The Colorado River drains nearly all the lands of present Mormon
settlement, mainly lying betwixt the Rockies and the Sierras. The
Colorado, within the United States is reckoned as only inferior to the
Mississippi-Missouri and Columbia, with an annual flow sufficient to
supply for irrigation needs about 20,000,000 acre feet of water. It has a
drainage area of 244,000 square miles and a length of 1700 miles. It is
of torrential character, very big indeed in the late spring and early
summer and very low most of the remainder of the year. In years, not far
distant, there will be storage dams at many points, to hold back the
springtime floods from the melting of the snows of the Rockies, and from
the river's flow will be generated electric power for the turning of the
wheels of the Southwest. All this is in plans made by the League of the
Southwest, a body now headed by Governor Campbell of Arizona. But these
things are of the future, and it is the past we especially are
considering.
Several attempts were made during and prior to the Civil War to make of
the Colorado a highway through which Utah, southern Nevada and northern
Arizona might have better transportation. The scheme was not a wild one
by any means, though handicapped by the difficulties of both the maximum
and minimum flows.
Inspector General J.F. Rusling had recommended that military supplies for
the forces in Utah be brought in by way of the Colorado River.
Fort Yuma was visited late in 1854 by Lieut. N. Michler, of the
Topographical Engineers, who wrote:
"The belief is entertained and strongly advocated that the Colorado will
be the means of supplying the Mormon territory, instead of the great
extent of land transportation now used for that purpose.
"Its headquarters approach the large settlements of Utah and may one day
become the means of bearing away the products of those pioneers of the
far West. With this idea prominent in the minds of speculators, a city on
paper, bearing the name of 'Colorado City,' had already been surveyed,
the streets and blocks marked out and many of them sold. It is situated
on the east bank, opposite Fort Yuma."
From 1858 to about 1882, even after the Santa Fe railroad had reached
Needles, there was much traffic on the Colorado. Supplies went by river
to the mines, which sent downstream occasional shipments of ore. Military
supplies went by water to Fort Mohave or to Ehrenberg, the latter point a
depot for Whipple Barracks and other posts. Salt came down stream from
the Virgin River mines, for use mainly in the amalgamation processes of
the small stamp mills of the period.