 The species was originally thought to have been discovered in 1857 by William A. Hammond, an Army surgeon accompanying troops west during the early Indian Wars in 1857.As a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia, he sent back crates of specimens that he collected back there for eventual identification and study.The crates with the trout specimens were labeled as having come from "the South Platte River at Fort Riley, Kansas".