The 1859 Expedition from Santa Fe to the Canyonlands A Brainpower & Brownbags Lecture

Author and historian Steven K. Madsen of Salt Lake City discusses his book, Exploring Desert Stone: A Visual Portrayal of the 1859 Macomb Expedition from Santa Fe to the Canyonlands of the Colorado (Utah State University Press, 2010) at noon on Wednesday, July 13, part of the Brainpower & Brownbags Lecture Series. Lectures are held in the John Gaw Meem Room. Enter through the museum's Washington Avenue entrance. Free.

In 1859, Capt. John N. Macomb, chief of the Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers in New Mexico, received $20,000 to locate a military route from Santa Fe into Utah, somewhere near the junction of the Green and Colorado rivers. His became the first expedition to officially explore and map the wild deserts and canyon lands earlier crossed by the easternmost end of what was called the "Old Spanish Trail," a trading route from Santa Fe to California.

Members of the expedition crossed paths with the likes of Kit Carson and Bishop Lamy and produced a portfolio of lithographs depicting everything from Camel Rock to Shiprock and beyond.

Even today, the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, now in Canyonlands National Park, near popular tourist destination Moab, cannot be reached or viewed easily. Much of the surrounding region remained remote and rarely visited for decades after settlement of other parts of the West.

Macomb's expedition produced an early and substantial documentary record, including the first detailed map of the region.