CHAPTER 3
EXPLORING A BLANK SPACE O o u t h - c e n t r a l Utah, including what would become Wayne County, was one of the most inaccessible and least known areas in the Utah Territory until the mid-1870s. The Ute and Paiute successors to the ancient Fremont people knew the plateau country, but their knowledge was unavailable to the m a p m a k e r s of the day. Geologist Herbert E. Gregory, noting the remoteness of the Colorado Plateau, wrote: "As late as 1868 the official military m a p of Utah shows in outline the topography of the Green and Grand river valleys and the course of the Colorado, but the country n o r t h of the Grand Canyon between the river and the Utah High Plateaus is represented by a blank space." 1 As will be seen, however, some EuroAmericans and others left footprints in that blank space before the first expedition of John Wesley Powell in 1869.
The Years Before Mormon
Settlement
The Spanish/Mexican Era. As far as is k n o w n , n o Spanish or Mexican explorers reached present-day Wayne County during the eighteenth century. Members of an expedition led by Juan Maria 53
