John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell was born in Mount Morris, New York before eventually settling in Boone County Illinois. He was a rower in his youth, and explored several of the tributaries of the Mississippi River system. He once rowed the Ohio downriver from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi and then up to St. Louis. On another trip he rowed from St. Anthony Minnesota down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. He studied for seven years at Oberlin College and what became Wheaton College, but never graduated with a diploma.
Powell lost his right Army serving as a Captain with the Union army at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. He stayed with the army and served through the rest of the war, including at the Battles of Atlanta, Nashville, and Vicksburg among others. After the war he declined a permanent position with an Illinois natural history museum in order to explore the American West, although he did teach at Illinois Wesleyan University.
Powell organized and led several expeditions in the west, the first with students and his wife, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. In 1868 he was one of a party which was the first to ascend to the summit of Longs Peak. Later expeditions traveled through the canyons of Utah down the Colorado River. During this expedition three men vanished from the party, likely killed by Paiute Indians. On a later exploring trip Powell included a missionary who was well regarded by the local tribes to ensure a safe passage for the explorers.
Following his expeditions Powell documented his findings and in 1881 become the Director of the US Geological Survey. He also served at the Smithsonian Institution as the director of the Bureau of Ethnology. Powell viewed most of the land in the West to be unsuitable for farming except when near natural sources of water and supported the use of most of the land for open grazing. This was in opposition to the railroads, who had obtained vast land tracts as part of their compensation for building the roads and wanted to sell most of it to farmers.
The railroads used their powerful influence to prevent Congress from adopting Powell’s views regarding land use and state boundaries. Powell’s view was proven to have been largely correct when the Dust Bowl occurred in the 1920s and 30s, leading to the failing of many farms with insufficient irrigation. Powell died in 1902 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.