| MARCH 9, 1911...John C. Fremont, whose brilliant career is recorded on many pages of our national history, traversed more of the Colorado country than all other explorers sent to the Rocky Mountains by the United States government...
 EARLY IN 1848 Fremont was engaged by an association of St. Louis merchants and other citizens of that city to make for them a railroad survey through the Rocky Mountains and on to the west coast...arrived at Fort Bent on November 17 (1848). Mountain men and Indians advised him against going further until spring, as they had seen plenty of “signs” of a hard winter to come. But Fremont resolved to go and left the post with 33 men and 120 pack mules. He followed the Arkansas River into the mountains and soon was floundering in deep snow as had been the case with Pike 42 years before, with the weather bitterly cold.
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fter crossing the divide the outfit headed southwest and succeeded in getting into the locality of Wagon Wheel Gap. But it went no further...Fremont lost his way and wandered here and there...some of his men perished, others were badly frozen, most of the pack mules had died and despair settled down upon the starving company. After three weeks of desperation Fremont succeeded in breaking out with the remnants of his wrecked expedition and in reaching Taos by way of the Rio Grande Valley.
