| The Chasm of the Colorado, another 7'x12' canvas would become a companion piece to "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" now hanging in Congress. Thomas Moran joined Major John Wesley Powell's expedition in 1873 at Salt Lake City, where the group would proceed southward through Utah's canyon country into Arizona...to the Grand Canyon. In a letter to his wife, Moran wrote...
"The whole gorge for miles lay beneath us and it was by far the most awfully grand and impressive scene that I have ever yet seen..."
He was to produce many paintings and drawing of the Grand Canyon in the years to come...returning again and again to this natural wonder. His work was used by publishers and the railroads to promote tourism to these remote regions. The "Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe" railroad was for many years the only direct route to the Grand Canyon, and used many of Moran's illustrations in their brochures. | 
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