Carvalho made early Colorado photograph, nearly died on 1853

Solomon Nunes Carvalho was a Baltimore painter and fledgling photographer when John C. Fremont, contacted him in 1853 and asked Carvalho to join him on a journey across the West.

Carvalho was to make daguerreotypes, a form of early photographs. They would be the first photographic record of the West.

Carvalho produced more than 300 images of the journey, but fire destroyed most of them. One that survived shows a Cheyenne Indian village. It may be the earliest photograph of Colorado.

During that 1853-1854 trip, Fremont and Carvalho came through the Grand Valley. One can only wonder what images Carvalho shot of this area.

Expedition members were near starvation when they arrived here in early January, 1854. One of their members killed a fat beaver, probably along the Colorado River, prov