Paddlers on the Colorado

[KC6OLD]

A friend mentioned paddleboats on the Colorado River, Built in Needles.
I've never heard of such a thing. Does anyone know of a source?
Dave, In the climatic wonderland.

[Alistair Deayton]

Present or old?
I was on a dummy Mississippi-type sternwheeler in Laughlin a few years ago.
There were some in older days. Paddle Wheel Days in California by Jerry
MacMullen. Stanford University Press 1944 has a chapter on them and some
photos. Try a second-hand book search facility for a copy.

Alistair Deayton

[KC6OLD]

The Dummy paddler is still there!
I meant old Paddlers and SOUTH of the canyon (it seems to me there were a
couple of boats built in Needles CA. and they served from the canyon to the
Sea Of Cortez).
VERY isolated!
Dave, in the climatic wonderland. ( Wondering WHAT it's gonna do!)

[woodburner]

Notable Colorado River steamers include the Uncle Sam (1852, side wheel) and the Mohave II (stern wheel, 188 tons). I beleive at least one was built of prefabricated iron and assembled in the Gulf of California by the US Military for exploration. According to Still, Watts and Rogers, the majority were under 100 tons, with a shallow draft of 1 foot, primarily stren wheelers and built either in San Francisco (an important center of steamboat building) or along the river. I would add that a significant builder of marine engines was the Union Iron Works of SF, which also built side lever and compound engines for ocean traffic. A side business was building locomotives, but this was never large.

Some 600 miles of the Colorado are navigable, and steamers made sense traveling through largely unpopulated territory in the mid 19th century. Several were regularly engaged to supply military forts engaged in warfare against Apache and other nations understandably reluctant to cede territory. Given that railroads did not enter Arizona until 1878, and that rail lines of any consequence did not appear until the mid 1880s, the river steamers were a singular link.

There is a wonderful 1870s account by Martha Summer Hayes, wife of an army officer, describing an unintended consequence of outpost duty - while steaming to the fort where her husband would be posted for the next few years, her boat passed another steamer carrying the officers, wives and soldiers they were replacing. She noted with trepidation the out of date dresses of the other steamer's wives, and realized for the first time how far from the civilized world they were. And all because of last year's bustle.

Jim (ye olde woodburner)

[Alistair Deayton]

The book refers to a service from Port Isabel, where goods were transferred
from schooners, upstream to Yuma. There was a dry-dock at Port Isabel, and
some of the steamers were built there. Is that the same place as Needles?
Steamers built there were COLORADO (1855), GENERAL JESSUP (1854), COCOPAH
(I), COCOPAH (II), MOHAVE (I), MOHAVE (II), GILA and a number of barges. The
steamers had ceased running on the river by 1900

Alistair

[freedem]

Port isabel was/is in the colorado delta on the western side of
the estuary. In Mesico about 110 miles below Yuma I think I
should have gne to map quest to search nor Needles arizona
before posting this sorry
jeffery

[freedem]

The University of Utah Press published a book that details the
entire history of "steamboats on the colorado river. it is a sparce
subject but there were steamers and gas powered craft built in
several places and it was documented and settled in a 1922
court case because if the waters of a river are navagatable then
the bed of the river is owned by the state but if the river is
nonnavagatable before statehood then if the land around the
river is federal then the river bed and its minerals are also
federal property.
jeffery

[Paulrjordan]

Hi Jeffery:

Great inforamtion about a fascinating bit of history I had no idea
about! Now I think the book you may be refering too is Lingenfelter's
"Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916" Published by the
University of Arizona Press in 1978. By the way there is ONE fair
library copy currently available at US $50.00 if anyone is interested.

I must say, I'd like to see some pictures of the Colorado river
paddlers and particularly some of the US Army Corps sternwheelers that
may pioneered up the river.

PJ

[Paulrjordan]

--- In Paddleducks@y..., KC6OLD@a... wrote:
> Again. I opened my mouth before thinking, I found good stuff a the
> university
> of Utah
> Dave

SHARE it with us, Dave..specially research stuff you dig up that's out
of the ordinary, the UGLY, the bootiful, the infamous..ANYTHING!

Now talking of out of the ordinary. What about those mobile
mills?...yup, sirree, folks! ..sternwheelers with on board mills to
travel up and down the river milling crops for farmers. Now I wonder
if there were ever floating schoolrooms ? ..or churches? Anybody
care to throw more light on such mobile "service" paddlers?

PJ