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and to determine its navigability. Selecting two additional members from the mission, he proceeded to the Colorado and explored it from June 18 to 22. He reported that Las Vegas was twenty-eight miles from the nearest point on the river, and that the stream was, with one exception, navigable.

A second expedition was sent out by the church to examine the river in 1858. Under the leadership of Amasa M. Lyman and Ira Hatch, an Indian interpreter, the party of nineteen left Southern Utah and, going by way of Las Vegas, arrived at the river on April 13. They explored downstream to the military crossing at Mohave, examined the river, and returned to Las Vegas. A third exploring party was sent out by way of the Grand Wash, Arizona, in 1867. They brought a sixteen-foot skiff from St. George, Utah, and, with Jacob Hamblin as guide, navigated the Colorado from the Wash through Boulder Canyon to Callville, a distance of sixty miles.

Meanwhile Salt Lake authorities were negotiating with San Francisco merchants for the transporting of goods to Utah by way of the Colorado River. A company was organized early in 1861. It was represented in San Francisco by R. E. Raimond and in Salt Lake by Jefferson Hunt and Ebenezer Hanks.^^ The company's advertisement for freight, first appearing on July 7, occasioned considerable interest among San Francisco merchants and continued to run in the Aha California until August 16. No shipments were made, however, and enthusiasm for the project died. A year later a similar project was revived at La Paz, and a correspondent wrote that "parties . . . have offered to deliver Salt Lake freight at the mouth of the Rio Virgin ... at the rate of seven cents a pound. . . ."^^

On December 12, 1853, John and Enoch Reese of Salt Lake dispatched twenty-four wagons and eighty head of stock to San Bernardino, opening trade with California on a large scale.^^ During the next sixteen years, business between Salt Lake and Los Angeles continued in an amazing volume. In January 1864, the Alta California reported: "It is a common occurrence to see trains of from 5 to 20 wagons . . . from Salt Lake on their way to Los Angeles after goods";^^ and a month later an observer wrote that he "counted some sixty-seven eight- and ten-mule teams, from Great Salt Lake City bound for San Pedro for merchandise and machinery. Fourteen of these wagons were loaded with cotton from the Santa Clara settlements, Utah.'"^^ It was estimated that 1 1 50,000 in merchandise left Los Angeles for Salt Lake between November 1863 and May 8, 1864.^^

Up to 1864, the George A. Johnson Company held a complete monopoly of the river trade. In that year a small group headed by Samuel Adams, of Arizona, more familiarly known as "Steamboat" Adams, began action to induce a second company to begin operations there. Adams devoted the next six years almost exclusively to the development of the river trade. His activities led him to California, Utah, and finally to Washington, D. C. In a letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, under whose orders he was