Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 Public Domain. Release under the CC BY Attribution license--http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/--Credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library; From the California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California Send requests to address or e-mail given USC Libraries Special Collections specol@usc.edu
Description
Photograph of a panoramic view of the Grand Canyon from the Grand Canyon Village, ca.1900-1930. A man, with his camera set up on a tripod, stands ready to take a picture of the canyon (at left). Behind him are a trail and a two-story building. The trail wraps follows the edge of the cliff and leads to more buildings in the distance. At the center of the view is Battleship Butte. The butte, a rock formation shaped like a battleship, sits on one of the many plateaus within the Grand Canyon. From this view, with the exception of the canyon below, the land at the top is almost perfectly horizontal. Bushes and trees dot the land in the foreground. Bushes and trees can also be seen growing along the canyon walls or plateau walls. "About 4,000 years ago, a prehistoric hunter-gatherer culture lived in the Grand Canyon region until 1000 B.C. The ancestral pueblo people arrived in the area about A.D. 500. Departing in 1150, they left behind remnants of some 2,000 village sites. In 1300, ancestors of the modern Hualapai and Havasupai migrated to the western areas of the Canyon. John Wesley Powell, seen in this late 1800s photo, was lured by science and adventure to explore the Colorado River in 1869. Powell's 99-day expedition down the waterway forever changed the river and brought enduring renown to its 35-year-old conqueror. The first Europeans to view the Canyon were a detachment of conquistadors from Coronado's gold-seeking expedition in 1540. Having learned of a 'great river' from the Hopi, the explorers thought it might be the fabled Northwest Passage to India. Over the next 300 years, a succession of explorers and mountain men came and gaped, but to most it was a giant obstacle designed, as one fur trapper put it, 'to deprive all human beings of the ability to descend ... and make use of its waters.' The Canyon remained largely unknown (and virtually unexplored) until Civil War veteran John Wesley Powell led a famous boat expedition through the gorge in 1869. The one-armed Army Major and nine men accomplished this feat in four small wooden boats. Powell's party was probably the first ever to make such a trip. After a second journey in 1871-72, he aptly named it Grand Canyon." -- unknown author.
Type
image
Format
8 photographs : glass photonegatives, photoprints, b&w 21 x 26 cm. glass plate negatives photographic prints photographs
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