The career of Zebulon Pike (1779-1813), American soldier and explorer, was dominated by ambiguously motivated explorations of the American West. During one of these he unsuccessfully tried to climb the Colorado mountain named for him, Pike's Peak.

Zebulon Pike was the son of a U.S. Army major of the same name. Zebulon was born on Jan. 5, 1779, in Lamberton (now Trenton), N.J. He entered his father's company as a cadet and was commissioned a first lieutenant when he was 20 years old. He served on the frontier with the Army but made no particular mark until Gen. James Wilkinson chose him to lead an expedition to find the source of the Mississippi River.

Pike left St. Louis, Mo., on Aug. 9, 1805, in a keelboat. He got 100 miles above the Falls of St. Anthony in Minnesota before winter closed in on his 20-man party. He took a few men onward...