Major John Wesley Powell

[Stump Water]

Major John Wesley Powell (1834 - 1902) is credited with being the first man to run the Colorado River through the full length of the Grand Canyon and explore its unknown depths. He completed this trip successfully in 1869 after a three month expedition which began at Green River, Utah on May 24, 1869 and ended at the Grand Wash Cliffs at the western end of the Grand Canyon on August 29, 1869. Powell tried to repeat the expedition again in 1871, to gather more knowledge about the region, but was forced to abandon the attempt.
Powell earned his rank as major during the Civil War. He enlisted into the Union army as private following the start of the war and rose quickly through the ranks. He lost his right arm during the battle of Shilo in 1862. Following the war, in 1865, he began teaching geology at Illinois Wesleyan University, where he stay for two years. In 1868 he decided to explore and map the Colorado River including the region that contained the Grand Canyon, which up until that point was a blank spot on all maps. The journal from his first expedition, The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons , provides some very interesting reading.

The Powell Expedition