El Rio Colorado

Historical Perspective on El Rio Colorado

The Colorado River, which today forms a common boundary between Arizona, California and a bit of Nevada, was first seen by the Spanish 47 years after Columbus dropped anchor off San Salvador, in October, 1492. Fifth longest river in the United States, the Colorado has its origin in many parts of the majestic Continental Divide. It winds for 1,470 miles, through high plateau country, draining runoff from 242,000 square miles of watershed in Wyoming, eastern Utah, northern New Mexico, Nevada, western Colorado, eastern California and the northern part and western slopes of Arizona. Then it descends into the Gulf of Lower California at sea level.

Over the millenia the wild river cut and ground its way through a rising earth crust in southern Utah, the northwest corner of New Mexico, northern Arizona and the tip of Nevada, to form the Grand Canyon. Tons upon tons of topsoil from the high mountains, sand from eroding gravel and rocks which had been rolled and tumbled and scraped along the river bottom, were carried downstream and dropped over millions of acres of land from the Tri-State Area southward. This fertile river sand was scattered back and forth in Mohave Valley, from east of Parker, Arizona, westward to and beyond Blythe, California, to the Salton Sea and east, west and south of Yuma. This land was first seen by white men when Francisco de Illea sailed into the Vermillion Sea (the Gulf of California) in 1539 and found the mouth of the Colorado River, but didn't recognize it for what it was.

One year later, Hernando de Alarcon sailed up the river a short way. And that same year, 1540, a soldier, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, took a splinter group of men from the main party of explorers led by Vasquez de Coronado and reached the Grand Canyon.

Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, an Italian-born German-educated, Jesuit priest, and renowned explorer of the Southwest, crossed the river in 1700 in the vicinity of present-day Yuma.

Still later, in 1744, another Jesuit missionary, Jacob Sedelmayer, who was following the course of the Gila River across Arizona, saw the big river from the confluence.

But the river did not get its name until 1776 when Father Francisco Garces, perhaps the first foreigner to stand on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, looked down into the unbelievably deep gorge and murmured in awe, "El Rio Colorado" the red river.

But the Spaniards were actually Johnny-come-latelies. Indians, known as Opata, Cocopah, Quechan, Yuma, Halchidlema, Mohave, Chemehuevi, YavapaiApache, Hualapai, Supai, Paiute and Ute, had lived long before on the siltformed banks of the great river.

They were agriculturists and hunters raising squash, beans, harvesting the seeds of certain grasses and shrubs, gathering mesquite beans and other natural foods, and hunting rabbits, quail, desert mule deer, rocky mountain mule deer and desert bighorn sheep.

Some tribes fished for the "tenpounder," a member of the tarpon family that came up the river from the ocean, and for the Colorado River Salmon. And they probably fished for some of the other 16 species of native fish that were known to live in the silt-laden river.

And further bounty the lagoons, backwaters and inland lakes adjoining the river attracted hundreds of thousands of different species of migratory waterfowl and native birds.

It was a rich land.

Following the Spaniards came mountain men, beaver trappers, hunters and other adventurers who had fiddle feet and an itching curiosity to "see what was on the other side."

One of the adventurers, James Ohio Pattie, who left us an account of his early travels, followed the Gila River and crossed the Colorado River to go into California in 1813.

In 1849 the discovery of gold in California brought hordes of gold seekers out west, most of whom crossed the Colorado River at Yuma via a ferry that had been pioneered by a Dr. Lincoln. Later a bounty hunter and road agent by the name of John Glanton took it over. But he didn't last long. Yuma Indians who wanted a piece of the action, killed Glan-

ton on April 23, 1850, on the California side of the river.

In those days, news didn't move very fast. Almost a year later, April 7, 1851, the Los Angeles Star carried the news about Glanton to George Alonzo Johnson in San Francisco who read the account and seized the opportunity to reestablish the ferry. With the legal aid of George Hyde, Johnson and Lewis John Frederick Iaeger organized the Johnson Company, later to become the Colorado Navigation Company.

Johnson had a small steamboat, the Uncle Sam, built in San Francisco, which he shipped by schooner around Baja California and up into the Gulf, while he and a group traveled overland. In addition to a host of other obstacles, the small party encountered 200 Yuma Indians on the California side of the river. It came to a show-down. The Indians eventually retreated and Johnson established the ferry.

And then a Major Samuel P. Heintzelman saw a chance for himself and established a military reservation, Camp Independence, which was made large enough to include the site of Johnson's ferry. Later, the major ordered Johnson to sell out to George Hyde, the lawyer who had helped Johnson form his company!

But Johnson, a hard-headed Scandinavian, was not to be deterred. He immediately established a contract to service the military by bringing supplies up the Colorado River from supply ships coming into the head of the Gulf of Lower California. It was a good move, he got the business and gained considerable experience in navigating the big red river.

George Johnson had established a fairly substantial transportation business by the time Lt. Joseph C. Ives showed up at Robinson's landing. Johnson had been seeking funds from the U. S. Congress to finance a trip of exploration up the Colorado River from Yuma. But Ives showed up with orders from the U. S. Army and a sternwheeler, The Explorer, which he had shipped in eight sections to Robinson's landing.

Lt. Ives had married the daughter of the Secretary of War who pulled political strings to get Ives financed and credited for exploring the Colorado River northward from Yuma by boat.

Hard-headed Johnson was the first one up the river, however, with the "General Jessup," a sidewheeler, 105 feet long, a 30-foot beam, drawing 23 inches of water with 27 tons of freight on board.

The Jessup left Fort Yuma on December 20, 1857. Johnson pushed and pulled the boat to the mouth of El Dorado Canyon, from which point some of his company explored upstream a few miles, as far as Roaring Rapids. (El Dorado Canyon was later to become a famous mining area, rich in gold and silver, hence the name the golden canyon. It is east of Searchlight, Nevada, and the historical town of Nelson is at the head of the canyon.) On the way back Johnson's luck ran out. Thirty miles above Yuma, The Jessup ran aground, tore open her hull and sank. Johnson and his men later got back to Yuma on foot.

Meanwhile, Lt. Ives, on The Explorer, a stern-wheeler, 54 feet long, had started up the river on January 11, 1858, with Captain Robinson, on loan from Johnson, as river pilot.

Ives pushed The Explorer beyond El Dorado Canyon, up over Roaring Rapids, through the Crane's Nest, just above present day Willow Beach Resort, the Ring Bolts and through Black Canyon and into Boulder Canyon.

Ives came back to write the report: "Colorado River of the West," published by the Government Printing office in 1861.

Ives returned Johnson's generosity in lending him Robinson, the river pilot, by never even mentioning Johnson in his official report.

Next to link his fate with the big river was John Wesley Powell, geologist and explorer. For his first expedition on the Colorado, Powell, then 35, put together a party of nine men in Wyoming. One was lost early on the voyage. Three had had enough of the Colorado River, the rapids and the canyon and separated from the party at Separation Rapids. They were later reportedly killed by Paiute Indians. Five, including Powell, finally took out of the river near where Arizona, Califor-nia and Nevada have a common boundary.

Powell wasn't satisfied with his first adventure, though. He put together another party, hustled up the financing and made a second trip, the first successful boat trip down the Colorado for nearly 900 miles! The culmination of his expeditions was his report "Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries."

The Colorado, you might say, was explored by this time; but tamed, no! In 1902 farmers in southern Californiania's fertile lands had built a diversion dam of brush and debris below Yuma, diverting water out of the Colorado River into a canal that ran parallel to the west bank of the river for a few miles and then turned northwest and back to the rich land around the Salton Sink.

In 1903 the Colorado River flooded and dammed the intake with a load of silt.

The farmers went below the natural dam and made a cut through the bank to the canal.

Then the Colorado got mad at this tinkering with its flow and flooded again, throwing up its own diversion dike and emptying itself into the Alamo Canal, which was quickly renamed "New River."

The flood cut through Mexicali, Mexico, by-passed Calexico, California, and started to refill the Salton Sink.

At that time, the Salton Sink, 300 feet below sea level, was the site of a salt mine. A railroad train of cars was on a siding waiting to be loaded. The loading station, the train, everything, was covered up by the flooding, angry Colorado River. It was a disaster in the making!

The California Land Development Company, which had been formed in 1900, had renamed the Salton Sink "The Imperial Valley."

The company had soon sold 50,000 acres of land to farmers. Ten thousand people had created the towns of Imperial, Calexico, Brawley and El Centro. And now the project was threatened.

For 18 months, 360,000 cubic feet of water a day poured into the Salton Sink.

Trust breaker President Theodore Roosevelt threatened Edward H. Harriman, President of the Southern Pacific, with a suit. Harriman put all the resources of the railroad and $3 million of his own into damming the flood, building track and loading gondolas with rock and fill from as far away as Oklahoma to dump into the void, railroad cars and all.

On February 10, 1907, Big Red was finally returned to its old channel, leaving in its wake the Salton Sea, now on the map as the only inland saltwater sea on the North American Continent.

That was the river's last taste of running wild.

In 1938 two dams were being built. Hoover Dam was placed in Black Canyon to control the flow and generate electricity. Parker Dam below the confluence of Bill Williams River was to store water for domestic use and generate electrical power for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District.