This week, the Moab Museum team dives into the history of Spanish exploration in the state of Utah. In 1540, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado crossed what is now Arizona and New Mexico in search of silver and gold; according to his diary, his Captain Garcia-Lopez de Cardenas may have led the first Spaniards to enter Utah. Coronado’s venture was the first of several explorations that established the Old Spanish Trail, the “longest, crookedest, most arduous pack mule route in the history of America” as the primary thoroughfare across the Colorado Plateau.