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Early in the nineteenth century American beaver trappers began to penetrate through the Apache-infested mountains that bordered Pimería on the north and east. Beaver were then fairly abundant in the mountain streams and down the Colorado Grande to the very end in the burning lowlands. The annals of the Pimas make no mention of these earliest visitors from the United States, but it is known that several parties reached the "Pimos Gileños," who were found uniformly friendly. The Patties, father and son, journeyed from the Rio Grande to trap beaver in the Gila country between 1825 and 1828, and in the latter year pushed on to California. Kit Carson, with a party of trappers, returned from his first trip to California by this route during the winter of 1829–30. The famous trapper, Paul Weaver, inscribed his name on the walls of Casa Grande in 1833.

Besides the self-reliant and well-armed trappers, a few parties of settlers made their way to California through the Gila valley while it was yet in the possession of the Mexicans, though the best-known route was then north of the Colorado canyon. With the opening of the new era of American ownership began the journeys of surveyors and explorers. The first military invasion was by General Kearney, with a party of 200 troopers, in 1846. Emory's excellent Notes of a Military Reconnoissance and Johnston's Journal give details of this journey with the first reliable information concerning the Pimas. Kearney was followed by Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke in command of the Mormon battalion, which opened a practicable wagon road to California by way of Tucson and the Pima villages. In his official report Colonel Cooke states:

