The recent history of Utah and the Four Corners region includes travels by Spanish missionaries and soldiers, trappers and traders, Mormon settlers, prospectors, ranchers, farmers, uranium miners and of course cowboys and outlaws. Fathers Dominguez and Escalante traveled through the region in 1776. Mormon settlers arrived in the area in about 1847, the same year that Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, directly influencing the decision to make Utah a territory in 1850. One of the most well known individuals to visit the region was John Wesley Powell during his floats down the Green and Colorado rivers in 1869 and 1871.