The waters of the upper Green River emerge from the Wind River Mountains, cross the Red Desert to Green River and then flow south into Colorado through Browns Park and into Utah.
The Colorado River rises to the east near Granby, Colorado, and flows west and south to the confluence with the Green in south central Utah. This is one of the mightiest river systems in the West.
By 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad had reached – and spawned – the city of Green River. And this became the perfect place for John Wesley Powell to launch four boats to explore the Green and Colorado River system.
John Wesley Powell was 35 years old, a veteran of the Civil War where he lost part of his right arm after being shot in the wrist during the Battle of Shiloh. After the war, he became a professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan University and in March 1867 was named curator of the Illinois Natural History Society.
That year, accompanied by his wife Emma Dean, he led a scientific expedition into Colorado. Two years later, in 1869, he arrived at Green River with a scientific crew and his four boats to begin exploration of the river system.
Launching Into The Green
Powell and his 1869 expedition pushed into the Green River on May 24, 1869. They had four boats: the Emma Dean, a 16-foot pilot boat, built of pine and therefore lightweight and built for quick movement, and three 21-foot oak boats, the Maid of Honor, No Name, and Kitty Clyde’s Sister.
Preparing for a long journey they had rations to last ten months, plus a good amount of gear including sextants, chronometers, barometers, thermometers and compasses – all needed for measurement and topographical calculations. They had guns and ammunition, tools, even screws and nails.
In the party were Powell’s brother Walter; O.G. Howland, an editor and printer, and his brother Seneca; Jack Sumner, and William Dunn, both experienced Rocky Mountain hunters, plus Andrew Hall, another hunter.
Also along were George Bradley, a Union lieutenant during the Civil War who had completed his duty in the regular army; boatman Frank Goodman; and Billy Hawkins, another former Union soldier who served as the cook for the expedition.
Powell pushed his boats into the Green River and swept downstream across Brown’s Park, Colorado to Gates of Lodore, at the northern side of what is now Dinosaur National Monument.
Powell’s boats approached the Lodore canyon on June 9. Powell, in the lead, saw rough water and pulled his boat to the shore. He signaled the other boats, but the No Name crew continued into the swift current.
Men And Whiskey Overboard
The rough waters of the Green pummeled the boat against boulders and in the rushing rapids. The river won as the boat swamped, throwing the Howland brothers and Goodman into the rushing water.
The three men survived, but they lost all their clothes, guns, a large amount of food, and all the barometers. These instruments were essential in determining the altitude of the surrounding mountains and cliffs.
After a search, the following day the party found the boat wreck and managed to recover the barometers, some thermometers, and even a keg of whiskey the men had stashed in the boat without Powell’s knowledge.
On June 28, 1869, Powell’s three remaining boats were at the mouth of the Uinta River in Utah. Frank Powell and Andy Hall took letters and headed to Uinta Agency, some thirty miles away.
Once they had rejoined the expedition the group continued down the river crossing through Utah’s canyonland country.
They faced unexpected rapids and named the features along the route: Canyon of Desolation, Dirty Devil River, Sumner’s Amphitheater, Gray Canyon, Stillwater Canyon, Whirlpool Canyon, and Bright Angel Creek.
The waters of the river, now the main stream of the Colorado, back up behind Glen Canyon Dam at Page, Arizona, and form Lake Powell, which is named for the early explorer.
Into The Great Unknown
The river changes as it pours out of Lake Powell and toward the Grand Canyon.
On August 9, 1869, Powell wrote: “The walls of the canyon…are of marble, of many beautiful colors, often polished by the waves, and sometimes far up the sides, where showers have washed the sands over the cliffs.”
Less than a week later, on August 13, he noted, “We are no ready to start on our way down the Great Unknown . . . We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. “
At what was named Separation Rapid, the Howland brothers and William Dunn left the expedition. Those men would not make it home; they were killed by unknown assailants after leaving Powell’s team.
At the same location Powell abandoned the Emma Dean. The boat was battered and no longer watertight.
With fewer men there were not enough to man the oars and the supplies had dwindled so there was no need for the boat to haul them. Science was no longer the focus of the journey because all of the instruments were either broken or lost.
On August 29, 1869, Powell’s three-month, 900-mile river journey neared its end when the boats drifted from beneath the Grand Wash Cliffs of the Grand Canyon to country more rolling and mountainous than caverns of cliffs.
Powell wrote: “The river rolls by us in silent majesty; the quiet of the camp is sweet; our joy is almost ecstasy.”
Just two days later, they beached their boats at a wide spot in the river where Mormons and an Indian were searching for debris from the expedition, believing Powell and his expedition had been lost.
Departing from the river, Powell and his remaining men now traveled overland north to Salt Lake City, which they reached in September.
Powell would return to the river in 1871, making a second expedition that was far better documented, and that would lead to important recommendations that would have an impact on the West for generations to come.
In 1879, Powell became the director of the new U.S. Bureau of Ethnology. But that same year Congress formed the United States Geological Survey within the Department of the Interior, appointing Clarence King director.
When King left the position two years later, Powell was appointed to replace him by President James A. Garfield. He continued to serve as director of the Bureau of Ethnology, holding both positions until 1894, when he resigned from the USGS.
Powell retained his position at the Bureau of American Ethnology until shortly before his death in 1902.
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
