Puerto Ysabel, Ghost Port of the Gulf

Puerto Ysabel, Ghost Port

HOW many present-day Arizonans ever heard of Puerto Ysabel? Where was it? What was the reason for its existence?

I will try to recall among other things, my impressions of the place, which William Hutt and I visited considerably more than forty years ago.

Puerto Ysabel was not in Arizona, not even in the United States, but for all that it was intimately connected with the early years of the Arizona Territory.

It was situated in the Mexican state of Sonora, just below where the Colorado River merges into the Gulf of California. It came into being as a matter of necessity. In those early territorial and army days western Arizona's contact with the outside world was largely by way of the Colorado River and the Pacific Ocean. Sea-going vessels would ascend to the head of the Gulf in order to discharge their cargoes onto the river steamboats and the barges which they towed, receiving in turn such freight, mostly ores for Swansea, Wales, as the steamboats By CHARLES BATTYE Illustrated by Barney Appleby.

brought down the river.

There was quite a number of river boats operating then, and for repair headquarters, as well as for a safe harbor while awaiting the arrival of some ocean vessel, Puerto Ysabel was founded. These activities came to an abrupt end when the Southern Pacific Railroad was completed from California to El Paso, in the middle '70's, so at the time of our visit Puerto Ysabel had been abandoned almost twenty years. This information we gleaned from Captain Polhamus and Mellen, the only two river captains left in our time, and from old Alex Berry, who then served as engineer on the steamer "Mojave".

This port was not on the river; neither was it on the shore of the Gulf, but some three miles up a tidal inlet, completely out of sight, and we had some difficulty in finding it.

The tales of the Gulf to which we had listened with absorbing interest fired our youthful enthusiasm, so when we had exhausted the possibilities for adventure on the river as far as Yuma, our then "farthest south", what more natural than a trip to the Gulf. There was nothing small about our ideas. Our contemplated voyage took in everything clear down to Cape San Lucas, including, of course, a visit to Tiburon Island and the reputedly cannibalistic Seri Indians; however, we never reached San Lucas nor Tiburon Island either.

When we arrived in Yuma from up the river we found Alex Berry acting temporarily as watchman of steamboat property during a lull in river business. He invited us to camp with him during our stay, an offer we gladly accepted, for we were keen for all available information.

There were no border formalities to comply with; we passed out of the United States and into Mexico without knowing just when we did so.

The reader will, of course, understand that the Colorado River then flowed uninterruptedly down its regular channel all the way to its mouth. Imperial Valley, as such, was not yet in existence, nor yet Imperial county. There were no canals, no New River, Salton Sea and no settlers.

To our mutual surprise Hutt killed a buck deer on the Hardy. We didn't