Join retired UNM History Professor John Kessell for a look at the legacy of an important member of the Dominguez and Escalante Expedition.

It’s fitting that we recognize the Spanish mapmaker on Earth Day. Thanks to Miera’s painful vision quest around the Four Corners in 1776 with Franciscan friars Domínguez and Escalante, we have the earliest revelation of a vast expanse of the Earth that can be seen from space today—the Northern Colorado Plateau, Eastern Great Basin, and Great Salt Lake. Don Bernardo wasn’t the most patient of trail mates. Worse, recurring stomach cramps made him irritable. Small wonder then that Miera got crosswise with Domínguez and Escalante.