Question of the Day - 09 April 2024

Entire books have been written about John Charles Fremont, the American soldier, explorer, surveyor and mapmaker, politician, and namesake of downtown Las Vegas’ man drag, along with many other geographical place names, many in California where he settled in his adult years (he was born in Savannah, Georgia).

During the 1840s, Fremont led five expeditions into the American West, earning him the media nickname, “The Pathfinder.” On his second expedition in 1843 and 1844, he led a party of 40, including trailblazer Kit Carson, from Missouri in search of a trail to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Columbia River.

Achieving his objective, Fremont determined to return to Missouri via a southern route. He followed the eastern Cascades through Oregon and into northern Nevada, where he “discovered” and named Pyramid Lake (where Paiute had been living for thousands of years). From there, his party headed south, then turned west again, climbing the Sierra via the Carson River (which Fremont also named) and becoming among the first Americans to catch a glimpse of Lake Tahoe.

They descended into the central valley of California around present-day Sacramento, where they spent awhile at Sutter’s Fort. From there, they followed a trail blazed by Jedidiah Smith to the Old Spanish Trail between Los Angeles and Santa Fe, which traversed Las Vegas Valley.

There, Fremont noted the Las Vegas Paiute tribe’s sunflower and pumpkin patches by what came to be known as the Big Springs and watched them fish lizards out of holes in the desert. In his journal of the expedition, Fremont called them “humanity in its lowest form and most elemental state” and he couldn’t understand how they could live with no possessions, houses, or even much clothing.

Fremont had many further adventures, actually claiming control of California in 1846 as an Army major (for which he was court-martialed) and running for president of the United States 10 years later as the first candidate of the newly formed Republican Party. He was defeated by James Buchanan, who was defeated by Republican Abraham Lincoln in the next presidential election cycle of 1860. Fremont ran against Lincoln in 1864 as the candidate for the short-lived Radical Democracy Party.

Fremont was appointed Governor of Arizona Territory by President Rutherford B. Hayes. Though he served from 1878 to 1881, he spent so little time there that he was asked to resign.

John C. Fremont retired on New York's Staten Island and died at his home in lower Manhattan in 1890 at the age of 77.

So it was less for the short time he spent in southern Nevada and more for Fremont's broader significance in the exploration and expansion of the western United States during the 19th century. Las Vegas, like many other cities and landmarks in the American West, has streets, parks, and other features named after prominent figures from this period of American history. John C. Fremont's contributions to the exploration and settlement of the West earned him recognition in the naming of Fremont Street in Las Vegas.