Not blowing smoke: Steamboats plied Colorado River

Clay is off today. Here’s a favorite column from June 2, 2008: oday’s question:

TI have been told there used to be steamboats on the Colorado River. I don’t see how that could be possible. Is it true or is someone pulling a newcomer’s leg? You have to remember that in the 19th century, the Colorado River wasn’t all dammed up and diverted before emptying into the Gulf of California. Paddle-wheelers came to the Colorado as a result of the founding in 1849 of Fort Yuma, which was first built on the California side of the river across from the mouth of the Gila River. In 1852, the Army gave a contract to supply Fort Yuma to James Turnbull. He bought a small steam tug, broke it down and had it sent by ship to the mouth of the Colorado. It took him two months to reassemble his side-wheeler, the Uncle Sam, and he made his first run to Fort Yuma with 32 tons of supplies in November 1852. It took him 15 days to reach the fort.

Turnbull’s tug sank in 1853, and the Army went back to wagons and mules until the next year, when George Johnson’s General Jesup took over the trade. It was bigger and more powerful than the Uncle Sam and could make the round trip from the river’s mouth to Fort Yuma in four or five days.

Eventually, steamboats plied the Colorado for several hundred miles above Yuma, supplying Mormon communities in Utah and miners that swarmed in after gold was discovered.

The trade stopped when a dam was built 14 miles above Yuma.