Before Great Basin became a national park, it was a rugged landscape frequented by three distinct Native American cultures (Paleoindian, Archaic, and Fremont) as far back as 12,000 BC.
Crowded parking near Lehman Caves, probably 1920s - 1930s, Great Basin National Park / NPS file
Excavations by federal and state agencies discovered cave shelters, rock shelters, and sites near lakes, with evidence of habitation in the form of manos and metates (used to grind corn), basketry, moccasins, hunting implements, pottery, and more.
During the 1770s, Spanish Explorers ventured into the Great Basin terrain, braving Apache and Comanche attacks in order to establish, protect, and supply existing missions and outposts between New Mexico and California. As such, the first white men to infiltrate the Great Basin were expeditions led by Franciscan friars. Their diaries recount the harsh, unforgiving lands, desolate environment devoid of potable water for them and their horses, and their attempts at proselytizing the Native Americans encountered.
British and American fur trappers in the early-to-mid-1800s explored Great Basin. At one point, the competition was so fierce that the Hudsons Bay Company implemented a “scorched earth” policy of overtrapping to not only acquire as much fur wealth as possible, but also leave behind nothing for the other side to find.
The later explorations by mainly American trappers within and around the vicinity of what is now Great Basin National Park maintained the view of an inhospitable, uninhabitable land not fit for man nor beast. By 1830, fur trappers referred to the region as “Starvation Country.”
When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, trade between Mexico and the Americans was enhanced with the creation of the Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to Los Angeles, a part of which traversed the southern portion of Great Basin. This trade route not only included blankets, grains, hides, and animals, but also Indian slaves captured in the Great Basin region by Spanish, Mexicans, Americans, and renegade Utes. It wasn’t until 1850 that the Mormons managed to suppress the slave trade commerce.
Westward travel increased with the Great Basin becoming a corridor to reach California, Oregon, and the Pacific Slope (the area west of the Continental Divide that slopes down to the Pacific Ocean). Thousands of emigrants traveled the Overland Trail through the northern portion of Great Basin between 1830 and 1850. This route followed a line of water, game, wood, and grazing land for livestock.
Great Basin landscape was still largely unknown, despite these trade and pioneertrails. It wasn’t until 1844, when adventurer and explorer John Charles Frémont traversed this region that the name “Great Basin” was applied after he announced the entire area “a land of interior drainage.”
Subsequent expeditions, Mormon settlement, and surveys for railroad routes and communication lines increased knowledge of the Great Basin region so that by the advent of the Civil War in 1861, most of this area had been explored, named, and mapped.
In 1883, it’s believed prospector, businessman, rancher, farmer, and politician Absalom (Ab) Lehman discovered the cave that bears his name (despite the name Lehman Caves, it’s actually a single cavern from which extend connected rooms). Ever the entrepreneur, Ab led tourists to the caves in 1885 with intentions to further develop his discovery. In 1891, Ab died and the cave was eventually added to the Forest Service in 1912. By 1922, Lehman Caves was declared a National Monument and transferred to the National Park Service in 1933. An entrance tunnel was constructed, electric lights installed, and concrete trails were built to facilitate tourism. By 1986, Great Basin National Park was established and Lehman Caves National Monument was incorporated into the park.
