A Brief History of the Southwest
Photo is the Coffee Pot Rock with Snow, Red Rock Formations, Sedona, courtesy of Sedona-Oak Creek Canyon Chamber of Commerce

Cowboys and Indians, Outlaws and Sheriffs, Homesteaders in Covered Wagons, Mountain Men and Prospectors--this is the stuff the “Old West” brings to mind. Along with these romantic images--there are the rugged mountains, arid and inhospitable deserts, and sweeping prairies.

  As long as 10,000 years ago, ancestors of the Native American tribes roamed seasonally from place to place across the west in search of food. They traded with neighbors and some began to farm, bringing on the beginning of semi permanent settlements. There was a vast amount of land with relatively few numbers of people who were thinly spread out over it.
In Europe, it was a different story. In comparison to the Americas, Europe was densely populated with large numbers of people spread out over a small expanse of land--with conflicting borders everywhere. Inspired by legends of “Cibola and the Seven Cities of Gold” (seven bishops were said to have fled Spain after the Moorish conquest to hide gold, gems, and religious articles in the New World), and the desire to attain new territory--Spain started to explore the west in the early 1500s.
  Spanish conquistadores and priests were the first to arrive in the American West. Panfilo de Narváez led an expedition to Florida in 1527. Cabeza de Vaca and his followers were in that group and separated from De Narváez. They used makeshift boats and managed to cross the Gulf of Mexico. Some of his party were captured by native peoples, but in early 1535 De Vaca and three survivors escaped to the mainland. Eventually they trekked through what is now the Southwest USA, down into Mexico--only returning to Spain a couple of years later.
 De Vaca’s adventurous accounts described Zuni villages as areas of great wealth. More Spanish explorers made their way to the Southwest seeking gold. Both Hernando De Soto and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado tried their luck. Although De Coronado made it to the Grand Canyon, neither explorer found the precious metal.
  The Spanish left their mark on the West by leaving horses, which Native Americans had never seen; and European diseases. Thousands of Native Americans died through contact with the Spanish, while others benefited by acquiring the horse. The horse gave the Native American the ability to travel long distances to hunt or trade, and to carry more goods. Thus, the beginnings of the first roads across the American West were born. The Zuni traded turquoise and salt for buffalo hides from the plains Indians like the Arapaho and Lakota. The use of the horse also gave the Native Americans mobility to raid the territories of other tribes.
By the 1600s, the Spanish had developed trade routes and settlements in the West. The California coastline became home to a trail of Catholic Missions as Spanish settlers began to tap the natural resources of the Southwest.
  In the early 1800s, President Thomas Jefferson, with a mind towards exploiting these natural resources, doubled the mass of the young United States of America by purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France. He then recruited Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to head up an expedition--then known as the Corps of Discovery, to explore the land and to find an easy water route to the Pacific. The British and French were now trapping beaver and entrepreneurs started to establish posts where mountain men could trade their pelts for bullets, rifles, frying pans, cloth and blankets. The fur trade attracted men like Kit Carson and James Bridger until the early 1840s. By that time the streams were trapped out and fashion changed the demand for beaver pelts.
  In the meantime, expanding westward had gripped the American imagination. Entire families, not just mountain men, were now crossing this land of extreme ruggedness and hardship, looking for a new start. Native Americans were feeling the push and starting to revolt. Their lands were being eaten up by this new group of peoples and they were being forced to travel to areas the American government designated for their use.
  Gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848--sealing the fate of the Southwest. The great Pacific Railway was completed in 1869--ending the need for the wagon train. Cities sprang up at station stops along the rail line and made it easier for the Euro-American culture to thrive throughout the West and Southwest USA.