Compare above photo with 1907 on next page.

Green River City, now Green River, the third place of the same name in Wyoming, was founded with the arrival of the railroad in 1868 when the area was still a part of Dakota Territory. The first business was that of Jake Field who operated a store, hotel and rstaurant, as depicted in the next photo. Field, along with H. M. Hook, previously mayor of Cheyenne, and James Moore, anticipated that the railroad would establish a division point there. Unfortunately, the three forgot that the railroad was essentially a real estate business. Its division points were located in towns established by it, such as Cheyenne, Laramie City, and later Evanston, where the railroad would reap the benefits of lots sales, not third persons. Thus, while the railroad was passing through, Green River City grew to an estimated 2,000. The population precipitously dropped to less that 150 after an advertisement appeared in the Frontier Index:

BRYAN
The
Winter Town, UPRR

Bryan is located on Black's Fork on the line of the
UPRR and will be the terminus of the Railroad for freight
and passengers during the coming winter, and probably until
the connection is made between the UPRR and the Central PRR.
Bryan is the most accessible point to the Sweetwater mines,
and will unquestionably be
The Best Town
for trade between Omaha and Salt Lake City. Large machine
shops and a Round house will be built there immediately.
Now is the time to purchase lots at the low valuation
placed on them by the Railroad company

This now deserted city was laid out about the first of July, 1868, by H.M. Hook, first Mayor of Cheyenne City. In this enterprise, James Moore, of Cheyenne, was interested, and these gentlemen suppose that the terminus of the road would be at this point during the winter. In September, 1868, the place had a population of over 2,000, and substantial adobe buildings were erected, and the town presented a permanent appearance. But the river was bridged and as the road stretched away to the westward, the town declined as rapidly as it arose, the people moving on to Bryan, Bear River, and other points, until there was no one left but those connected with the stations-in the company's employ. The walls of the old buildings are still standing, some with the roofs still covering them.

Field arrived from Colorado where he had worked in the express business in the gold fields. The two Powell Expeditions, which put in from Green River City, purchased some of its supplies from Field. The first (1869) Powell Expedition had to await the arrival of equipment. While waiting, the members entertained themselves with liquid refreshment purchased from Field. As described by John C. 'Jack' Sumner (1834-1902), a member of the first expedition from Middle Park, Colorado:

'We reached Fort Badger [sic], and then on to Green River Station on the Union Pacific railroads where we camped and awaited orders and in the meantime tried to drink all the whiskey there was in town. The result was a failure, as Jake Field persisted in making it faster than we could drink it.'

John Wesley Powell, woodcut, 1895

J. C. Sumner and William H. Dunn are my boatmen in the 'Emma Dean'; then follows 'Kitty Clyde's Sister,' manned by W. H. Powell and G. Y. Bradley; next, the 'No Name,' with O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland, and Frank Goodman; and last comes the 'Maid of the Canyon,' with W. E. Hawkins and Andrew Hall.

Sumner was a soldier during the late war, and before and since that time has been a great traveler in the wilds of the Mississippi Valley and the Rocky Mountains as an amateur hunter. He is a fair-haired, delicate-looking man, but a veteran in experience, and has performed the feat of crossing the Rocky Mountains in midwinter on snowshoes. He spent the winter of 1886-87 in Middle Park, Colorado, for the purpose of making some natural history collections for me, and succeeded in killing three grizzlies, two mountain lions, and a large number of elk, deer, sheep, wolves, beavers, and many other animals. When Bayard Taylor traveled through the parks of Colorado, Sumner was his guide, and he speaks in glowing terms of Mr. Taylor's genial qualities in camp, but he was mortally offended when the great traveler requested him to act as doorkeeper at Breckenridge to receive the admission fee from those who attended his lectures.

Dunn was a hunter, trapper, and mule-packer in Colorado for many years. He dresses in buckskin with a dark oleaginous luster, doubtless due to the fact that he has lived on fat venison and killed many beavers since he first donned his uniform years ago. His raven hair falls down to his back, for he has a sublime contempt of shears and razors.

Captain Powell was an officer of artillery during the late war and was captured on the 22d day of July, 1864, at Atlanta and served a ten months' term in prison at Charleston, where he was placed with other officers under fire. He is silent, moody, and sarcastic, though sometimes he enlivens the camp at night with a song. He is never surprised at anything, his coolness never deserts him, and he would choke the belching throat of a volcano if he thought the spitfire meant anything but fun. We call him _ '_Old Shady.'

Bradley, a lieutenant during the late war, and since orderly sergeant in the regular army, was, a few weeks previous to our start, discharged, by order of the Secretary of War, that he might go on this trip. He is scrupulously careful, and a little mishap works him into a passion, but when labor is needed he has a ready hand and powerful arm, and in danger, rapid judgment and unerring skill. A great difficulty or peril changes the petulant spirit into a brave, generous soul.

O. G. Howland is a printer by trade, an editor by profession, and a hunter by choice. When busily employed he usually puts his hat in his pocket, and his thin hair and long beard stream in the wind, giving him a wild look, much like that of King Lear in an illustrated copy of Shakespeare which tumbles around the camp.

Seneca Howland is a quiet, pensive young man, and a great favorite with all.

Goodman is a stranger to us--a stout, willing Englishman, with florid face and more florid anticipations of a glorious trip.

Billy Hawkins, the cook, was a soldier in the Union Army during the war, and when discharged at its close went West, and since then has been engaged as teamster on the plains or hunter in the mountains. He is an athlete and a jovial good fellow, who hardly seems to know his own strength.

Hall is a Scotch boy, nineteen years old, with what seems to us a 'secondhand head,' which doubtless came down to him from some knight who wore it during the Border Wars. It looks a very old head indeed, with deep-set blue eyes and beaked nose. Young as he is, Hall has had experience in hunting, trapping, and fighting Indians, and he makes the most of it, for he can tell a good story, and is never encumbered by unnecessary scruples in giving to his narratives those embellishments which help to make a story complete. He is always ready for work or play and is a good hand at either.

I took my bowie knife and stuck it in one of the Captain's socks and held it up over the kettle just back of the coffee. With the reddish brown water running off, it looked just as though I had taken it out of the coffee kettle. I yelled 'Who in hell put his socks in the coffee?' All said they had not, except the young man, who did not answer. When I asked him if he had, he said very politely that he had not, but he was getting up and leaving at the time. That was the last we ever saw of him.

As indicated above, by the time of the Second Powell Expedition, Green River City had seen better days. Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh (1853-1935), a member of the second (1871) Expedition, in his 1902 book 'The Romance of the Colorado River,' described the 1871 appearance of the town:

'This Place, when the railway was building, had been for a considerable time the terminus and a town of respectable proportions had grown up, but with the completion of the road through this region, the terminus moved on, and now all that was to be seen of those golden days was a group of adobe walls, roofless and forlorn. The present 'City' consisted of about thirteen houses, and some of these were of such complex construction that one hesitates whether to describe them as houses with canvas roofs, or tents with board sides.'

The lodging facilities were hardly better.

Dellenbaugh in his A Canyon Voyage described them:

For sleeping quarters we were isposed in two vacant wooden shanties about two hundred yards apart and a somewhat greater distance from the cook-camp. These shanties were mansions left over, like a group of roofless adobe ruins near by, from the opulent days of a year or wo back when this place had been the terminus of the line during building operations. Little remained of its shilom grandeur; a section house, a railway station, a number of canvas-roofed domiciles, Field's 'Outfitting Store,' and the aforesaid shanties in which we secured refuge, being about all there was of the place.