Ehrenberg, Ghost Town of the Colorado

Ehrenberg, Ghost Town of the

EHRENBERG, for almost 50 years an important town in the history of the Southwest, will be lost soon in the underbrush along the Colorado River, unless measures for preservation are taken in the very near future.

Steamboat town, stage headquarters, detached U. S. army station, Indian post and trading center for the miners of all Northwestern Arizona, this pueblo of mud houses occupied the stage of activity in the crossroads of the Colorado desert from 1860 until 1907. Ehrenberg's decline was rapid after 1907, when Laguna Dam near Yuma was completed, for the stern wheel river boats could no longer come up the river. It has been truly a ghost city for the past 20 years.

Today, the ruins of a dozen adobe houses are mute evidence of what once was a lawless, typical Arizona pioneer post, that gave shelter to a thousand hardy souls for several years. Within five years, however, at the present rate of disintegration these adobes will be melted to the ground on which they stand, and then it will be too late to restore one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the desert.

Herman Ehrenberg, roving mining engineer, and hero of the Texas war for independence, in his search for gold made camp at the site of Ehrenberg, and later built a rude log ferry for transportation to the California side, then called Lower California by the Arizonians. Prospectors headed for La Paz, and settlers on their way to various posts in Arizona, dropped into camp, and a town sprung up, in the early 60's.

La Paz, typical mushroom mining camp of those days in the desert, had already been founded some 14 miles up the river, and its hundreds of excited miners were taking heavy toll from the fabulous placers of La Paz Gulch and the Spanish Diggings. Captain Paul Weaver discovered these rich placers, while trapping along the river, in 1862, and a total of $7,000,000 is reported to have been shipped in the form of gold dust to San Francisco in the few hectic years that followed. Nuggets weighing as high as three pounds were taken out. As many of the miners were from Mexico, much of this gold went back to the southern republic in the pouches of these men.

Flat bottomed river steamers began to make regular runs from the Gulf of California. Ehrenberg was honored with a detached service army post, and the town received much of the La Paz trade. Ehrenberg had the best boat landing on the river north of Yuma.

The surface gold of La Paz soon became exhausted, and the miners, learning that a rich strike had been made at the Vulture near Wickenburg, then shook the alkali of La Paz from their boots, and drifted. Abandonment of La Paz was sudden.

The erratic Colorado river made a radical change in its course in 1911 and again in 1915 dissolving the adobe town of La Paz into its chocolate stream.

Today, all that remains of a forgotten city is an old dug well and mounds of adobes showing the outline of some of the ancient buildings and part of the old cemetery. Abandonment of La Paz proved a benefit rather than a loss to Ehrenberg. Drifting miners were making rich strikes from the river to Prescott. Crude arrastras along the banks of the Hassayampa were grinding out enough dust to fill the ore sacks. Dry washers were fanning dust from heavy yellow gravel. Gold hungry men were headed for the diggings, and the only safe route into the interior was by ship into the Gulf of California, and thence by river boat past Fort Yuma, and to the base of operations, Ehrenberg.

OCTOBER, 1933 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Colorado Once Thriving River Port Rapidly Yielding to Ravages of Floods and Elements.

Railroads did not come into Arizona until 1877, and the Colorado was the only navigable stream in the territory. Travelers made their own roads.

Meanwhile, the government was sending garrisons to a number of Arizona forts, to protect the settlements against the Indians. Most of these soldiers were detachments from splendid cavalry regiments that had seen service in the Civil War.

These troops, their families, and supplies for the interior posts all were docked at Ehrenberg. For a score of years, Ehrenberg was supply headquarters for army men, and uniforms were a common sight on its two dusty streets.

Prescott was Arizona's territorial capitol. A stage route from Prescott to San Francisco was established in 1873, and the stages crossed the river at Ehrenberg. Untold quantities of bullion went to the San Francisco mint on this stage, and on its return trip, supplies received at Ehrenberg from the steamboat were taken high into the mountains to Prescott and to other mining towns in the Yavapai country.

Cocopah, Mohave and Yuma Indians brought hides, mesquite beans, and placer nuggets to the Ehrenberg stores and saloons, and there they later received their government money from the commissary post. Freighters from California driving mules hitched to wide wheeled wagons headed for the mines with supplies, stopped at Ehrenberg, and drank with the boys. Contrary to popular belief, Ehrenberg was not a boom mining town, as the diggings were six miles and more away, but the place was a "touring" center, and the crossroads of the Southwest.

Living conditions in those days were by no means kind to the tenderfoot. Ice was unheard of, and summer tempera-tures often reached 120 degrees. Wood for building was scarce in the desert, and houses, floors and all, were adobe. Windows were screenless, and the lower Colorado Valley teemed with persistent and predatory insects.

Drinking water was taken from the muddy river, settled in a barrel, and cooled somewhat in earthen ollas.

Dust in the town's two main streets was ankle deep, and there was practically no shade. Those who bathed went to the river early in the morning, but failed to achieve perfect cleanliness in the silt laden waters. Food was hard to keep in hot weather, and diet was limited necessarily to a very few staples.(Continued on Page 21)