Brown-Stanton Expedition

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Brown-Stanton Expedition was a venture to explore the Grand Canyon , the Colorado River valley , for its suitability for building a railroad. The expedition began on May 25, 1889 on the Green River in the Utah Territory and ended on April 26, 1890 in the Gulf of California .

The businessman Frank Mason Brown had founded the "Denver, Colorado Canyon and Pacific Railroad" railway company (DCC & PRR Co.), the goal of which was to build a railway line from Colorado to California, the route of which runs largely through the Grand Canyon should. Hard coal extracted from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado was to be transported to San Diego in California via this railway line . To test the feasibility of this project, the Brown-Stanton Expedition was carried out, for which Frank Brown, among others, the engineer Robert Brewster Stanton and the photographer Franklin Asa Nimsrecruited. On May 25, 1889, the 16-person crew set out under Brown's leadership with six boats on the Green River in the Utah Territory. In July 1889 the expedition reached Marble Canyon in the Arizona Territory , where within five days three members of the expedition were killed in the Colorado River: Peter Hansbrough, Henry Richards and the expedition leader Frank Brown himself. On July 10, 1889 Brown's boat, and he drowned in the Colorado River. The rest of the crew then broke off the expedition until the winter of 1889/1890.

On December 10, 1889, the expedition, led by engineer Robert Brewster Stanton, was resumed on Crescent Creek, Utah, near Dandy Crossing. This time it consisted of twelve men, including four members of the first crew, among them - in addition to Robert Brewster Stanton - again the photographer Franklin A. Nims. On December 23, they rose from Glen Canyon, which has sunk in Lake Powell's reservoir since 1964 , and celebrated Christmas in Lees Ferry , Arizona. By New Year's Day 1890 the expedition had come about 15 miles further. Franklin A. Nims climbed a cliff there on January 1, 1890 to take photos, but lost his footing and fell onto rocks from a height of almost seven meters. He broke his skull and one leg and suffered serious internal injuries. He survived, but lost consciousness for several days and was only able to be recovered from the Grand Canyon with great difficulty in a rescue operation that took several days.

Nims kept a diary of his Grand Canyon expedition.

Robert B. Stanton and the rest of his crew continue their Grand Canyon expedition and finally reached the Gulf of California on April 26, 1890.

Stanton published the book "Availability of the Cañons of the Colorado River for Railway Purposes" in 1882, but the planned railway line through the Grand Canyon was never built.

swell

literature

  • Dwight L. Smith / Gregory Crampton (Eds.), "The Colorado River Survey, Robert Brewster Stanton & The Denver, Colorado, and Pacific Railroad," 1987
  • Dwight L. Smith, "The Photographer and the River, 1889-90: Franklin A. Nims' Colorado Canyon Diary," Stagecoach Press, Santa Fe, 1967