In 1866, Worthington Whittredge traveled to present-day Colorado and New Mexico. Whittredge reflected, “I had never seen the plains or anything like them. They impressed me deeply. I cared more for them than the mountains . . . Whoever crossed the plains at that period…could hardly fail to be impressed with its vastness and silence and the appearance everywhere of an innocent, primitive existence.” His observations reflect the attitude of the time—that the Great Plains were open and uninhabited, despite the many Native peoples who lived there.