In January 1844 John C. Fremont abandoned a bronze mountain howitzer somewhere on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. At the time Fremont was a 31-year-old lieutenant in the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers and was leading a mapping expedition to facilitate the growing western migration. Exhausted and running low on provisions, he and his men were searching for a pass over the Sierra Nevada in the dead of winter on their way to John Sutter’s fort in Mexican California. For January 29, 1844, Fremont entered the following notes in his official report on the expedition:

"...We followed a trail down a hollow where the Indians had descended... The principal stream still running through an impracticable canyon, we ascended a very steep hill, which proved afterwards the last and fatal obstacle to our little howitzer, which was finally abandoned at this place."

For the next century and a half, Fremont’s lost howitzer, or cannon, has been the subject of numerous explorations, legends, and controversies. Between 1997 and 2002, a group of U.S. Forest Service volunteers, many of them licensed land surveyors, licensed civil engineers, attorneys, archaeologists, and others from California, Nevada, and parts east, discovered several iron remnants of an 1830s-era cannon carriage in a creek, at the bottom of a steep and remote canyon in the Toiyabe National Forest, CA. Their discoveries were the result of many years of research and field investigations. Today these volunteers are still at it. They call themselves the Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team and they work under the direction of a professional archaeologist.

Fremont’s lost cannon has been in the public imagination for a long time. It is in fact the inspiration for college football's largest trophy, a scale replica of Fremont's howitzer given to the winner of the annual University of Nevada Reno-University of Nevada Las Vegas football game. The Nevada Mines Division of the Kennecott Copper Corporation constructed the cannon and donated it to the University system in 1970.

A bronze American mountain howitzer barrel, date stamped 1836, has been on display at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. It is one of several mountain howitzers that were recovered in this area in the 19th century and some believe it was Fremont’s. Unfortunately, the conflicting provenances of these various howitzers have made it thus far difficult to say with certainty one way or the other. It is this uncertainty that inspired the efforts of the Recovery Team.

The howitzer's recovery project began when Bryant Sturgess PE, PLS, began studying Fremont's official report of the expedition for clues to the location of the abandoned cannon. Fremont's report is vague as to that location and numerous interpretations are possible. Sturgess made a first reconnaissance of the area in 1979. Sturgess was involved with the California-Nevada boundary litigation in the 1970s and '80s. In 1984 he invited colleagues from that lengthy legal action to join him in the search for Fremont's mountain howitzer. They were Judge James Thompson, Francis "Van" Landrum, and Francois "Bud" Uzes. Together they formed the Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team and spent several summers searching the hills along the Walker River. In the late 1980s they added Bill Cossitt, Paul S. Pace, and Charles Aiken to the team. The first search efforts by the expanded team took place in the summer of 1989.

Subsequently, others have joined the team and now include John Wilusz, Joel D. Tracy, Steve Parrish, Matt Gingerich, Tony Argento Jr, Thomas Fee, Timothy Case, Jackson Cossitt Mueller, David J. Fox III, Doug Vose, Jim Girdlestone, Chuck Hutcheson, and the lead archaeologist, James M. Allan, Ph.D., RPA. The elder statesmen of the group, Thompson, Landrum, and Uzes, have since passed away.

After much study and discussion, the team began traversing the area along the West Walker River on foot, attempting to replicate Fremont's line of march. After repeated attempts and years of walking the imagined routes, the team finally settled on what they believed to be the site where the cannon was abandoned. They began searching the area with metal locators. In the summer of 1997 the team made its first recovery: an iron rim, or tire, from a carriage or wagon wheel. The tire was found in the silty bank of a mountain stream with a metal detector. There were no wooden spokes, iron axle parts, or artifacts of any kind found with it, and the tire was more or less perfectly round. In a subsequent outing that season, the team found a second iron tire in the same condition and again there were no spokes or axle parts. The two tires were identical and their size and composition were consistent with similar items from an 1830s-era American mountain howitzer gun carriage.

Given the location and character of the recoveries, the team had reason to be optimistic, but still, the evidence was not conclusive for a gun carriage. They continued scanning during subsequent group outings but encountered a dry spell for several seasons. One major roadblock to the work was and remains the presence of rocks in the search area that have high iron content. These return many "false positive" readings on the search equipment.

In 1999 the USFS designated archaeologist Terry Birk to work with the group. The search continued at that point, with team members given official status as USFS volunteers. Mr. Birk later retired. Sophisticated electro-magnetic search equipment was employed for the first time in 1999 and has been used several times since, most recently in the summer of 2012.

Unusually heavy spring runoff in 2001 scoured the creek bed and lowered it by several feet; this was a lucky event that contributed to more recoveries. First, a single iron trunnion plate was found, and then a third tire, identical to the first two. The trunnion plate is part of a bracket that secures the cannon to its carriage. It was a critical find because only gun carriages have trunnion plates (there are two per carriage but only one was found). Like the tires, the bracket is consistent in all respects with like components from the American mountain howitzer.

After the discovery of the trunnion plate, the U.S. Forest Service required the group to submit a written research plan and work under the direct supervision of a professional archaeologist. In 2005, Dr. James M. Allan of the Institute for Western Maritime Archaeology, Orinda, California, submitted the Fremont Howitzer Recovery Project, Historical Context Statement, Archaeological Research Design and Archaeological Testing Program to the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, Bridgeport Ranger District on behalf of the Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team. Work at the site was forestalled until the USFS could review the program and give its approval. When approval was granted, the team resumed its work.

The artifacts found thus far were sent by the U.S. Forest Service to Texas A&M University for conservation and positive identification. They were subsequently returned and were on display at the USFS's Bridgeport Ranger District offices in Bridgeport, California, for a number of years.

During 2013, at the request of the Nevada State Museum, the team consulted with the Museum concerning the Museum’s planned exhibit recounting Fremont’s expeditions through the state. During Nevada’s 2014 Sesquicentennial celebration the artifacts were loaned to the Museum for their exhibit. During the course of the Museum’s yearlong celebration, several team members took part in various presentations provided to the public, including talks at the Fremont Symposium sponsored by the Nevada State Museum in July 2014.

In early 2015 the Fremont exhibit, including the artifacts previously recovered by the team, was loaned to the Des Chutes Historical Museum in Bend, Oregon. Fremont researcher and photographer Loren Irving has photographed the Fremont route and campsites between the abandonment site outside the Bridgeport, California, area and the Bend, Oregon area. This makes the movement of the exhibit including the artifacts and photos to the Des Chutes Historical Museum in Bend proper according to Kelly Cannon-Miller, Executive Director of the museum. There the exhibit was available for public viewing through December 2015.

In early 2016 the Fremont exhibit moved to The Dalles, Oregon. There it opened to the public February 19, 2016, in the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, where it was scheduled to remain for six months. In early 2017 the Fremont exhibit moved to The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon, and remained there through December 10, 2017.

The Fremont exhibit opened in April 2018 at the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas and remained there through May 2019. As of August 2019, the Fremont exhibit is scheduled to be returned to the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. The future of the exhibit is undecided at this time. The team continues to search the abandonment site for additional artifacts. Questions regarding the Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team should be directed to the USFS's Bridgeport Ranger District offices in Bridgeport.