Pike Expedition
On November 15, Pike recorded the first sight of the distant mountain he called "Grand Peak". It has since been called Pikes Peak in his honor. Pike tried to climb the peak, hoping to get a view of the surrounding area to record on maps, the 14,000-foot summit. Pike's group ascended a lesser summit nearby—likely Mount Miller, which was named for Theodore Miller, one of the soldiers who accompanied Pike. With winter threatening, Pike pressed onward up the Arkansas, and on December 7 the party reached Royal Gorge, a spectacular canyon on the Arkansas at the base of the Rocky Mountains.
Albert Pike Lucas
Albert Pike Lucas (1862–1945) was an American landscape, figure, and portrait painter; also a sculptor. He was born in Jersey City, and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts (1882–1888) in Paris under Hébert and Boulanger and later under Courtois and Dagman-Bouveret. At the Salon of 1896 he won a medal. After a sojourn in Italy he settled in New York in 1902. His painting is distinctly personal, with the lyric note predominant, and shows sympathetic intimacy with nature, especially in her larger and more mysterious aspects. His handling is broad yet conscientious, his color scheme rich and glowing, and he excels in the management of diffused light, as seen most strikingly in his well-known "Golden Madonna." He painted by preference nocturnes and twilight scenes, such as "October Breezes" (National Gallery, Washington), "The Little Church on the Hill," and "Walking against the Wind." He also painted portraits of many prominent persons. A good specimen of his work as a sculptor is the statuette "Ecstasy," in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.