In the spring of 1889, one of the most unusual surveys of the river began when officers of the newly formed Denver, Colorado Canyon, and Pacific Railroad Company departed Green River in six boats.  Led by company president Frank M. Brown and Robert Brewster Stanton, a prominent railroad engineer, the expedition’s purpose was to determine the feasibility of constructing a railroad through the canyons to the Pacific Ocean.

After reaching Marble Canyon in early July, Brown and two others were thrown overboard and drowned, and another man was injured.  Stanton halted the expedition temporarily, then undaunted by the calamity, he returned to continue the survey, successfully navigating the rapids and whirlpools of Marble and Grand Canyons, the first to do so since John Wesley Powell.  He then pushed on to the Gulf of California.

His dream of a railroad connecting the coal fields of Colorado with southern California through the canyons of the Colorado was never realized; he was unable to raise sufficient capital to tackle the project and the scheme was subsequently dropped.