RBC | There were several reasons that many military men and former military men became western frontier explorers, miners, cowboys, lawmen and outlaws. Veteran campaigners were familiar with traveling long distances, often without regular meals or water. Veterans of the Indian Wars had a healthy respect for the Native American warriors and customs.
The earliest explorers of Nebraska Territory (which included today’s Northwest Colorado) were mountain men: buckskin-clad trappers and traders who had learned much from the Native Americans of the region. Many became paid guides. Kit Carson, who guided John C. Fremont mapping Wyoming, was such a man. Army 1st Lt. Zebulon Pike led the 1805 expedition to find the headwaters of the Missouri River. Pike encountered Pikes Peak but failed to climb it because of inadequate clothing. Maj. Stephen Hariman Long led the 1820 expedition to the Pikes Peak region. Three members of Long’s 1820 expedition accomplished the first recorded summit of Pikes Peak.
Retired Maj. John Wesley Powell, a professor of natural science from Illinois, was one of these Civil War veterans who saw the West as a challenge. Powell was mustered out after the war having lost his right arm. This disability did not stop Powell from riding or climbing. Powell came to Colorado Territory in 1868 and was among the early climbers of Longs Peak. It is a bit confusing: Powell climbs Longs Peak; Long’s men climb Pikes Peak; but Powell gets his own name on a 13,000-foot peak in the Gore Range after climbing it in 1868.
After starting out in the infant town of Denver, the Powell Expedition spent four months climbing peaks, collecting museum specimens and learning outdoor skills. With horses and mules, they crossed Middle Park and explored the headwaters of the Grand River (now the Colorado River). By the fall of 1868, half of the original members had returned to family, home, jobs and college. Some had backtracked earlier to Denver to catch a train in Cheyenne. Others trekked northwest to the new Union Pacific stop at Green River, Wyoming.
The remaining members spent the last two weeks of October cutting native grass and storing it in shocks for a winter camp. They also used nearby trees, probably cottonwood, to build several cabins. The place Powell had chosen to spend the winter was where the White River leaves the mountain canyon and widens out into a flat bottom. It was given the name Powell Bottoms. Today we call it Powell Park, a few miles west of Meeker, Colorado.
The 1868-69 winter was mild with little snow. This enabled Powell to explore south of his base camp to the Grand River, north to the Yampa River (formerly the Bear River), and follow trails down the White River all the way to where it ends in the Green River. Journals do not record that the Utes guided Powell. Powell used the time to make friends with the Utes sharing the valley. He learned the language and recorded cultural knowledge for one of his trip sponsors, the Smithsonian Institution.
Earlier in 1868, the Utes had accepted this area, more or less, as the White River Ute Reservation, but this was before the military had built buildings farther upriver at the first agency. Ten years later, in 1879, Agent Nathan Meeker moved the Ute Agency downriver to where Powell’s expedition had built their cabins.
In mid-March 1869, the White River rose and flooded the cabins along the river. They moved one cabin to dry land for the major and his wife. The rest of the party camped outside. The group took this as a sign to part ways. Some departed downriver to the Green. The three Powells—John, his wife Emma, and brother, Walter—traveled north to catch the Union Pacific back to Illinois.
John had formulated his plans to explore the Green and Colorado rivers, and for that, he needed specially designed boats. His own boat had to be outfitted to accommodate a one-armed major from the Civil War. The group never returned to the winter camp on the White River.
At least one of Powell’s cabins was still there in 1879 when the Utes killed most of the male agency employees, including Nathan Meeker, and burned down the Agency buildings. The Utes spared Powell’s cabin(s), perhaps out of respect for Maj. Powell. The White River Museum in Meeker, Colorado, has an undated photo captioned, “…built by trapper John Wesley Powell in 1869.” A couple of locals believe that one of the Powell cabins was later moved farther away from the river, perhaps near the Strawberry Valley. No one is sure if it exists today as someone’s shed or outbuilding. The log cabins in the picture were not unique in style; the same simple log construction was used for decades in this area.
Sources: Rio Blanco Historical Society; “A River Running West, the life of John Wesley Powell” by Donald Worster pages 143-152; “Beyond the 100th Meridan” by Wallace Stegner pages 37-41.