Steamboats of the Colorado River

Steamboats on the Colorado River operated from the river mouth at the Colorado River Delta on the Gulf of California in Mexico, up to the Virgin River on the Lower Colorado River Valley in the Southwestern United States from 1852 until 1909, when the construction of the Laguna Dam was completed. The shallow draft paddle steamers were found to be the most economical way to ship goods between the Pacific Ocean ports and settlements and mines along the lower river, putting in at landings in Sonora state, Baja California Territory, California state, Arizona Territory, New Mexico Territory, and Nevada state.^{[3]: 1–104, 135–160} They remained the primary means of transportation of freight until the advent of the more economical railroads began cutting away at their business from 1878 when the first line entered Arizona Territory.

Steamboats were tried on the upper Colorado River: in Glen Canyon; on the Green River in Utah and Wyoming; and on the Grand River, (renamed as the upper part of the Colorado River after 1921), above its confluence with the Green River in Utah and in Colorado. These attempts in the late 19th century and early 20th century met with little success.^{[3]: 105–134}

The beginnings of the use of steamboats on the Colorado River came as the result of the founding of Fort Yuma during the Yuma War. Supplies had to be shipped over long distance from San Francisco to San Diego then overland through the Peninsular Ranges via Warner Pass to Depot Vallecito then 113 miles (182 km) across the arid Colorado Desert to the fort. Costs of such transport was minimally $500 per ton. Supplying the fort became so difficult, that for a time it had to be abandoned.

Attempts had been made by the Army to bring supplies the 150 miles (240 km) up from the Gulf of California. First in November 1850 to January 1851, by its transport schooner, Invincible under Captain Alfred H. Wilcox and then by its longboat commanded by Lieutenant George Derby. Later Lieutenant Derby, in his expedition report, recommended that a shallow draft sternwheel steamboat would be the way to send supplies up river to the fort.^[4]

The next attempt was made by the contractors George Alonzo Johnson with his partner Benjamin M. Hartshorne who arrived at the river's mouth in February 1852, on the United States transport schooner Sierra Nevada under Captain Wilcox.^[5]: 23 On board were 250 tons of supplies for the newly reoccupied fort and a pair of knocked down flatboats, built by Domingo Marcucci in San Francisco.^{[6]: 14–15} These they assembled to be poled up the Colorado. However the first barge sank with its cargo a total loss. The second was finally, after a long struggle poled up to Fort Yuma, but what little it carried was soon consumed by the garrison. Subsequently wagons again were sent from the fort to haul the balance of the supplies overland from the estuary through the marshes and woodlands of the Delta.^[3]: 5–9

Both of these attempts on the river failed in the face of extreme tides in the estuary or strong currents, shifting sand bars or low water in the river. Hauling supplies from the estuary worked but was less satisfactory than the 185 mile San Diego route over land. Firstly it was a violation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo for American troops to intrude into Mexican territory. Secondly, on top of already costly land shipping was the prospect of the additional expense of Mexican custom duties that would be levied on anything landed on Mexican territory.^[3]: 9

In November 1852, the Uncle Sam, a 65-foot long side-wheel paddle steamer, also built by Domingo Marcucci, became the first steamboat on the Colorado River.^[6]: 15 It was brought by the schooner Capacity from San Francisco to the delta by the next contractor to supply the fort, Captain James Turnbull. It was assembled and launched in the estuary, 30 miles (48 km) above the mouth of the Colorado River. Equipped with only a 20 horsepower engine, the Uncle Sam could only carry 35 tons of supplies, taking 15 days to make the first 120 mile trip. It made many trips up and down the river, taking four months to finish carrying the supplies for the fort, improving its time up river to 12 days. Negligence caused it to sink at its dock below Fort Yuma, and was then washed away before it could be raised, in the spring flood of 1853. Turnbull who meanwhile had returned to the Delta from San Francisco with another cargo and a more powerful engine for the Uncle Sam. He returned for a new hull, while the army sent wagons to recover the cargo from the delta again. However, Turnbull in financial difficulty, disappeared from the city leaving creditors unpaid. Nevertheless, Turnbull had shown the worth of steamboats to solve Fort Yuma's supply problem.^{[3] : 10–11}

In late 1852, George Alonzo Johnson with his partner Hartshorne and a new partner Captain Alfred H. Wilcox (formerly of the Invincible and Sierra Nevada), formed George A. Johnson & Company and obtained the next contract to supply the fort. Johnson and his partners, all having learned a lesson from their failed attempts ascending the Colorado and with the example of the Uncle Sam, brought the parts of a more powerful side-wheel steamboat, the General Jesup, with them to the mouth of the Colorado from San Francisco. There it was reassembled at a landing in the upper tidewater of the river and reached Fort Yuma, January 18, 1854. This new boat, capable of carrying 50 tons of cargo, was very successful making round trips from the estuary to the fort in only four or five days. Costs were cut to $75 per ton.^{[3]: 11–12 [5]: 34}

A second reason for the speed of the new steamboat beside its powerful engine was the establishment of the wood-yards along the river between the delta and Fort Yuma. The landings sprang up to supply wood for the steamboats, so the crew would not need to gather wood as they proceeded up river, as the crew of the Uncle Sam had been obliged to do. These landings were each located at about the distance a steamboat could travel up and down river each day on that section of river. Steamboats did not travel at night, due to the danger of running onto sandbars or into snags on the ever changing river. The boats would be refueled at the landings while tied up overnight. The wood-yards were owned by Yankees, who hired the Cocopah from local rancherias, to cut the wood (usually cottonwood or mesquite), transport it to the wood-yards and load it onto the boats. Cocopah men often also served as deck hands on the boats.^{[3]: 12 [7]}

The route of the steamboats began in the Colorado River Delta, where there was at first just an anchorage near Robinson's Landing in Baja California, 10 miles (16 km) above the river mouth and 40 miles (64 km) below Fort Yuma. Here they picked up their cargoes from ships in the river, to avoid paying Mexican customs duties for landing their cargo. The extreme tides and its tidal bore in the estuary above the river mouth made this loading operation difficult and sometimes dangerous for the vessels engaging in it. Some 20 miles (32 km) above that anchorage the first steamboats were assembled until the later 1860s. There, the tidal conditions were not so violent but the tide could aid in launching the craft.

From 1854, between the delta anchorage and Fort Yuma were the wood-yard steamboat landings of Port Famine 40 miles (64 km) above Robinson's Landing, Gridiron, 17 miles (27 km) above Port Famine, Ogden's Landing 28 miles (45 km) above Gridiron, Pedrick's 24 miles (39 km) above Ogden's Landing, and Fort Yuma 31 miles (50 km) above Pedrick's. With reliable transportation to the fort, new settlements developed in the vicinity of the fort. Colorado City and Jaeger City a mile below Fort Yuma at Jaeger's Ferry. In 1858, 1 mile (1.6 km) above Colorado City, across the river from Fort Yuma, Arizona City was founded, (renamed Yuma in 1873).^{[3]: 167–169}

In 1865, a better location for an anchorage, and a port and shipyard was established at Port Isabel, Sonora, 157 miles (253 km) below Fort Yuma and 7 miles (11 km) east of the river mouth on the eastern outlet of the river. In 1873, Lerdo Landing appeared on the river, 3 miles (4.8 km) above Port Famine, to connect the pioneering agricultural settlement of Colonia Lerdo to the steamboat traffic on the river. Port Isabel remained in use until 1879, when the railroad came to Yuma, Arizona making it the head of navigation and made Port Isabel and the woodlot landings below Yuma obsolete.^{[3] : 12}

From 1853, ranches were developed nearby up river to supply the fort with beef and barley. That same year gold was found up river. By 1854, copper mines were developed along the river 40 miles (64 km) above Fort Yuma. The ore provided George A. Johnson & Co. with their first commercial cargo to take to the estuary anchorage. Old Mexican mines where reopened in the interior of the Gadsden Purchase that increased the traffic bringing in machinery and shipping out ore. By 1855, the volume of cargo necessitated putting another boat on the river. By December 1855, Johnson had John G. North build and bring in sections a new steamboat from San Francisco to the Delta estuary. There North assembled and launched the 120 foot (37 m) long, 80 hp, wood hulled Colorado.^[10] It was capable of carrying 70 tons of cargo while drawing only 2 feet of water and was the first stern-wheeler on the river.^{[3]: 15–16}

Once the backlog of cargo was relieved by the Colorado, Johnson looked for ways to keep his boats from being idle. He knew that Brigham Young wanted to establish a route to the Mormon settlements in Utah from the sea up the Colorado River and that merchant interests had been interested in establishing trade with the Mormons by the river route since 1852 when the Uncle Sam came to the river. Additionally there was the claim that the river was navigable by steamboat as far as the Virgin River by the fur trapper Antoine Leroux who had successfully rafted down the Colorado from the Virgin River in 1837. In 1856, George A. Johnson was instrumental in getting the support for Congressional funding a military expedition up the river. With those funds Johnson expected to provide the transportation for the expedition but was angry and disappointed when the commander of the expedition Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives rejected his offer of one of his steamboats claiming its cost was too high. Ives, a topographic engineer, used the money to build his own steamboat, the small, iron hulled, sternwheeler Explorer in Philadelphia, test it, disassemble and ship it to the Colorado estuary. There at Robinson's Landing, Ives spent a month assembling his steamboat, launching it on December 30, 1857. Johnson had lent Ives one of his men David C. Robinson as a pilot for the expedition, which set off for Fort Yuma the next day.

Meanwhile, Johnson had decided to conduct his own expedition up river at his own expense with the General Jesup. The War Department concerned about deteriorating relations with the Mormons in Utah wanted to investigate the possibility of bringing troops into Utah by steamboat up the Colorado River. Fort Yuma's commander provided rations, a mountain howitzer and a detachment of 15 soldiers. With the soldiers and 15 armed civilians Johnson had also set off from the fort on December 31. The large crew aided in gathering wood for fuel along the way, and twenty one days later, Johnson's party had reached the first rapids in Pyramid Canyon, over 300 miles (480 km) above Fort Yuma and 8 miles (13 km) above the modern site of Davis Dam. Running low on food he turned back after viewing the river ahead continuing another 40 miles (64 km) and believed he had proved the river could be navigated as far as the Virgin River which he believed to be only 75 miles (121 km) away.^{[3] : 16–17, 19 [11]}

Ives was disappointed to find Johnson had gone ahead of him when his boat reached Fort Yuma and he followed after him. However the unusually designed Explorer was not suited to navigating the sandbar filled Colorado in its low water phase and was continually running aground, much to the delight of the Yuma who came down to the river to watch them run aground on the next sandbar and mock the crew and their boat. Robinson eventually came to use their appearance as a warning of shoals ahead and made better progress, but they made slow progress ascending the river gathering wood along the way. On January 30, Ives and Robinson met Johnson returning and he shared information about the conditions on the river above them. Robinson piloted the Explorer above the point reached by Johnson into the Black Canyon of the Colorado, where they struck a rock that damaged the boat, 40 miles (64 km) above where Johnson reached. Ives named that rock Explorer's Rock.^{[3] : 16–21 [12]: Part 1, 81–82}

While the Explorer was being repaired by his engineer, Ives, Robinson and the boat's mate, took their skiff over the next two days farther up the river exploring up through the Black Canyon and beyond to the vicinity of Fortification Rock. Next day, they went 1 mile (1.6 km) farther to Las Vegas Wash, which Ives thought might be the Virgin River, but had doubts because it seemed too small.^{[12]: Part 1, 85–87} The difficulties of the rapids above Fortification Rock convinced Ives that the river at Fortification Rock was the practical head of navigation 550 miles (890 km) above the mouth of the river:

"I now determined not to try to ascend the Colorado any further. The water above the Black canon had been shoal, and the current swift. Rapids had occurred in such quick succession as to make navigation almost impossible, and there would be no object in proceeding beyond the Great Bend. The difficulties encountered in the canon were of a character to prevent a steamboat from attempting to traverse it at low water, and we had seen drift-wood lodged in clefts fifty feet above the river, betokening a condition of things during the summer freshet that would render navigation more hazardous at that season than now. It appeared, therefore, that the foot of the Black canon should be considered the practical head of navigation, and I concluded to have a reconnaissance made to connect that point with the Mormon road, and to let this finish the exploration of the navigable portion of the Colorado."^[12]: 87

Ives' party returned easily in 6–7 hours, believing that a steamboat of shallower draft than Explorer, in higher water, could reach the area of Fortification Rock.^{[3] : 16–21 [12]: 87} Following its return to Fort Yuma, Johnson bought the Explorer, took out its engine and used it as a barge to carry wood between the wood-yards on the Colorado River below Fort Yuma until it was swept away down river and lost in the Delta in 1864.

Despite the successful exploration up the river, the lands along the upper river did not begin to be settled until after the 1858–1859 Mohave War and the establishment of Fort Mohave. The General Jesup and the newer stern-wheeler Colorado where engaged to carry troops and supplies up river for the Mohave Expeditions at $500 per day, and thereafter contracted to support the army posts of Camp Gaston and Camp Mohave, later Fort Mohave. Support of Fort Mohave became the first economic incentive for the steamboats up river. This was soon followed by the support of settlements created by the rush to various gold and silver mining locations near the river in the next decades.^{[3]: 23–24}

With the discovery of the Gila Placers by Jacob Snively came the first Arizona gold rush in 1858–1859, which created the ephemeral Gila City just east of Fort Yuma on the Gila River. It also inspired the creation of the first opposition steamboat company to Johnson's company, the Gila Mining and Transportation Company. In March 1859, it sent a disassembled 125-foot-long by 25-foot beam stern-wheel steamboat, and a cargo including a steam engine, to supply the Gila mine with water to Robinson's Landing, in the schooner Arno. However the whole cargo and the rival boat was lost there before it was ever unloaded. The tidal bore tore loose Arno's anchors, driving the ship on a sandbar holing it, sinking it in a half hour with the ship and cargo a total loss. Without the steam engine providing water for washing out the gold at the mine, a mile from the Gila River, American miners could not work it profitably and the town soon was mostly abandoned. Only Sonora miners familiar with dry wash techniques stayed and made it pay.^{[3]: 31, 33 [13][14][15]}

Also early in 1859, placer gold was found 18 miles (29 km) above Fort Yuma at the Pot Holes on the west bank of the Colorado River in California. These diggings had been previously worked by Spanish miners from Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer in 1781. In August 1859 Johnson retired the General Jesup and replaced it with the 140-foot Cocopah, assembled and launched at Gridiron, in Sonora and captained by David C. Robinson. Its shallow 19-inch draft and stern-wheel was better suited to transit the upper Colorado route, and was the model for all the steamboats on the river thereafter.

From 1859, prospectors dispersed up the Colorado River valley in the next few years, finding gold deposits along the river as far as the Black Canyon. In 1860, gold was found across the Colorado River from Potholes in Arizona, in placers at La Laguna. The strikes that followed in the next four years would make George A. Johnson and his two partners wealthy.^{[3] : 23–33}

By March 1861, the secession crisis had led to the closing of the Butterfield Overland Mail. February 19, 1861, the Bascom Affair led to the first of the wars with the Apache, cutting Arizona off from the rest of New Mexico Territory to the east and reduced mining activity in southern Arizona to next to nothing. Federal troops were withdrawn from Fort Mohave, to secure Southern California for the Union. Others at Fort Buchanan were withdrawn to the Rio Grande to confront the Confederate advance toward Santa Fe. What little commerce came into Arizona came from Sonora or from the river port at Arizona City. When Federal troops were withdrawn and desperate for protection from the Apache, the southern half of New Mexico Territory declared for the Confederacy late in 1861.

In response to the establishment of Confederate Arizona, California Volunteers of the Union Army took control of the Yuma ferries, built up the garrison and provisions at Fort Yuma and strengthened its fortifications, all with supplies brought from San Francisco with the aid of Johnson's steamboats. The California Column launched its campaign to cut off the Confederate Army of the New Mexico Campaign and retake Confederate Arizona in 1862, and based its subsequent occupation of New Mexico Territory on its depot in Arizona City, again provisioned by Johnson's steamboats. When Fort Mohave was reoccupied by California Volunteers in 1864 it was supplied as before by Johnson's steamboats. These Federal contracts were the base of Johnson's revenue but it was soon greatly supplemented by a mining boom.