Francisco Tomas Hermenegildo Garcés

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Francisco Tomas Hermenegildo Garcés

1741-1781

Spanish-born Franciscan missionary educated in Mexico who was later sent to what is now Tucson, Arizona. In 1776 Garcés traveled from what is now Yuma, Arizona, up the Colorado River to the Grand Canyon and east across the Arizona deserts, where he eventually stopped at the edge of the New Mexico territory. The voyage established a route between older Spanish settlements in the Rio Grande Valley and new settlements in California.

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Francisco Tomas Hermenegildo Garcés

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