By this we were greatly rejoiced, now because of the hope it gave of being able to take advantage of certain supplies in the future; especially because it was an indication of the application of these people to the cultivation of the soil; and because we found this much done toward reducing them to civilized life and to the faith when the Most High may so dispose, for it is well known how much it costs to bring other Indians to this point, and how difficult it is to convert them to this labor which is so necessary to enable them to live for the most part in civilized life and in towns.[8] The Spanish Fathers never fulfilled their dreams of missions beyond the Colorado, but they explored an uncharted area, into which other Spaniards followed. The records, however, are meager and information incomplete about these later expeditions. Two other Spaniards, Mestes in 1805 and Arze and Garcia in 1812-13, seem to have penetrated as far as Utah Lake and perhaps southward, but so far as is known, their trips had little significance.[9] Still later, other Spaniards developed the route from Santa Fe to the Pacific coast which the Fathers had failed to do. Known as the Old Spanish Trail, this passed northwestward from Santa Fe through southwestern Colorado and central Utah and then southwestward to Los Angeles. It crossed Escalante’s trail near Cedar City. But before this route was developed, other explorers had opened the way. After Dominguez and Escalante, the next pathbreaker of importance to enter the region was Jedediah Strong Smith, a trapper and trader bent on expanding his fur business. He was probably the first to finish the task started by Escalante, that of finding a route to the coast, which he traversed in 1826 and again in 1827. Smith’s epochal explorations, like Escalante’s a half-century earlier, were circuitous in nature and his first trip covered an area now embraced by four states, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. The eastern side of his loop overlapped the western side of Escalante’s and probably their trails coincided for short distances where they crossed. Smith belonged to the firm of Smith, Jackson and Sublette, which had purchased General Ashley’s fur interests and was trapping through the region southward from Montana through Idaho and Wyoming to northern Utah. The summer camp or rendezvous of the firm was at Bear Lake near the Utah-Idaho line and most of the trapping grounds were to the north and east. Knowing nothing about the region lying south and west of the Great Salt Lake, Smith fitted out a party of about sixteen men to explore and trap the unknown region.