Union Line (Colorado River)

Last updated

The Union Line was a transport company of steamboats of the Colorado River, owned by Thomas E. Trueworthy, operating in southeastern California, western Arizona Territory, and northwestern Mexico.

Contents

It was an opposition steamboat company to the George A. Johnson & Company on the Colorado River from 1864 to 1865. It was the first to use towed barges on the Colorado.

Establishment of the Union Line

Merchants and miners held a protest meeting at La Paz, Arizona on December 1, 1863, fed up with shortages, delayed and slow deliveries of freight to their stores and mines, by Johnson & Company, who owned the Colorado River's only two steamboats. They condemned the Johnson Company as a monopoly, that was trying to drive the miners out in order to gain control of the mines. The meeting voted to send a representative to San Francisco with a petition calling for the establishment of an opposition steamboat line on the Colorado River.

In San Francisco, their representative Samuel "Steamboat" Adams convinced the Chamber of Commerce to endorse an opposition line. Merchants of the city raised $25,000 by subscription, and Adams persuaded Captain Thomas E. Trueworthy, to send the Sacramento River steamboat Esmerelda under Captain Charles C. Overman and the Victoria, a four-masted schooner converted from a barge, to the Colorado River to establish the Union Line there.

Union Line on the Colorado River

The Victoria was to be a store ship at the mouth of the river, but she was soon broken up by the tidal bore soon after it reached the mouth of the river at the Colorado River Delta in March 1864. [1] :41,43,44

After Overman arrived at the river in March 1864, he built the Black Crook, first tow barge to be used on the Colorado River. From May 1864, its success in delivering large amounts of cargo up river forced the Johnson Company to lower rates, build another steamboat and to add tow barges to his steamboats in 1864. [1] :43,44

Union Line Consolidated

In the summer of 1865, with the steamboats Esmerelda of the Union Line and Nina Tilden of the Philadelphia Silver and Copper Mining Company (the other opposition line to the Johnson Company), was consolidated into the Pacific and Colorado Steam Navigation Company, also headed by Thomas E. Trueworthy, with backing from San Francisco financiers.

See also

Related Research Articles

Port Isabel, Sonora human settlement in 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.

George Alonzo Johnson (1824-1903) 49er, Colorado River steamboat entrepreneur, California politician.

El Dorado Canyon is a canyon in southern Clark County, Nevada famed for its rich silver and gold mines. The canyon was named in 1857 by steamboat entrepreneur Captain George Alonzo Johnson when gold and silver was discovered here. It drains into the Colorado River at the former site of Nelson's Landing.

Callville, Nevada

Callville is a former settlement of Clark County in the U.S. state of Nevada. Abandoned in 1869, it was submerged under Lake Mead when the Colorado River was dammed, Callville Bay retaining the name. At one time, it was noted to be the southernmost outpost of the Mormon settlement.

The California Steam Navigation Company was formed in 1854 to consolidate competing steamship companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. It was successful in this effort and established a profitable near-monopoly which it maintained by buying out or bankrupting new competitors. In response to the Fraser Canyon gold rush and economic growth in the Pacific Northwest, the company expanded to ocean routes from San Francisco north to British Columbia. Similarly, as California's economy grew, the company offered service from San Francisco south to San Pedro and San Diego. It exited these markets in 1867 when competition drove prices to unprofitable levels. While the California Steam Navigation Company was successful throughout its life in suppressing steamboat competition on its core Bay Area and river routes, it could not control the rise of railroads. These new competitors reduced the company's revenue and profit. Finally, in 1871, the company's assets were purchased by the California Pacific Railroad, and the corporation was dissolved.

Steamboats of the Colorado River

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.

<i>Colorado II</i> (sternwheeler)

[[Image:|300px|thumb|]]

Esmerelda, was a stern-wheel paddle-steamer, built for the Sacramento River trade, in 1864 it became the first of the opposition steamboats on the Colorado River. It was also the first steamboat to tow large cargo barges on that river, in May 1864 and to reach Callville, Nevada in 1866.

Benjamin Minturn Hartshorne (1826–1900) was a California businessman who immigrated during the California Gold Rush. He was involved in Sacramento River and Colorado River steamboats as well as maritime shipping.

Mohave was the first stern-wheel steamboat of that name running on the Colorado River between 1864 and 1875.

Nina Tilden, one of the two opposition stern-wheel steamboats that ran on the Colorado River from 1864 to 1868. Purchased by George A. Johnson Company it ran on the Colorado River from 1868 until 1874.

Philadelphia Silver and Copper Mining Company, a 19th-century mining corporation chartered in Pennsylvania, April 8, 1864.

Gila, a stern-wheel steamboat of the Colorado Steam Navigation Company running on the Colorado River between 1873 and 1899.

Alfred Henry Wilcox (1823-1883), sea captain, later Colorado River pioneer and steamboat and steamship entrepreneur, partner in the George A. Johnson & Company and of the Colorado Steam Navigation Company, banker and director of the California & Mexican Steam Ship Line.

Empire Flat, Arizona Ghost town in Arizona, United States

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.

Mohave II

Mohave, the second stern-wheel steamboat of that name running on the Colorado River for the Colorado Steam Navigation Company (C.S.N.C) between 1876 and 1875. It was the first and only double smokestack steamboat to run on the river.

Quartette or Quartette Mill or Quartette Landing, was a mining settlement, location of the stamp mill of the Quartette Mining Company, owner of the largest mine in the Searchlight Mining District and a steamboat landing on the Colorado River, in what is now Clark County, Nevada. It lay at an elevation of 646 feet.

Port Isabel Slough was a deep slough in the Colorado River Delta near the mouth of the Colorado River during the 19th century, within the state of Sonora, Mexico.

References