Denver has a wonderful reason to travel back in time. At the Colorado History Museum — the History Colorado Center in downtown Denver — the exhibition Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante is on view from January 24, 2026 through January 10, 2027, inviting visitors to follow one of the great journeys of exploration in the American West, exactly 250 years after it happened.
On July 29, 1776, Franciscan friars Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe with cartographer Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco and a small party, searching for an overland route to the missions of California. Aided along the way by Indigenous guides, they crossed what is now western Colorado, Utah and northern Arizona on a journey of some 1,700 miles over 159 days. They never reached California, but Escalante’s detailed journal and Miera’s maps became treasures: they documented lush valleys, rivers and ancient stone villages, guided later travelers, and helped shape the route that became the Old Spanish Trail.
Presented in the year of America’s 250th anniversary and Colorado’s 150th anniversary of statehood, the exhibition is a joyful, family-friendly way to see Colorado’s landscapes through 18th-century eyes and to celebrate the curiosity that mapped a region. Happy City News recommends making a day of it in the Golden Triangle, where the museum sits steps from Denver’s other great cultural institutions. Plan your visit at historycolorado.org.
Photo: Trueshow111 via Wikimedia Commons (CC0), showing the History Colorado Center in Denver.
