1870 to 1877 was one of great activity. Steam service was extended from Yuma to San Francisco, and sailing vessels disappeared from the ocean route. Mountains of freight, yards and docks humming with activity, and the picturesque river steamers industriously splashing the waters of the Colorado from Port Isabel to El Dorado Canyon, are indicative of the river trade at its best. For three decades the Colorado River was the life line through which the heavy machinery for the mines of Arizona came, and the ore, wool, hides, and pelts were sent to market. With the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Yuma in 1877, river trade abruptly ceased. Today the crumbling ruins of ghost towns and mining camps along the river, like the once prosperous "Arizona Fleet," are but recollections of an age gone by. Its significance, however, cannot be overestimated; indeed, the history of Arizona and the development of the Southwest, in many respects, can be told in terms of the development of steam navigation on the Colorado River.
NOTES
108. Hazel Mills, "The Arizona Fleet," American Neptune, III (1941), 265.
109. Hubert Howe Bancroft, "Scraps; Arizona Miscellany," LXXXII, Pt. 2, 211. no. /Z>/J., p. 483.
111. San Francisco Alta California, March 20, 1867.
112. Prescott Arizona Miner, February 22, 1873.
113. Ibid. Contrary to the account given in the Miner, the customhouse records list both the Gila and Mohave No. 2 as 149 feet long, and the Sentinel, September 28, 1878, states that the Mohave No. 2 was 155 feet in length.
1 14. Frank C. Lockwood, "Steamboat Captain on the Colorado," Desert Magazine, XVI (June 1941), 13. Polhamus' "Grand Excursions" were advertised throughout the Southwest from Yuma to San Francisco.
115. Mills, op. cit., p. 263.
116. Yuma Arizona Sentinel, September 28, 1878.
117. Ihid., October 30, 1876.
118. Ihid., March 18, 1876. The United States Bureau of Navigation lists the dimensions of the Mohave No. 2 as follows: Length of keel, 149.5 feet; breadth, 31.6 feet; depth, 3.1 feet; and tonnage, 188.03 tons. See U. S. Bureau of Navigation, Merchant Vessels of the United States (Washington, D. C, 1892), p. 329.
1 19. Yuma Arizona Sentinel, September 28, 1878. In 1874 the Nina Tilden was discarded, and four years later the Colorado No. 2 ceased operation. She was moored near Fort Yuma but was seldom used.
120. Yuma Arizona Sentinel, July 5, 1873.
121. The Newbern was built at Brooklyn, New York, in 1852. See Appendix "A."
122. Prescott Arizona Miner, August 5, 187 1. The following advertisement was the first to appear in the Miner: "The Colorado Steam Navigation Company's Steamship Neivbern leaves San Francisco for the mouth of the Colorado River on the first of every month, connecting with river boats. Freight landed at Yuma in twelve (12) days from San Francisco."
123. The community of Ehrenberg was named for Herman Ehrenberg, Arizona mineralogist. It was laid out in 1867 and became one of the leading river ports.
124. Prescott Arizona Miner, September 30, 1871, and March 9, 1872.
125. Ibid., November 8, 1873. The Montana was a 1,004-ton, wooden, screw propeller
