Escalante Crossed Here

In September 1776, while the eastern colonies were declaring independence, two Franciscan friars forded the Green River here. Domínguez and Escalante had left Santa Fe two months earlier with a small party, hunting an overland route to California. This was, Escalante wrote, the largest river they had crossed — the boundary, as their guides told it, between Ute and Comanche country. They found good meadows and rested three days, letting the animals graze before the long push west. They never reached California, turning back at winter's approach. But their journal became the first written description of this land.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dinosaur National Monument — 1.6 mi
  A wall of 1,500 dinosaur bones still embedded in the rock where they were found
• Fantasy Canyon — 2.7 mi
  Impossibly shaped rock formations that look like alien sculptures
• Vernal — 10 mi
  The self-proclaimed Dinosaur Capital of Utah
• Utah Field House of Natural History — 10 mi
  A dinosaur museum with life-size replicas in an outdoor garden

More markers nearby

• Musket Shot Springs Byway — 4.4 mi
• Korean Conflict Veterans Memorial — 10 mi
• Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans Memorial — 10 mi
• American Mother Veterans War Memorial — 10 mi