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Show 19 of his party were killed by "snakes" (likely Utes) in the area of the city which now bears his name in central Utah.1 The following winter (1824-1825), he spent at the forks of the White and Green Rivers near the present-day hamlet of Ouray. ' Also deep into Ute country by 1824 was Antoine Robidoux, who was to become the leading figure in the Green River area in fur trading. A member of a St. Louis family famous in the fur trade, Antoine Robidoux was a person with whom the Utes dealt for twenty years. During the following summer, 1825, William Henry Ashley from Missouri, and Peter Skene Ogden from Canada were both in the northern reaches of the Ute territory. By this time, the eastern and southeastern areas of their land were being scoured in the increasingly urgent search for fur. " The actual exploration for fur trapping purposes of the eastern portion of the Ute domain was accomplished by the intrepid Jed-ediah S. Smith, who crossed what is now Utah from north to south and from west to east. Smith traveled the last stretch of the route that was to be called the "Old Spanish Trail," leading from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. The establishment of this route was to have great -'-"David E. Miller, "Peter Skene Ogden's Journal of his Expedition to Utah, 1825." Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. XX, No. 2 (April, 1952), pp. 178-180. " ~~ ~^~~ 'Hafen, op_. cit. , p. 67. l8lbid., pp. 78-88. |
