New Faces Along the River

New Faces Along the River. . , Life changed rapidly in the Upper Arkansas River Valley with the arrival of European explorers and the United States settlers. , Spanish presence in the area and their interaction with local Utes was recorded as early as 1626, but official exploration of southwest Colorado by Spain did not begin for another 150 years. , In 1779 General Juan Bautista de Anza, then governor of New Mexico, set out on a campaign against the Comanche people. General de Anza's quest resulted in the first recorded crossing of Poncha Pass. , In 1801, after learning that Spain had ceded the Louisiana Territory back to France, United States President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to Paris to negotiate the purchase of the port of New Orleans. To their great surprise, negotiators succeeded in acquiring not just New Orleans, but the entire 828,800 square miles of the territory in 1803. , The southern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase where it met New Spain was unclear at the time of purchase and, in 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike was sent west to seek more information about the United States' new southwestern boundary. Pike's exploration brought him into the Upper Arkansas Valley and to the banks of the Arkansas River. , [photo captions] , . Juan Bautista de Anza, California State University photo. , . Zebulon Pike, Upper Arkansas Valley Timeline , 1598 . Spanish settle in present day New Mexico , 1626 . Earliest reference to Utes by Spanish , 1670 . First treaty between Utes and Spanish , 1765 . Juan Maria de Rivera leads first official Spanish expedition into southwest Colorado through Ute lands , 1779 . Juan Bautista de Anza's campaign against the Comanche people brings him through present day Poncha Springs , 1803 . French sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States , 1806-07 . Zebulon Pike's expedition searches for the boundary of the Louisiana Purchase , 1850 . G.A. Kelley discovers gold on the Arkansas four miles south of Granite , 1860 . Abe Lee discovers gold in California Gulch near Leadville , 1876 . Colorado becomes a state