The Cocopah are Native Americans who live in Baja California, Mexico, and Arizona, United States.
The Quechan, or Yuma, are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Despite their name, they are not related to the Quechua people of the Andes. Members are enrolled into the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation. The federally recognized Quechan tribe's main office is located in Winterhaven, California. Its operations and the majority of its reservation land are located in California, United States.
Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. The city's population was 95,548 at the 2020 census, up from the 2010 census population of 93,064.
Samuel Peter Heintzelman was a United States Army general. He served in the Seminole War, the Mexican–American War, the Yuma War and the Cortina Troubles. During the American Civil War he was a prominent figure in the early months of the war rising to the command of a corps.
Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) is a United States Army series of environmentally specific test centers with its Yuma Test Center (YTC) being one of the largest military installations in the world. It is subordinate to the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command.
The Yuma Expedition was a U.S. Army military operation from 8 February 1852, to October, 1852 in the Yuma War.
Yuma Crossing is a site in Arizona and California that is significant for its association with transportation and communication across the Colorado River. It connected New Spain and Las Californias in the Spanish Colonial period in and also during the Western expansion of the United States. Features of the Arizona side include the Yuma Quartermaster Depot and Yuma Territorial Prison. Features on the California Side include Fort Yuma, which protected the area from 1850 to 1885.
Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Historic Park, formerly Yuma Crossing State Historic Park, and now one of the Yuma Crossing and Associated Sites on the National Register of Historic Places in the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area. It is an Arizona state park in the city of Yuma, Arizona, US.
The Department of New Mexico was a department of the United States Army during the mid-19th century. It was created as the 9th Department, a geographical department, in 1848 following the successful conclusion of the Mexican–American War, and renamed Department of New Mexico in 1853. It had to contend with an invading Confederate force during the New Mexico Campaign of the American Civil War from mid-1861 to early 1862, then with Apache tribes during the remainder of the conflict. It was merged into the Department of California after the end of the war as the District of New Mexico.
Port Isabel was a seaport established on Port Isabel Slough in 1865 during the American Civil War in Sonora, Mexico in the mouth of the Colorado River on the Gulf of California. It was founded to support the increased river traffic caused by the gold rush that began in 1862 on the Colorado River and the Yuma Quartermaster Depot newly established in 1864 to support the Army posts in the Arizona Military District. The slough was discovered in 1865 by the Captain W. H. Pierson of the schooner Isabel, that first used the slough to transfer its cargo to steamboats safe from the tidal bore of the Colorado River. Shortly afterward Port Isabel was established 3 miles up the slough and replaced Robinson's Landing as the place where cargo was unloaded in the river from seagoing craft on to flat bottomed steamboats of the Colorado River and carried up to Fort Yuma and points further north on the river.
The Yuma War was the name given to a series of United States military operations conducted in southern California and what is today southwestern Arizona from 1850 to 1853. The Quechan were the primary opponent of the United States Army, though engagements were fought between the Americans and other native groups in the region.
Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage Trail, was a major land route for immigration into California from the eastern United States that followed the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico during the California Gold Rush. Unlike the more northern routes, pioneer wagons could travel year round, mountain passes not being blocked by snows; however, it had the disadvantage of summer heat and lack of water in the desert regions through which it passed in New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Desert of California. Subsequently, it was a route of travel and commerce between the eastern United States and California. Many herds of cattle and sheep were driven along this route and it was followed by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line in 1857–1858 and then the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 to 1861.
George Alonzo Johnson (1824–1903) was an American entrepreneur and politician.
New River Station was a later station added into the Colorado Desert route of the Butterfield Overland Mail it was located 15 miles southeast of Indian Wells Station and 14 miles west of Alamo Mocho Station beside the New River. It was in operation until March 1861 when the Butterfield route was abandoned for the Central Route by the beginning of the American Civil War.
Vallecito, in San Diego County, California, is an oasis of cienegas and salt grass along Vallecito Creek and a former Kumeyaay settlement on the edge of the Colorado Desert in the Vallecito Valley. Its Spanish name is translated as "little valley". Vallecito was located at the apex of the gap in the Carrizo Badlands created by Carrizo Creek and its wash in its lower reach, to which Vallecito Creek is a tributary. The springs of Vallecito, like many in the vicinity, are a product of the faults that run along the base of the Peninsular Ranges to the west.
The California Indian Wars were a series of wars, battles, and massacres between the United States Army, and the Indigenous peoples of California. The wars lasted from 1850, immediately after Alta California, acquired during the Mexican–American War, became the state of California, to 1880 when the last minor military operation on the Colorado River ended the Calloway Affair of 1880.
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. 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.
Hualapai Smith's or Smith's Ferry was a steamboat landing and a ferry crossing and farm on the Sonora bank of the Colorado River, the border between Sonora and Baja California, from the later 1860s to 1878. It was located on the Colorado River in Sonora 20 miles overland from Yuma, Arizona and 30 miles down river from Fort Yuma in 1861.
Fort Romualdo Pacheco also called Fuerte de Laguna Chapala was a Mexican fort built in 1825 and was abandoned a year later in 1826. The fort was 100 feet square with thick stone and adobe walls. The fort was built by Lieutenant Alfrez Jose Antonio Romualdo Pacheco Sr. in response to the attacked on travelers on the route made by Juan Bautista de Anza's expedition in 1774 from Sonora to Alta California. The fort was built after Fernando Rivera y Moncada, many of his soldiers, Francisco Garcés and his local missionaries, were killed at Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer in that is called the Yuma Revolt or Yuma Massacre on July 18, 1781. The attack was by the Apache Quechan Indians. The Yuma Massacre closed the overland transportation between northern Mexico and Alta California for 50 years. This halted the immigration of Mexicans to Alta California. Lieutenant Pacheco with soldiers and cavalry from the Presidio de San Diego built the fort in later 1825 and early 1826. The fort was built just north of the New River and south of the Bull Head Slough in what is now Imperial, California. The Fort was only used for a few months in 1826. Pacheco returned to San Diego and put Ignacio Delgado in charge of the Fort. On April 26, 1826, the San Sebastian Kumeyaay Indians attacked the fort. Pacheco had heard about rumors of the attack and arrived during the attack with reinforcements from San Diego. Pacheco and his 25 lancers fought off the attack. In the battle, three soldiers were killed and three injured. In the battle, 28 Indians were killed. But, now the fort was surrounded by many Kumeyaay and Quechan warriors. Vastly outnumbered the Fort was abandoned and all returned to San Diego. Archeologists did digs at the site in 1958 before Imperial Valley College Museum removed the remains.
Fort Yuma Commanding Officer's Quarters
Fort Yuma Officer's Kitchen & Cottage
Fort Yuma Old Barracks
Ruins of the Fort Yuma Southern Pacific Railroad Station
Fort Yuma Southern Pacific Railroad Station
Inside the Fort Yuma Southern Pacific Railroad Station ticket office
Fort Yuma Southern Pacific Railroad Station
Father Garcés Memorial Hall
Father Garcés Memorial Hall marker
St. Thomas Indian Mission Catholic Church
St. Thomas Indian Mission Catholic Church marker
