In 1940, the Press was involved in celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the Coronado expedition to New Mexico.
Among the Hopi and the Zuni, Espejo met several Spanish-speaking Mexican Indians who had been left behind by, or escaped from, the Coronado expedition more than 40 years earlier.
The first Europeans to see the river were members of the Spanish Coronado expedition on June 29, 1541.
The Coronado expedition had the primary motivation of finding gold, silver, and land for forced-labor encomienda estates.
At the same time, the Coronado expedition, begun in 1540, was conducting a similar gold-seeking survey in the Southwest.
The earliest explorers of European extraction to visit the area were Spanish explorers such as Coronado, although the Coronado expedition of 1540-42 only skirted the future border of the Colorado Territory to the south and southeast.
The Coronado expedition had failed in its quest for gold.
The supplies were retrieved and the note stated that Alarcón's men had rowed up the river as far as they could, searching in vain for the Coronado expedition.
The first European explorers to discover the canyon were members of the Coronado expedition, who visited the canyon in 1541.
Oraibi remained unknown to European explorers until about 1540 when Spanish explorer Don Pedro de Tovar (who was part of the Coronado expedition) encountered the Hopi while searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold.