For approximately one hundred years the canyon area was uninhabited by humans. Paiute from the east and Cerbat from the west were the first humans to reestablish settlements in and around the Grand Canyon. The Paiute settled the plateaus north of the Colorado River and the Cerbat built their communities south of the river, on the Coconino Plateau. Sometime in the 15th century the Navajo, or the Dine, arrived in the area.

The first documented case of Europeans viewing the Grand Canyon occurred in September of 1540. That year Hopi guides led a group of 13 Spanish soldiers under Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas to find the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola for his superior officer, the conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.

The group arrived at South Rim of the Grand Canyon between Desert View and Moran Point and saw a river below. Pablo de Melgrossa, Juan Galeras and a third soldier descended one third of the way into the Canyon until they were forced to return because of lack of water. It is speculated that their Hopi guides must have been reluctant to lead them to the river, as they surely knew the route to the canyon floor.

Failing in their attempts to find gold, the Spaniards soon left the area and it would be more than two centuries before it was once again visited by Europeans.

In 1776, Fathers Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante traveled with a group of Spanish soldiers to explore southern Utah. One their journey the group traveled along the North Rim of the Canyon in Glen and Marble Canyons in search of a route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Monterey, California.

The next Europeans to reach the canyon were James Ohio Pattie and a group of American trappers in 1826. However, there is little or no documentation of their travels.

The signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 ceded the Grand Canyon region to the United States. Jules Marcou of the Pacific Railroad Survey made the first geologic observations of the canyon and surrounding area in 1856.

At about the same time Jacob Hamblin, a Mormon missionary, was sent by Brigham Young to locate easy river crossing sites in the canyon. Building good relations with local Native Americans and white settlers, he discovered the sites of what would become Lee's Ferry and Pearce Ferry -- the only two sites suitable for ferry operation.

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