One of the pleasures of travel is learning stories about our history. There’s also the benefit of seeing surprising, amazing sites along the way.
Gunnison River - Curecanti National Recreation Area
Curecanti National Recreation Area lies just upriver from Black Canyon of the Gunnison River National Park. The Gunnison was dammed in three areas to create reservoirs. The spot in the image above is where the Gunnison River meanders between two of the lakes that were created. On the October day, the wind was blowing the cottonwood leaves nearly horizontally to join the rain coming down in the passing storm while the sun lit up the scene. Pretty amazing.
Curecanti is named after Indian chief Curecanta of the Utes who lived in this rugged area in the Rocky Mountains. Who was John Gunnison that the river, and nearby town of Gunnison, was named for?
Dillon Needles trail, Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado
John Gunnison was born in New Hampshire in 1812, and after graduating from West Point, was sent to Florida during the Seminole wars in 1837. However, his poor health led him to be assigned as a surveyor to explore and map the territory of Florida. While that assignment also challenged his health, he caught the exploring bug.
In the 1840s, he was assigned to survey the Northwest Territories, and primarily the western coast of Lake Michigan. Hmm, does my move from Florida to the west coast of Lake Michigan create some affiliation with this guy? Gunnison was promoted to Lieutenant while surveying the border between Wisconsin and Michigan. In 1849, he got a new assignment to explore the Mormon Trail and survey the Great Salt Lake valley. The Latter Day Saints and Paiute Indians were battling, and Gunnison mediated a settlement. One of the groups would kill him in a couple years.
Autumn Cottonwoods in Curecanti National Recreation Area
Once back in Washington, D.C., Gunnison would publish a book he started while in Utah: The Mormons, or Latter Day Saints in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake: A History of their Rise and Progress, Peculiar Doctrines, Present Condition. He then was sent packing to Green Bay to survey more of the Wisconsin area, and earned a promotion to captain. He soon was heading west again to explore a possible route for the newly expanding railroads. He reported that the area in southern Colorado would be too challenging of an area to cross the Rocky Mountains. (The first transcontinental railroads would eventually cross further north and south.) He was one of the first Americans to explore the steepest canyon in the country which would eventually be named for the river to be named after him: The Black Canyon of the Gunnison River.
Storm Clouds above the Gunnison River
The river was then called the Grand. Gunnison described this area south of Black Canyon "the roughest, most hilly and most cut up," he had ever seen. Concluding this would not be an appropriate route for a railroad, he went further north and then west into Utah. On the journey, he found Mormon settlements that had been raided by Paiutes. He again attempted to mediate.
On the morning of October 26, 1853, Gunnison and seven of the eleven men with him were attacked and massacred. Governor Brigham Young said the group was killed by a band of Paiutes seeking revenge for the killing of their leader by a group of emigrants heading west. However, based on letters Gunnison had sent, his widow believed he was killed under the direction of Young who was objecting to a railroad coming to the territory that would bring non-Mormon settlers. An associate U.S. judge in Utah wrote back to her that white settlers dressed as Indians conducted the massacre. The War Department appointed an investigator, who concluded the Utes were responsible and following a trial, three were convicted. However, the massacre increased tension between Young and the U.S. Government, and President Buchannan sent troops to Utah to assert control over the Territory.
Cottonwood and Dillon Pinnacles, Curecanti National Recreation Area
In Curecanti National Recreation Area, above the river named after Captain Gunnison and west of the Colorado city with his name, rise pinnacles being carved into the mesa. On my visit, they and a lone cottonwood glowed in the light of the setting sun as the storm moved east.