Early Views of the Mountains

Early travelers through the Fort Morgan area write of long miles of prairie, huge horse-flies, and buffalo – thousands and thousands of buffalo. Sometimes these travelers encountered Indians and sometimes they did not, but nearly all rejoiced at their first view of the mountains which occurred around the Fort Morgan area.  

Stephen H. Long’s party arrived in the Fort Morgan area on June 27^th or 28^th 1820 and camped on the night of June 30^th just west of Fort Morgan. Edwin James, a member of Long’s expedition, wrote of his first view of the Rocky Mountains and of the prairies:

…On the 30^th we left the encampment at our accustomed early hour, and at eight o’clock were cheered by a distant view of the Rocky Mountains. For some time we were unable to decide whether what we saw were mountains, or banks of cumulous clouds skirting the horizon, and glittering in the reflected rays of the sun. It was only by watching the bright parts, and observing that their form and position remained unaltered, that we were able to satisfy ourselves they were indeed mountains. 

They were visible from the lowest part of the plain, and their summits were, when first discovered, several degrees above our horizon….we might have seen them from a greater distance had it not been for the want of transparency in the atmosphere…. Snow could be seen on every part of them which was visible above our horizon….the heat of the sun began to be felt, such quantities of vapour were seen to ascend from every part of the plain, that all objects at a little distance, appeared magnified, and variously distorted…. 

A herd of bisons, at the distance of a mile, seemed to be standing in a pool of water; and what appeared to us the reflected image was as distinctly seen as the animal itself. Illusions of this kind are common in the African and Asiatic deserts…. 

Towards evening the air became more clear, and our view of the mountains was more satisfactory…. We soon remarked a particular part of the range divided into three conic summits, each apparently of nearly equal altitude. This we concluded to be the point designated by Pike as the highest peak…. As we were about to encamp some of the party went in pursuit of a herd of bisons…

July 1^st….We left our camp at a very early hour, and travelling over a tract differing in no respect but its greater barrenness from that passed on the preceding day. We halted to dine at the distance of sixteen and a half miles. Many acres of this plain had not vegetation enough to communicate to the surface the least shade of green; a few dwarfish sunflowers and grasses…now entirely withered and brown…. 

A striking feature of that part of the plain country, we were now passing is formed by innumerable antheaps, rising from twelve to eighteen inches above the common level of the surface. They occur with some uniformity, at intervals of about twenty feet… We travelled this day twenty-seven miles, directly towards the base of the mountains, but they appeared almost as distant in the evening as they had done in the morning…

"Distant View of the Rocky Mountains" 1820 painting by Samuel Seymour, the painter on Stephen H. Long's expedition.

In 1835, the U.S. military sent Colonel Henry Dodge and the 1^st Dragoons to explore the region and meet with native tribes. The Dragoons travelled along the South Platte and entered the Fort Morgan area in mid-July, camping at Fort Morgan on July 16^th. An officer in Dodge’s Dragoons, Lieutenant Colonel Kearny, chronicled the march and noted the first view of the mountains in the Fort Morgan area:

…15^th. Marched twenty miles in a directon S. 70 W. Crossed a serpentine creek of considerable size; entered upon a high prairie, and came to an old deserted Indian camp, supposed to have been lately occupied by the Arepahas. The poles of the medicine lodge were still standing, and some of the emblems of their worship such as buffalo heads, painted arrows, etc. 

After we had encamped, towards night, the clouds which had been lowering around the western horizon cleared away, and discovered to us a beautiful bird’s eye view of the Rocky mountains. This sight was hailed with joy by the whole command. We saw the end of the march – the long-wished-for object of all our hopes. They at first resembled white conical clouds, laying along the edge of the horizon. The rays of a setting sun upon their snow-clad summits gave to them a beautiful and splendid appearance…

    

Captain Lemuel Ford also kept a journal of the expedition and he, too wrote of the thrill of seeing the mountains for the first time:

Wednesday 15^th of July We traveled about ten miles South 65 West & ten miles South 75 West Crosed [sic] a deep revene [sic] three or four times running from the South to the river Cloudy thunder & threatening rain until evening when the clouds disappeared & after we encampted [sic] on the second Bottom of the river & began to look around we found ourselves in view of the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains covered with Snow lying South 85 di West we are now about 85 or 90 miles off 

I have long heard of the Rocky Mountains & have a small view of them this eving [sic] for the first time in my life the river Platt that we are now encampted [sic] upon is much clearer & the water colder & not as wide as was a few days below rapid Current and about five or six hundred yards wide. This eving [sic] we have plenty of the best fat Buffalowe [sic] meat. Our command are in high spirits highly delighted with the prospect of being in a few days on the Rock Mountains.…

It would be more than a few days before the dragoons would meet the mountains.

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Sources:

James, Edwin & Stephen Harriman Long. Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819, 1820, Volume 2 (London: A. & R. Spottiswoode, 1823), pp. 172-178.

Kearny. The Military and Naval Magazine of the United States Vol 6 no. 5 January, 1836. Dragoon Expedition – Indian Talks p. 317-329.

Pelzer, Louis, “Captain Ford's Journal of an Expedition to the Rocky Mountains,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 12(4), 1926, pp. 550-579.