in his official <br />descriptions, labelled the lands from the central plains to the <br />• front range 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 would remain and <br />influence the ways that later settlers would look at the lands <br />(Goetzmann 1966:40-64). <br />Longs expedition ushered in a new, more intense use of the <br />South Platte Valley region that witnessed an increased presence of <br />Euro-Americans, but not the development of permanent settlement. <br />Between 1820 and approximately 1845 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 the <br />South Platte River and Clear Creek (4200 E. 72nd). The post, built <br />in 1832 by Louis Vasquez, remained active only three years, when <br />Vasquez moved his operations north to near modern Platteville, <br />Colorado. At the same time Lancaster Lupton operated a post at Ft. <br />Lupton. Also, a number of trappers, including Ceran St. Vrain, who <br />• lent his name to the study area's primary watercourse, entered the <br />15 <br />