Olive City, Arizona | |
---|---|
Location in the state of Arizona | |
Coordinates: 33°36′40″N114°31′33″W / 33.61111°N 114.52583°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Arizona |
County | La Paz |
Founded | 1863, before Arizona was officially declared a territory by President Abraham Lincoln |
Abandoned | 1866 |
Elevation | 266 ft (81 m) |
Population (2009) | |
• Total | 0 |
Time zone | UTC-7 (MST (no DST)) |
Olive City, or Olivia, was a short-lived town, steamboat landing, and ferry crossing on the Colorado River in what was then Yuma County, Arizona Territory, from 1863 to 1866. It was located on the Arizona bank of the Colorado River, 1 mile above its rival Mineral City and 1/2 mile above the original site of Ehrenberg, Arizona, 3 miles southwest of the location of La Paz. The GNIS location of Olive City (historical) is indicated as being in La Paz County, Arizona, but its coordinates in the present-day now put it across the river just within Riverside County, California. [1] Olive City was named after Olive Oatman who had been, with her sister, survivors of the massacre of her family and a captive of the Yavapai until purchased from them by the Mohave who they lived with for several years. [2] : 36–37
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In 1862, the great flood of that year, changed the course of the Colorado River cutting off the gold boomtown of La Paz, from the course of the river which had moved away from the town by 2 miles. There the following spring a new landing developed, named Olivia, later Olive City. La Paz was left beside the old river course now a slough, connected to the river near Olive City.
The founders of this new town were mostly sympathetic to the cause of the Confederacy, and would not sell lots in the new town to Blacks, Chinese, Native Americans, Indians from India, and Mexicans who were a majority in the town of La Paz. In March 1863, miners at Olivia also formed a separate mining district, the Weaver District, that tried to restrict Mexicans and Native Americans from its mines.
Olivia was the original crossing point for Bradshaw's Ferry.
Olivia was suspected as a staging point for Confederate sympathizers heading east to join in the Civil War. Also on May 20, 1863, nearby La Paz was the site of the La Paz Incident where a Confederate sympathizer shot and killed two Union soldiers traveling up river to Fort Mohave on the steamer Cocopah that were there to purchase supplies. To break up this activity a detachment of union infantry from Fort Mohave set up a camp halfway between La Paz and Olivia in September 1863. [2] : 37
In the fall of 1864, Mineral City and landing was established a mile down the river and Bradshaw's Ferry was moved there, to the detriment of Olive City.
In 1866, a new landing was established between Olive City and Mineral City, with the support of two steamboat captains of the George A. Johnson Company. Mineral City became the name of this larger settlement, resulting in the abandonment of Olive City and by 1870 La Paz also after the placer mines gave out. In 1870 Mineral City was renamed Ehrenburg. [2] : 37
Across the river was the former town site of Donlon in California, now a recreational park within the city limits of Blythe, it served as a river port when the Colorado River was navigable down to the Gulf of California connecting agricultural-based trade with the Pacific Ocean.
In nearby Ehrenberg, there is a historic cemetery, including the first settlers of multiple European and other ethnicities, such as Jewish-Americans whose graves have piles of stones, a Jewish burial custom.
Because of the subsequent changes of the rivers course, the site of Olivia or Olive City, Arizona is today stranded in Riverside County, California across the river from modern Ehrenburg in La Paz County, Arizona. Nothing remains of the old settlement.
La Paz County is the 15th county in the U.S. state of Arizona, located in the western part of the state. As of the 2020 census, its population was 16,557, making it the second-least populous county in Arizona. The county seat is Parker. The name of the county is the Spanish word for "the peace", and is taken from the early settlement of La Paz along the Colorado River.
Mohave County is a county in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is the fifth largest county in the United States.
Ehrenberg, also historically spelled "Ehrenburg", is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in La Paz County, Arizona, United States. The population was 1,470 at the 2010 census. Ehrenberg is named for its founder, Herman Ehrenberg.
La Paz was a short-lived early gold mining town along on the western border of current-day La Paz County, Arizona. The town grew quickly after gold was discovered nearby in 1862. La Paz, Spanish for peace, was chosen as the name in recognition of the feast day for Our Lady of Peace. Originally located in the New Mexico Territory, the town became part of the Arizona Territory when President Abraham Lincoln established the new territory in 1863. In 1983 the newly formed County of La Paz adopted the name, long after the town had become a ghost town.
Today's Bradshaw Trail is a historic overland stage route in the western Colorado Desert of Southern California. It is a remnant of the much longer Bradshaw Road, also known as the Road to La Paz, or Gold Road, established in 1862 by William D. Bradshaw. It was the first overland route to connect the gold fields near La Paz in the U.S. New Mexico Territory, later the Arizona Territory, to Southern California's more populated west coast. Once in La Paz, additional roads provided access to the mining districts of the central New Mexico/Arizona Territory, near Wickenburg and Prescott.
Mohave City is a ghost town in Mohave County in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Arizona. Settled in the 1860s, in what was then the Arizona Territory, it was founded as a river landing and trading center for area miners and soldiers, and was named for Mohave County.
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.
La Laguna was a gold mining town in New Mexico Territory, now Yuma County, Arizona. It was in existence for a short time from 1860 to 1862. The town was a steamboat landing 20 miles above Yuma, Arizona on the Colorado River. It had a few merchants and a ferry across the Colorado River that served placer miners in the vicinity. When the La Paz gold rush began, La Laguna began to decline and it was soon replaced by Castle Dome Landing, 15 miles to the north, following the discovery of gold in the Castle Dome Mountains. It remained for a time as the site of a store and a ranch, belonging to Jose Redondo, one of the first to mine gold at La Paz.
El Dorado City, which is now a ghost town, was a mining camp in the Colorado Mining District at the mouth of January Wash at its confluence with El Dorado Canyon. It was located about a mile down the canyon from Huse Spring, at an elevation of 2,382 feet (726 m). Its site was located nearby to the south southeast of the Techatticup Mine the primary source of the ore its mill processed.
Colorado City is now a ghost town, in Clark County, Nevada, located under Lake Mohave at the mouth of El Dorado Canyon.
Dos Palmas Spring is an artesian spring in Riverside County, California where it lies at the foot of the Orocopia Mountains. It is only one of several such springs in the area that create an oasis in the Colorado Desert there.
Mineral City was a steamboat landing and ferry crossing on the Colorado River in La Paz County, Arizona, United States from 1863 to 1866. It was located on the east bank of the Colorado River, one mile below its rival Olive City and 1⁄2 mile below the original site of Ehrenberg and 1+1⁄2 miles above its current site.
Liverpool Landing, a ghost town and former river settlement on the Colorado River, in Mohave County, Arizona, United States, now submerged under Lake Havasu.
Eureka or Eureka Landing, is a former mining town and steamboat landing, now a ghost town, on the Arizona bank of the Colorado River in what is now La Paz County, Arizona. It was originally located in Yuma County, Arizona from 1863 through the 1870s.
Williamsport is a former mining town and present day ghost town, on the bank of the Colorado River in La Paz County, Arizona.
Bradshaw's Ferry was a ferry at the crossing point on the Colorado River, of the Bradshaw Trail at Olive City and later at Mineral City and Ehrenburg, between what was then San Diego County, California, and Arizona County, New Mexico Territory. The ferry connected the Bradshaw Trail to the road to the gold placers of La Paz, the first big strike of the Colorado River Gold Rush. From 1863, the La Paz - Wikenburg Road connected the Bradshaw Trail to the new mining boom town settlements in the interior of Arizona Territory.
Empire Flat was a steamboat landing at Empire Flat on the east shore of the Colorado River, within Parker Strip, Arizona, in La Paz County, Arizona.
George A. Johnson & Company was a partnership between three men who pioneered navigation on the Colorado River. Benjamin M. Hartshorne, George Alonzo Johnson and Alfred H. Wilcox. The George A. Johnson & Company was formed in the fall of 1852, and was reorganized as the Colorado Steam Navigation Company in 1869.
Iretaba City was a short lived steamboat landing and mining town in Mohave County, Arizona, United States.
La Paz–Wikenburg Road was a 131-mile-long (211 km) wagon road from 1863 and from 1866 a stagecoach route between the Colorado River landings at La Paz, Olive City and Mineral City to the mining town of Wickenburg, Arizona. From Wickenburg roads led to other new mining camps and districts in the interior of Arizona Territory. From 1862, when the river changed its course, La Paz was isolated on the slough of the old river channel over four miles (6.4 km) from the new river channel. In 1866, the road head changed to the new river landing of Ehrenburg, where the Bradshaw Trail wagon and stagecoach road from San Bernardino, California, crossed the Colorado River at Bradshaw's Ferry.