The Cartographic Roots of Colorado

The Pueblo Archaeological and Historical Society welcomes Wesley Brown who will provide a history of the discovery and exploration of the place that became Colorado and how this information is revealed on maps of the interior-west from 1540 to 1861 (when Colorado became a Territory).
The story is told in six chapters: the mythical mapping of New Spain, mapping the Rio Grande valley in the 1600s, discovery of the Mississippi valley and the western plains, new Spanish expeditions from Santa Fe into Colorado in the late 18th century, official government expeditions of the early 19th century, and the 1859 gold rush that puts Colorado on the map.
Wes Brown has been a collector of old maps for forty years with special interest is the exploration and settlement of the West and Colorado from the 16th through 20th centuries. A Denver resident, he co-founded the Rocky Mountain Map Society in 1991 that continues a monthly lecture program to this day. Wes has served as the Co-Chairman of the national map and geography society of the Library of Congress and on the board of the Society for the History of Discoveries. He is a frequent speaker at map and history conferences and has published many papers on maps