Steam Navigation on the Colorado River

Steam Navigation on the

IN THE great stretch of territory taken by right of conquest by the United States from Mexico in the war with that country during the years from 1846 to 1848 together with the additional strip known as the Gadsden Purchase bought outright soon afterwards for the sum of ten million dollars, the American government acquired title to one of the richest mineralized sections of the continent. At that time, however, much of the area was thought to be worthless. But as the years passed and the tide of empire turned toward the Southwest, the states of California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, either wholly or in part, were carved out of the vast domain, states whose combined natural resources rated in dollars and cents are virtually incalculable.

The stars and stripes, however, had not long waved over the new possessions when trouble started. Sensing danger to their ancestral hunting grounds in these new conquerors of the Southwest, the various Indian tribes living in the country started a war of extermination against the incoming settlers. Practically all tribes, with possibly one exception, that of the Pimas, resented and resisted the occupation of the country by the whites. Treaties made with the hostile factions were soon broken, being, it would seem, more honored in the breach than in the observance by both parties. The hardest of the lot to subdue were the Apaches, who were not entirely suppressed until in the 80s.

In order to maintain sovereignty over the region and to protect the lives and property of the settlers and the emigrant trains en route to the gold fields of California, it became necessary for the federal government to garrison certain stragetic points in the areas most subject to Indian attacks.

Beginning thus in 1849, and continuing for upwards of two score years, troops were maintained at various points throughout the region. One of the earlier posts established was Fort Yuma, 1852, on the California side of the Colorado river, just below the mouth of the Gila. Across on the opposite side there appears to have been a small settlement called at first Colorado City, then Arizona City and finally Yuma, the name it now bears. It was not much of a town in those days, "consisting," as one writer says, "of one shack and another to be built". Provisioning the troops in those remote outposts, many of which were situated at points that later came within the limits of the Territory of Arizona, established in 1863, due to the lack of adequate transportation facilities, was a most difficult matter. Even from San Francisco, the main base of supplies, it was a far cry over extensive and inhospitable deserts teeming with savage Indian tribes to Fort Yuma, the nearest of the group. To meet the situation an all water route via the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of California and the Colorado River was determined upon as being the most feasible. The task of making a survey of this route, especially the river which was the part of it most in doubt, was assigned to Lieut. George H. Derby, topographical engineers, who endeavored in January, 1851, to ascend it from its mouth at the head of the Gulf of California in the schooner Invincible, but succeeded in getting only about twenty-five miles up stream. Taking a small boat he pushed on sixty miles farther, meeting Major Heintzelan with a party from Fort Yuma. As a result of his reconnaissance, Derby reported the river navigable for vessels of light draught, and it was thus used accordingly for a period of thirty years afterwards as the principal means of transporting passengers and freight to and from points adjacent to its course and the Pacific Coast.

One of the world's great rivers, the fifth largest in the United States, the Colorado in its descent from its source in the mountains to its mouth at tidewater, a distance of 1700 miles, falls 14,000 feet. Together with its tributaries it drains 244,000 square miles of territory, an area larger than all the New England and Middle Atlantic states with Ohio and Indiana thrown in for good measure. Excepting certain irrigable tracts along its border, mere specks in the vast drainage basin, no rich productive valley such as characterize most of the world's great rivers, marks its course. For hundreds of miles it cuts its way through inaccessible canyons canyons that have been seen in its entirety by less than two score men now living. Of the exploring parties that have essayed to navigate its more dangerous parts, but few have escaped disaster. It is in many respects unique, a thing apart, the anomaly as it were of the rivers of the earth. Known to Europeans in 1540, before the Mississippi, and crossed at various places along its course thereafter by the early missionaries, it has a most interesting history. Efforts to explore it from above and from its mouth are among the most heroic achievements of men. Truthfully perhaps, it has been called the world's most dangerous river. On account of the tidal bore the navigation of the Colorado at its mouth has always been extremely dangerous at certain seasons. As the tide rises a great wave several feet high reaching from bank to bank advances up stream. The swift current suddenly meeting the flood moving up the narrowing channel is forced back in a great swell for many miles. Vessels exposed to its full strength incur great danger of being driven aground. And then as the ebb sets in there is a great rush of water down stream that is impossible to breast. At such times boats can only pass up or down with the tide. This rather peculiar phenomenon called the "bore" by those who go down to the sea in ships, is met with in but few places the world over. Usually vessels of light draught in the hands of skilled seamen can ascend the river to the limit of tide water, 37 miles above its mouth.

MARCH, 1935 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Colorado River Chug-Chug of Primitive Steamboat Once Echoed Through the Deep Canyons of Mad River

In his thrilling book, Wild Life in the Far West, published in 1875, Capt. James Hobbs gives an interesting account of conditions at Fort Yuma at the time he passed through there in 1851. As reported by him, the first steamer on the Colorado was the Yuma in 1851, used in carrying supplies from the mouth of the river to the place where the fort was being constructed and where a ferry was then being operated. As she made her way up stream on her maiden voyage churning the water into foam with her stern wheel, discharging fire, smoke and steam from her boilers and piercing the air with her shrill whistle, she is said to have frightened the Indians half out of their wits. Thinking the whiteman's devil had come, many of them fled to the hills where they remained for several days. The Yuma, however, passes out of the picture at this point, no further mention being found concerning her. Later in the same year, 1851, George A. Johnson arrived at the mouth of the river on the schooner Sierra Nevada with more supplies for the post and with lumber for building flat boats for use in transporting freight to the new fort. Steam navigation, however, does not seem to have been inaugurated until a year later when the steamer Uncle Sam in the command of Capt. Turnbull was brought out on a schooner from San Francisco and put together at the mouth of the river. But she was not long in service, as she rather mysteriously sank while tied to her moorings at Pilot Knob, ten miles below Fort Yuma, a few months after her arrival on the river. Efforts to raise her failed.

To meet the need for adequate transportation facilities for both the citizens and the military between Pacific Coast and Colorado River points, Captains George A. Johnson, B. M. Hartshorne and A. H. Wilcox organized a company in 1852 under the firm name of George A. Johnson & Co., for the purpose of providing ship service between these places. Later on this organization was incorporated under the laws of California as the Colorado Steam Navigation Company. Sail vessels were at first used between San Francisco and the head of the Gulf of California, a distance of approximately two thousand miles. In the early 70s these were replaced with steamers. At the mouth of the Colorado, Port Isabel as it is called, where the company had its warehouses, passengers and freight were transhipped to barges which were propelled up the river by ropes and poles at the hands of Indian and Mexican helpers. Two years later the barges were replaced with steamers. The first of these vessels to be put in operation by this firm was the General Jesup, a side wheeler, 104 feet long, seventeen feet wide and drawing two feet and six inches of water, commanded by Capt. George A. Johnson. Her arrival at Fort Yuma is given as January 12, 1854.

As the passenger and freight business grew in volume other vessels were put in service from time to time. These were the Colorado No. 1, Colorado No. 2, Cocopah No. 1, Cocopah No. 2, the Gila, the Mohave, the Cocan, the Nina Tilden and the Esmeralda, the last two being taken over from a rival firm that appeared on the scene in the 70s.

A general agent for the company was maintained at San Francisco. It also had agents at Matzatlan and Guaymas, Mexico, and at Fort Yuma, La Paz, Ehernberg and at other points along the Colorado in United States territory.

Steamers plying between the fort and the mouth of the river, a distance of 150 miles, took usually from three days to a week to make the trip owing to the interference of shoals and sand-bars. Usually during periods of high water the channel changed frequently, often over night. Experienced river-men, however, could pick out the main current with tolerable ease. As the channel could not be made out readily in the dark, the boats were nosed into (Continued on Page 17)