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Show V y "- V' ' VV.V I ' ,4'f:' f V T If . a. v-' 1 ' f' ',J'"r'" 1 KETKACK TKEK. Tom Alexander, left, and 1 Ted Warner examine maps while tracing the I Domingiiz-Escalante Expedition Trail. The 1 , expedition camped on the Arroyo de San Andres Sept. 26, ' 1776, and the two BYU historians believe the camp was in or near present-day Payson City Park on Peteetneet Creek. BYU professors retrace historic trail If Dominguez and Escalante had returned to Utah to establish settlement after their famous exploration expedition in 1776, the state probably wouldn't have a Provo jor Spanish Fork or Kanarravfile today. Insteadj these respective localities might be called San Antonio ie Padua, Dulcisimo Nombre i( Jesus, and Nuestra Senora del Pilar, according to two Brigham Young University historians yho recently retraced a portion of the Dominguez-Escalantetail Dominguez-Escalantetail from Provo south to the Utah-Arizona border. In fact, tie whole area from Duchesne to Provo and down to Hurricane near St. George probably would have been identified b a series of Spanish names that the explorers used for their cimps, explained Dr. Ted J. Warier, chairman of the BYU History Department, and Dr. Thomis G. Alexander, associate diEctor of the Charles Redd Center or Western Studies. The two pnfessors form one of six teams wiich are retracing the entire 2,0(0 mile trail through New Mixico.Colorado, Utah and Arizona undir direction of the Dominguez-Sscalante State Federal Bfcentennial Committee. Com-mittee. Melvii T. Smith, director of the Utal State Historical Society, is clairmen. Results of ( he project will be compiled by Dr. David Miller at the Universiy of Utah who is chairman of he trail exploration portion of the bicentennial project. A report will be published diring the nation's bicentennial celebration. "Our assignment was to find, as closely aspossible, the actual trail and campsites of the expedition," ex-pedition," Di. Warner said. The two BYU professors have retraced on foot and in a four-wheel four-wheel drive vehicle some 300 miles of the.trail. As references they have used several different translations of the original Spanish joirnal kept by Fray Silvestre elez de Escalante on the five-month, 2,000 mile expedition. ex-pedition. The historians also had access to two hindwritten copies of the journal jroduced in 1792 and 1797 and t an 1854 Spanish publication of the journal. Using a new translation by Fray Angelico Chavez of Santa Fe, N.M., the two professors were able to pinpoint more accurately ac-curately than previously possible the location of some 20 campsites between Provo and the Utah-Arizona Utah-Arizona border. "What we now hope to find is an unnamed hill or other prominent Utah landmark which could be named after Dominguez," Dr. Warner said. He noted that Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and not Escalante was the real leader of the 10-man expedition, but because Escalante wrote the expedition journal, he has received most of the credit for the trek. Several Utah landmarks land-marks including a mountain range, forest, desert, river and town have been named after him but nothing has been named after Dominguez. The explorers originally set out from Santa Fe in July 1776 to find a new route to Monterey, California, but never got any farther west than Utah. However, they were highly impressed with some of Utah's rivers and valleys and wantedto establish settlements in these areas. But when they returned to Santa Fe in January 1777, manpower and funds were short and their hopes never materialized, Dr. Warner explained. ex-plained. So Utah remained unsettled un-settled until the Mormon pioneers arrived some 70 years later and applied their own names to the state's communities, com-munities, mountains and rivers. If the Spanish explorers had returned, their names would probably be in use today and it would be hard to tell Utah from California or New Mexico. Payson would have been San Andres, Scipio would have been Ojo de Cisneros, and Levan would have been San Bernardino. Ber-nardino. Other campsite names which might have endured are San Pablo, Santa Ysabel, Las Vegas del Puerto, Senor San Jose, San Donulo and San Juan Capistrano. And who knows what Utah might have been? Maybe Tierra de Los Yutas or Timpanogos or Nueve Espana. |