For years, Lago has been looking into archival and family sources never examined by other historians of the Powell expedition, and the resulting articles have made some significant contributions and changes to the history of the expedition.
Presentation Abstract...
New Documents Shed New Light on Origins and Disintegration of Powell Expedition:
John Wesley Powell was noted for not giving credit to those who helped him but it seems that he owed much larger debts than have ever been recognized. He owed a large debt to the Howland family, one of whom was a prominent citizen of Bloomington, Illinois, and who in 1860 led a group of Bloomington men on an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, an example that Powell would repeat 7 years later. It seems that this Howland family member put Powell in touch with Oramel Howland in Colorado, Oramel Howland then put Powell in touch with his employer, newspaper editor William Byers, and with the circle of men who would form the core of Powell's crew on the Colorado River expedition. Byers' diaries reveal that Byers was Powell's largest financial backer for 1867. A letter written by Byers reveals that he was planning to go down the Colorado with Powell. If this had happened, it is very unlikely that Powell would have been the expedition leader as Byers had far more wilderness experience and a far stronger bond with the crew. But Buyers dropped out, leaving his friends taking orders from Powell, whom they may have considered a usurper and thus resented. The main reason why Powell included these men in his crew as to get money from Byers, but when Byers cut Powell of financially, Powell was left resenting Byers' friends on the crew. This mutual resentment set up the group dynamic that led the Howland brothers and William Dunn to quit the expedition. Oramel Howland knew that the expedition never would have happened if not for him, yet Powell showed him no respect.
This presentation is based mainly on documents found at Iowa State University, at the McLean County Historical Society in Bloomington, Illinois, and at the Western Manuscript Collection in the Denver Public Library.