He later achieved the rank of brigadier general in the American Army and served during the War of 1812 until he was killed during the Battle of York in April 1813, outside the British colonial capital of Upper Canada.

[2][3][4] He was the son of Isabella (Brown) and Zebulon Pike, and followed in the footsteps of his father, who had begun his own career in the military service of the United States in 1775 at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

[5] Zebulon Pike Jr. grew to adulthood with his family at a series of outposts in Ohio and Illinois—the United States' northwestern frontier at the time.

General-in-Chief James Wilkinson (1757-1825), of the United States Army was appointed by third President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, served 1801-1809), as first Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory and headquartered there, becaming young Pike's mentor.

In 1796, Pike shadowed the expedition of General Georges Henri Victor Collot (1750-1805), a Royal, then Imperial French Army officer who had been tasked to tour the Mississippi frontier and draw maps that France might use if it were to try and seize the lightly settled heartland territory of the Mississippi River valley basin from the nascent United States further to the East.

[9] In the summer of 1805, General-in-Chief James Wilkinson ordered young Lt. Pike to locate the northern source of the Mississippi River, explore the northern portion of the newly created and beginning to organize the Louisiana Territory, and expel any British / Canadian roving fur traders illegally trading within the new western borders of the expanded United States.

He and his crew reached the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers on September 21, where he negotiated a Treaty of St. Peters agreement with the native Dakota Indians, purchasing the future site of Fort Snelling.

The expedition proceeded further upriver, stopping to construct a winter camp at the mouth of the Swan River, south of present-day Little Falls, Minnesota, on October 16.

Additional objectives of this exploratory expedition into the southwestern part of the new Louisiana Territory were to evaluate natural resources and establish friendly relations with Native Americans.

This was a mission to prepare for a possible American invasion of the neighboring Royal Spanish provinces of New Mexico and Texas over the disputed southwest border from France's sale of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

During this time, Pike had access to various maps of the southwest and New Spain, and especially learned about colonial Mexico's increasing discontentment with Royal Spanish rule.

In 1811, Pike fought with the 4th Infantry Regiment at the Battle of Tippecanoe under General (and future ninth President) William Henry Harrison (1773-1841).

In some eastern regions of North America, a tradition or legend pervades often referred to as The Lost City of Palanor or Zebulon's Gift which has been attributed to Pike's journals.

[18] The second is a description of Pike's discovery of the lost city "Palanor," said to be built by pre-Columbian European settlers, and his decision to hide the treasure there.

[18] As Michael Olsen shows, after Pike's death in battle, his military accomplishments were widely celebrated in terms of biographies, mourning memorials, paintings, poems, and songs, and he became the namesake for dozens of towns, counties, and ships.

[21] Pike was honored in 1901 by General William Jackson Palmer with a marble statue placed near the main entrance of the Antlers Hotel.