Searching for Zeb

One man’s mission to rediscover the 1806 Zebulon Pike Southwest Expedition

The story of Harv Hisgen is about a decades long ambition to create a historic route that retraces the original route of the controversial expedition into the Southwest. Through interpretive signs, historical sites and exhaustive research, Hisgen is crossing state, and national borders to see his project through and establish a route for generations to follow while learning the past.

I wrote about Hisgen’s ambitious undertaking for the Mountain Mail. The story was then expended into a feature for the first print issue of Discover Colorado Magazine in 2017.

Shortly after the story was published Jim Bull, who owned an 1810 copy of Pike’s journal, donated the manuscript to the San Luis Valley Museum and the people of Colorado. While visiting Salida he picked up a copy of Discover Mag and where he learned about latest efforts to preserve Pike’s history.

“Searching for Zebulon” can be read here in its entirety.