Indigenous people ruins in Colorado near
Fort Collins, Colorado, from a sketch taken June 7, 1859 Since the last great ice age, the Rocky Mountains were home first to
indigenous peoples including the
Apache,
Arapaho,
Bannock,
Blackfoot,
Cheyenne,
Coeur d'Alene,
Kalispel,
Crow Nation,
Flathead,
Shoshone,
Sioux,
Ute,
Kutenai (Ktunaxa in Canada),
Sekani,
Dunne-za, and others. Paleo-Indians hunted the now-extinct
mammoth and
ancient bison (an animal 20% larger than modern bison) in the foothills and valleys of the mountains. Like the modern tribes that followed them, Paleo-Indians probably migrated to the plains in fall and winter for bison and to the mountains in spring and summer for fish, deer, elk, roots, and berries. In Colorado, along with the crest of the Continental Divide, rock walls that Native Americans built for driving game date back 5,400–5,800 years. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that indigenous people had significant effects on mammal populations by hunting and on vegetation patterns through deliberate burning. In 1610, the Spanish founded the city of
Santa Fe, the oldest continuous seat of government in the United States, at the foot of the Rockies in present-day New Mexico. The introduction of the horse, metal tools, rifles, new diseases, and different cultures profoundly changed the Native American cultures. Native American populations were extirpated from most of their historical ranges by disease, warfare, habitat loss (eradication of the bison), and continued assaults on their culture.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1764 – March 11, 1820) became the first European to cross the Rocky Mountains in 1793. He found the upper reaches of the Fraser River and reached the Pacific coast of what is now Canada on July 20 of that year, completing the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico. He arrived at
Bella Coola, British Columbia, where he first reached saltwater at South Bentinck Arm, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. The
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first scientific reconnaissance of the Rocky Mountains. Specimens were collected for contemporary botanists, zoologists, and geologists. The expedition was said to have paved the way to (and through) the Rocky Mountains for European-Americans from the East, although Lewis and Clark met at least 11 European-American mountain men during their travels. These posts served as bases for most European activity in the Canadian Rockies in the early 19th century. Among the most notable are the expeditions of
David Thompson, who followed the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. On his 1811 expedition, he camped at the junction of the Columbia River and the Snake River and erected a pole and notice claiming the area for the United Kingdom and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort at the site. By the
Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which established the
49th parallel north as the international boundary west from
Lake of the Woods to the "Stony Mountains", the UK and the US agreed to what has since been described as "joint occupancy" of lands further west to the Pacific Ocean. Resolution of the territorial and treaty issues, the
Oregon dispute, was deferred until a later time. In 1819, Spain ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to the United States, though these rights did not include possession and also included obligations to Britain and Russia concerning their claims in the same region.
Settlement silver mining in 1898 After 1802,
fur traders and explorers ushered in the first widespread American presence in the Rockies south of the 49th parallel. The more famous of these include
William Henry Ashley,
Jim Bridger,
Kit Carson,
John Colter,
Thomas Fitzpatrick,
Andrew Henry, and
Jedediah Smith. On July 24, 1832,
Benjamin Bonneville led the first
wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using
South Pass in the present State of Wyoming. on the
Great Salt Lake in 1900 Thousands passed through the Rocky Mountains on the
Oregon Trail beginning in the 1840s. The
Mormons began settling near the
Great Salt Lake in 1847 and proceeded to extend settlements along the Wasatch range and into eastern Idaho throughout the subsequent decades. From 1859 to 1864, gold was discovered in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, sparking several
gold rushes bringing thousands of prospectors and miners to explore every mountain and canyon and to create the Rocky Mountains' first major industry. The Idaho gold rush alone produced more gold than the California and Alaska gold rushes combined and was important in the financing of the
Union Army during the
American Civil War. The
transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, and
Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park in 1872. Meanwhile, a transcontinental railroad in Canada was originally promised in 1871. Though political complications pushed its completion to 1885, the
Canadian Pacific Railway eventually followed the
Kicking Horse and
Rogers Passes to the Pacific Ocean. Canadian railway officials also convinced
Parliament to set aside vast areas of the Canadian Rockies as
Jasper,
Banff,
Yoho, and
Waterton Lakes National Parks, laying the foundation for a tourism industry which thrives to this day. Glacier National Park (MT) was established with a similar relationship to tourism promotions by the
Great Northern Railway. While settlers filled the valleys and mining towns, conservation and preservation ethics began to take hold. U.S.
President Benjamin Harrison established several forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains in 1891–1892. In 1905, U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt extended the
Medicine Bow Forest Reserve to include the area now managed as
Rocky Mountain National Park. Economic development began to center on mining,
forestry, agriculture, and
recreation, as well as on the service industries that support them. Tents and camps became ranches and farms, forts and train stations became towns, and some towns became cities. ==Economy==