John Wesley Powell

From Green River, Wyoming on May 24, 1869, Major John Wesley Powell and a group of voyagers set out to explore one of the last unexplored regions in the continental United States, the Green and Colorado Rivers. Powell, a disabled veteran who lost his right arm in the Civil War, later became an explorer and in 1869 and 1871 led crews down the rivers and through the Grand Canyon. Green River was chosen as the starting point because the river and the transcontinental railroad met there, and the newly completed Union Pacific Railroad brought boats and supplies to the launch site. The expeditions departed from an area around a small island in the Green River. In 1969, the site was designated a National Historic Place and renamed Expedition Island. Years later, the wild river Powell knew as the Green was altered by the installation of two dams, Fontenelle, fifty miles upstream from Green River, and Flaming Gorge, seventy miles downstream. Powell later served as director of the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology and director of the United States Geological Survey. He died in 1902 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Powell's expeditions captured the American public's imagination with the romance of exploring a final frontier, and the scientific studies of the river basins were the first conducted in the remote Colorado Plateau, forming the basis for a new arid land policy.

Green River, Wyoming · United States