The Serracino Expedition

Persistent tales about a lost Spanish colony piqued the interest of Jose Rafael Serracino. Like many explorers before him, he was inspired to put together a search party and leave Santa Fe to explore the West.

In 1811, more than three decades after Franciscan friars Escalante and Dominguez made their way into present-day Utah Valley, another lesser known expedition left New Mexico in search of a rumored Spanish outpost in Ute territory. According to nineteenth-century New Mexican chronicler Pedro Bautista Pino, persistent tales about a lost Spanish colony far beyond the pale of settled territory piqued the interest of New Mexico's postmaster, Jose Rafael Serracino, and inspired him to put together a search party.

The details we have of Serracino's expedition are sketchy. After leaving New Mexico, the party traveled north across Ute territory for three long months, finally coming to a halt on the banks of what Pino described only as "a large river." Among the Native Americans living in the area, Serracino found Spanish-made tools including knives, razors and awls. At least one historian has speculated that the river in question was none other than the Snake, and that the tools came from Spanish trading parties operating in the Pacific Northwest. This theory assumes that Serracino and his party hiked past the Great Salt Lake and the Bear River on their way to the Snake River drainage.

It is possible that the river Serracino encountered was simply the Colorado, though it's hard to believe that the expedition could not have made it further north in three months. Regardless of where Serracino and his compatriots ended up, however, the story of the expedition highlights once again how Spanish-speaking explorers had gained substantial knowledge of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau years before other Europeans came to the region.