The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.

Many don't know, or refuse to acknowledge, the very early journeys in the American Southwest by Spanish explorers. Spanish exploration and settlement occurred long before Jamestown.

In September 1540, under orders to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, along with Hopi guides and a small group of Spanish soldiers, traveled to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon between Desert View and Moran Point.

In a report, they noted that some of the rocks in the Canyon were "bigger than the great tower of Seville.” Afterward, no Europeans visited the Canyon for over two hundred years.

In 1776, Fray Francisco Garces, a Franciscan missionary, spent a week near Havasupai, unsuccessfully attempting to convert a band of Native Americans.