Gustavus Sohon was an enlisted man in the U.S. Army. He had been born in German in 1825 and emigrated to the United States in 1842. He was stationed at Fort Dallas in the Oregon Territory when in 1853 he was sent to the Upper Missouri country to assist the survey of a northern railway route from the Mississippi to Puget Sound. Lithographs of his work on that trip illustrated the survey report of Maj. Isaac Steven, who became the first governor of Washington Territory.

His work, because of its accuracy, is used by anthropologists.

He later became a photographer.

He died in Washington, D.C., in 1903.

- Ken Rogers

Originally published under the title "Stanley, Wimar, Hays and Sohon: They Also Came Up the Missouri" in Lewis and Clark: Art of the Upper Missouri. (Ken Rogers, Tim Fought, editors. Jim Bridges, publisher. Bismarck: The Bismarck Tribune, 2000.) Used with permission.