Happy Birthday to John Wesley Powell, first white explorer of the GC

John Wesley Powell, circa 1871

Major John Wesley Powell standing erect in his boat,
 Emma Dean, at the beginning of his 1871 survey of the Colorado
and Green river basins. Green River Station, Wyoming, 1871.

Today is the  birthday of the noted explorer John Wesley Powell, the first white person to explore the Colorado River through Grand Canyon.

Powell was born in Mount Morris, New York (1834). His father was an itinerant preacher, and the family moved around constantly, a habit that Powell kept. As a young man, he spent four months walking across Wisconsin, and he traveled by boat down much of the Mississippi River. He fought in the Civil War, and he lost an arm in combat, but it didn't stop his adventures.

He is most famous for exploring the desert Southwest: he traveled down the Colorado River, and explored what are now Zion, Canyonlands, and Bryce National Park, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. He and his companions were the first European-Americans ever to navigate the Grand Canyon.

He wrote:

"The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. [...] It is the land of music. The river thunders in perpetual roar, swelling in floods of music when the storm gods play upon the rocks and fading away in soft and low murmurs when the infinite blue of heaven is unveiled. With the melody of the great tide rising and falling, swelling and vanishing forever, other melodies are heard in the gorges of the lateral canyons, while the waters plunge in the rapids among the rocks or leap in great cataracts. Thus the Grand Canyon is a land of song. Mountains of music swell in the rivers, hills of music billow in the creeks, and meadows of music murmur in the rills that ripple over the rocks. Altogether it is a symphony of multitudinous melodies. All this is the music of waters. The adamant foundations of the earth have been wrought into a sublime harp, upon which the clouds of the heavens play with mighty tempests or with gentle showers. The glories and the beauties of form, color, and sound unite in the Grand Canyon — forms unrivaled even by the mountains, colors that vie with sunsets, and sounds that span the diapason from tempest to tinkling raindrop, from cataract to bubbling fountain."

Thanks to Debra Jones for the heads up and the information on Powell. xxoo