Steamboat on the river

A CHAPTER IN OLD ARIZONA teamboat on the river

The first river boat to brave the swift currents of the Colorado was the Uncle Sam-brought in sections to the mouth of the river by Captain Turnbull in the schooner Capacity. It was put together on the flats near the mouth of the Colorado-christened with its patriotic name-loaded with supplies for Fort Yuma-and started up the river about the middle of November, 1852. It reached Fort Yuma on December 3, after a run which occupied the better part of two weeks, being much impeded by an earthquake which changed the channel of the river. It made the return trip down stream in 15 hours and the next trip to Fort Yuma in three days.

The Uncle Sam was 65 feet long, 16 feet wide and 3½ feet deep; was a side-wheeler and propelled by an engine of 20 horsepower; and was capable of carrying 35 tons of freight on only 22 inches of water. It was not a very power-ful boat and had difficulty when loaded to make headway against the swift currents of the Colorado. On its first trip up the river, it failed to make Fort Yuma, and the stores were landed about 50 miles below the army post, whence the government had them hauled by teams to the Fort.

The Uncle Sam continued to supply the military post until June 24, 1853, when, while moored to the river bank up-stream a short distance from Pilot Knob, it sank and all efforts to raise it proved futile. The Uncle Sam was the first boat to run on the river and, with its initial trips, commercial navigation of the Colorado was definitely assured. It was the only steamboat ever lost on the river and was due entirely to carelessness.

The second steamer to navigate the Colorado was the General Jesup, which appeared on the river in the winter of 1853-54, under command of Captain George A. Johnson, who had assumed the task of delivering supplies at Fort Yuma. This boat-named after Thomas S. Jesup, then Quartermaster-General of the United States Army-was 104 feet long and 17 feet wide (27 feet over all), with an engine and boiler that was rated at 70 horsepower. It was a side-wheeler and could carry 60 tons of freight on 24 inches of water. On the first trip it made from the mouth of the river to Fort Yuma-where it arrived on January 18, 1854-it carried 35 tons of freight-a little more than one-half of its capacity.

A few years later-to be more definite in the early part of 1858-the General Jesup gained fame on the river for being the first steamer to navigate the Colorado above Fort Yuma. It reached a point on the river-Eldorado Can-yon-some 32 miles above Hardyville or 497 miles above its mouth. Returning from that historic voyage, the vessel struck a submerged rock near Picacho Landing and sank. Another steamer, the Colorado, also belonging to the Wilcox-Johnson-Hartshore combination-was sent to the scene of the disaster, raised the sunken boat and towed it to Fort Yuma, where it was repaired.

On August 25, 1858, the powerful boiler of the General Jesup exploded while struggling through the river Captain Polbamus was one of early pilots on the river. He came to Yuma in '56, died in Yuma in year 1922.

Rapids near Ogden's Landing, about 25 miles above Colonia Lerdo, killing two men. When the famous steamer was finally condemned as unsafe, its machinery was removed and shipped to San Francisco.

The third steamer on the river was the Colorado which was built in sections in San Francisco and brought to the Colorado and put together at the shipyard at Yuma, which was located at what is now the foot of Main Street. It was ready for service in the autumn of 1855 and was at the time the fastest boat on the river.

The fourth vessel to ply the waters of the Colorado was the Explorer, a small steamer of steel construction, owned by the government and used by Lieutenant Ives in his exploration of the Colorado River. After Lieutenant Ives completed his work on the river, the Explorer was used on the Gila and Colorado, in the vicinity of Fort Yuma. One day, in the year 1864, while coming out of the Gila into the Colorado, the Explorerheavily loaded with wood -become unmanageable and was whirled down the river to Pilot Knob where it was again gotten under control. The men on board hastily made the boat fast to a large cottonwood tree on the river bank. Scarcely had this been done, however, when the bank caved in and the little steamer, dragging the great cottonwood with it, floated on down the river some 8 miles and finally drifted into a large slough.

Sometime later the river in one of its capricious moods changed its channel and left the rusting hulk of the little Explorer lying some 20 miles from the main channel of the Colorado hardly visible in a thick grove of cottonwoods.

The Cocopah was the fifth steamer to enter the river traffic. This boat was built at the company's shipyard near the mouth of the Colorado and, after running a few years, was hauled out at Port Isabel and its hull built up and made into a portion of the company's warehouse. A succession of steamers and barges appeared on the river.

The Southern Pacific reached the right bank of the Colorado, nearly opposite Yuma, in the month of May, 1877, and by September of that same year a substantial wooden bridge (Howe truss design) had been constructed across the river.

The railroad company purchased all the steamers, barges and ferries on the river in order to prevent possible competition. At that time the oldest boats on the river were the Mohave and the Gila, while on the company's payroll were listed over a hundred employees. A few steamers were later built for the purpose of continuing to take care of the little up-river trade that could still be handled by them. By 1884 less than two score men were employed on the river.

Many men who later became prominent in the business and political life of Arizona and other sections of the country commenced their careers as leaders and prominent employees of the Colorado Steam Navigation Company, whose steamers and barges plied up and down the Colorado in Arizona's pioneer days. The men who manned the boats of the transportation concern were generally individuals of worth and dependence, honest and reliable, who had received their early steamboat training on the Hudson, Mississippi and other navigable rivers of the eastern country.