Gunnison River - History

History

The first non-native to see and record information of the Gunnison River was Juan Maria de Rivera, who came to the banks of the river just below its confluence with the Uncompahgre River in 1761 and 1765. It was again seen in 1776 by Silvestre Vélez de Escalante. At the time the Spanish name for the river was Rio de San Javier (Xavier), and the Native American name was Tomichi. Escalante noted that Rivera thought it was "the great Rio del Tizon", the long used Spanish name for the lower Colorado River.

The river is named for U.S. Army Captain John W. Gunnison of the Topographic Engineers who was ambushed and killed by Pahvant Utes while mapping a trail west in Utah Territory in 1857.

Read more about this topic:  Gunnison River

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
    —Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    “English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
    —Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)

    “Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
    —Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)