Today, the Colorado State Quarter Coin remembers the day 210 years ago that the explorer Zebulon Pike first saw the mountain that would be named after him.
The book, Pike and Pike’s Peak, a brief life of Zebulon Montgomery Pike and extracts from his journal of exploration by Donald DeWitt and Zebulon Montgomery Pike and published in 1906, provided insights into his background along with his diary entries:
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Zebulon Montgomery Pike, the first American to cross the plains, penetrate the Rockies, and raise the flag of the United States within the limits of what is now Colorado, was not a common adventurer led into the western wilderness by a dream of wealth.
He was an officer in the regular army leading a detachment of soldiers on an expedition sanctioned by the government. A man of extraordinary judgment, of unconquerable resolution and courage, he was a born leader of men.
His whole life was spent in devoted service to his country. At the age of 34 he died gloriously upon the field of battle.
Pike was born January 5th, 1779, at Lamberton, part of the city of Trenton, N. J. He entered the government service as a cadet, a shy country boy of 15 years whose chief recommendation was his ambition.
In the brief space of 19 years he rose through all the intermediate grades to the rank of brigadier general.
We are chiefly interested in him as Lieutenant Pike, the explorer of the west.
On December 20, 1803 the vast territory of Louisiana passed from the dominion of France to that of the United States.
A change of flags was the simple ceremony that marked the transfer. The consideration was fifteen million dollars.
As Napoleon said, it was “a magnificent bargain; an empire for a trifle.”
In order to learn more of the new land Lieutenant Pike was placed in charge of a party to explore the headwaters of the Mississippi river.
So satisfactorily did he perform this service that upon his return he was selected by General Wilkinson to command a party that should explore the Arkansas and Red rivers — the intent being to ascend the Arkansas to its source, and then pass over to the Red river and return home by that stream.
Lieutenant Pike set out on Jan. 24th, 1806, from Belle Fontaine, a village near St. Louis.
His expedition was composed of 16 regulars, 1 interpreter, 5 officers, and a volunteer surgeon, Dr. Robinson, — 23 all told.
Their accoutrements were those of the regular infantry of the United States. Pike was given the meager allowance of $600 as an expense and trading account.
The equipment proved utterly inadequate.
Neither Pike nor Wilkinson foresaw the duration or the difficulty of the expedition.
Ere the journey was half over all provisions were exhausted, even salt, and a year from the day on which the men set out we find them at the point of starvation high up in the mountains, struggling through three feet of snow, and clad only in cotton overalls and rough garments made from raw buffalo hide.
Says William M. Maguire: “The picture of that broken file of emaciated, half-clothed heroes, strung out over the January snow-fields on the steeps of the Sangre de Cristo Range, will never fade from the memory. In the military annals of the Republic there is nothing more pathetic.”
Says Alva Adams: “In all the danger and risk of exploration, be it in mountain land or polar ice, I know of nothing more terrible and desperate than the condition of those men left to fight the awful perils of a severe winter in the unknown mountains.”
The story of those frightful hardships is told in the simple words of the journal of the intrepid leader.
Pike was captured by the Spaniards in the San Luis Valley and brought before Allencaster, the Spanish governor at Santa Fe.
He was “dressed in a pair of blue trousers, moccasins, coat made out of a blanket, and a cap made of scarlet cloth and lined with fox skin.”
What more picturesque figure in history than this lieutenant of 27, leader of a band of half clothed, hatless, shoeless soldiers, standing before the assembled court in the Governor’s Palace and demanding that he be treated as was becoming a representative of the United States.
From Santa Fe the little band of Americans was escorted through Albuquerque and El Paso and on to Chihuahua in Old Mexico to be arraigned before a higher authority.
Though prisoners they were treated with every consideration. Pike was really glad of this opportunity to gain a knowledge of the Spanish dominion.
Finally, turning north-east, the party was conducted to San Antonio and on through Texas to American territory.
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From his diary on the day that he first saw the mountain that is now known as Pike’s Peak:
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November 15th, [1806]. — Marched early. Passed two deep creeks, and many high points of rocks; also, large herds of buffaloes.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, I thought I could distinguish a mountain to our right [Pike’s Peak], which appeared like a small blue cloud; viewed it with the spy glass, and was still more confirmed in my conjecture, yet only communicated it to Dr. Robinson, who was in front with me, but in half an hour it appeared in full view before us.
When our small party arrived on the hill, they with one accord gave three cheers to the Mexican mountains.
[Note: The spot from which Pike first saw the “great snow- mountain” which now bears his name, was evidently a half-dozen miles or less below the point at which the Purgatory or Las Animas River flows into the Arkansas. This is not far from the center of Bent County, Colo, and is 120 miles in an air line from the Peak.]
Their appearance can easily be imagined by those who have crossed the Alleghany, but their sides were white as if covered with snow, or a white stone.
These proved to be a spur of the grand western chain of mountains, which divide the waters of the Pacific from those of the Atlantic Ocean, and divided the waters which empty into the bay of the Holy Spirit, from those of the Mississippi, as the Alleghany do those that discharge themselves into the latter river, and the Atlantic.
They appeared to present a boundary between the province of Louisiana and North Mexico, and would be a defined and natural limit.
Before evening we discovered a fork [Purgatory River] on the south side, bearing S. 25⁰ W. and as the Spanish troops appeared to have borne up it, we encamped on its banks, about one mile from its confluence, that we might make further discoveries on the morrow.
Killed three buffaloes. Distance advanced, 24 miles.
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The Colorado State Quarter Coin shows with an image of Pike’s Peak from Colorado Springs, circa 1898.
