The First Descent of the Grand Canyon Essay -- American America Histor

derriere Wesley Powell was one of the firstly explorers in American history, and his first descent down the Colorado River unblemished the Grand Canyon is one of Americas keenest risky venture stories. Although he is not as well known as another(prenominal) explorers, his travels and his contributions to American history are significant because they represent a constitution of discovery motivated not by self-glory or the acquisition of specie or land, but by a curiosity about and taste sensation for both the natural world and the native peoples of the western United States. John Wesley Powell pursued intimacy and the uncommon experience his entire life. Born in 1834 in Ohio to a Methodist minister, he became interested in science as a boy and was fortunate to have a neighbor who was both an critic scientist and a willing teacher (Stegner 1314). In 1846, the Powell family moved to Wisconsin, where John Wesley struggled to continue his scientific education against the will of his father, who wanted him to become a preacher. In 1857, he set off on his first great adventure a trip down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in a rowboat (Stegner 16). In 1861 Powell enlisted in the Union Army and was elected lord of artillery under U. S. Grant. He was wounded at the Battle of battle of Pittsburgh Landing in 1862 and lost his right arm. Despite his debility, however, Powell returned to active duty and finished the war (Stegner 17). After the Civil War, Powell became a professor of science at Illinois Weslyan and curator of the Illinois State Natural History museum. In 1867 he went on his first expedition to Colorado and began his life-long love affair with the American West and the native peoples who lived there. The next year he went back to Colorado and worn out(p) the winter amon... ...de him fearless and victorious against hardship. Because of his unfaltering dedication to knowledge and the preservation of the West, Powell is truly one of the most signi ficant American explorers of the nineteenth century. working CitedHillers, John K. Tau-gu, Chief of the Paiutes, and Major John Wesley Powell. 1873. National Anthropological Archives. uppercase Smithsonian Institution. Powell, John Wesley. The Exploration of the Colorado River. Ed. Wallace Stegner. Chicago U of Chicago P, 1957. ---. makeup on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States. 2nd ed. Washington GPO, 1879. ---. clash at Disaster Falls. Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries. Washington GPO, 1875 26. Stegner, Wallace. beyond the Hundredth Meridian John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West. Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1954.