By Harley Shaw
The first scientists to cross the upper Verde watershed were members of the Army Corp of Topographical Engineers. They traveled horseback from Zuni during the fall of 1851 under the command of Brevet Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves. Dr. Samuel Woodhouse was the physician on the trip, hence, by standard practice of the day, the expedition's official naturalist. As such, he became the first biologist to collect specimens from northern Arizona. Woodhouse and Sitgreaves had worked together earlier on a survey of the Indian Territory. Other scientists included engineer Lieutenant J. G. Parke and artist-cartographer, Richard Kern. The guide on the trip was trapper Antoine Leroux. Their orders were to locate a wagon road, determine if the Zuni River provided a route to California, and assess the navigability of the lower Colorado River. The traditional routes from Santa Fe to California were the Old Spanish Trail, which looped northward through Utah, and the other, a southern route down the Rio Grande then west through the worst of the Arizona deserts. A more direct route through a less severe landscape was needed.
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