geographic change at yuma crossing 1849-1966

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Journal of the Southwest Geographic Change at Yuma Crossing 1849-1966 Author(s): Don Bufkin Source: Arizona and the West, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 155-160 Published by: Journal of the Southwest Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40169458 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 19:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Journal of the Southwest is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Arizona and the West. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.78.31 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Journal of the Southwest

Geographic Change at Yuma Crossing 1849-1966Author(s): Don BufkinSource: Arizona and the West, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 155-160Published by: Journal of the SouthwestStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40169458 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 19:59

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Journal of the Southwest is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Arizona andthe West.

http://www.jstor.org

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GEOGRAPHIC CHANGE AT YUMA CROSSING 1849-1966

by DON BUFK1N*

The Yuma Crossing of the Colorado River of the West has been of historical importance since Spain first attempted to locate and secure an overland route from Sonora to the Pacific Coast. Because of the difficult and uncertain sea route, the Spaniards sought to open a land bridge to communicate with and supply the presidios and missions they were establishing in Alta California. The point at which the Gila River flows into the Colorado proved to be the logical mid-route crossing. Also, water and forage were available at this midpoint of the long desert trail. Spaniards occupied Yuma Crossing as early as 1780, when they sought to combine the functions of mission, presidio, and pueblo in a small, ill-fated settlement. Following its war with Mex- ico, the United States acquired extensive landholdings in the South- west, which included Yuma Crossing. Gold seekers, attracted by discoveries in 1848 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, followed the popular Gila Trail west to the crossing enroute to California. After the United States in 1854 acquired an additional 30,000 square miles by the Gadsden Purchase, the Colorado River became an important transportation corridor servicing the developing territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Shallow draft steamboats plied the river from 1852 to 1909. Yuma functioned as a port of entry during part of that period. The nation's second transcontinental railroad built across the Colorado at Yuma in 1877. In more recent times, the Yuma region, benefiting from agriculture, mining, military facilities, transporta- tion and tourism, has become one of Arizona's major growth areas.

*The author is a master cartographer who lives in Tucson. His maps have appeared in numerous

publications concerning the American West. Bufkin recently retired as the Associate Executive Direc- tor of the Arizona Historical Society.

[155]

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1 56 ARIZONA and the WEST

While the history of the Yuma area has been studied exten-

sively, the unique geography of the region, combined with the unpre- dictable rampages of the Colorado ('The American Nile"), provides a

challenge to a clear understanding of its history. From Spanish times until the taming of the river by a succession of dams in the 1930s, the Colorado has periodically impacted in a major fashion upon the com- munities and activities along its course. At Yuma, both the Colorado and Gila have produced catastrophic floods which destroyed parts of the town, washed out bridges, and eroded valuable farmlands. Addi-

tionally, the meandering channel of the Colorado within its floodplain has caused both legal and physical problems.

Since the acquisition of the Gadsden Territory, the Colorado River has been the international boundary between the United States and Mexico from about Pilot Knob south to San Luis in Sonora. Above Pilot Knob, the main channel initially was considered the Arizona-California boundary, but the shifting and meandering of the river caused problems with fixing the line. As the river capriciously changed course, it affected both settlements and ferry crossings. Local place-names progressively changed as citizens had to relocate settlements, way stations, and ferry landings.

In the pages that follow, eight maps illustrate the shifting histor- ical geography of the Yuma vicinity, 1849 - 1966. The maps docu- ment the changes in the major river channels, and show how place- names have been moved. They should provide historians a clearer

understanding of geographic changes which directly relate to the history of the Yuma Crossing. The maps have been plotted on a base map of common scale and with a common area coverage. Car- tographic information has been adapted from published government map sources.*

*Also see: Robert L. Bee, Crosscurrents Along the Colorado: The Impact of Government Policy on the Quechan Indians (U. of Arizona Press, 1981); Alton Duke, When the Colorado River Quit the Ocean (Yuma, Arizona: Southwest Printers. 1974); Philip L. Fradkin, A River No More: The Colorado River and the West (New York, 1981); James E. Hill, Jr., "The Colorado River International Boundary," Journal of Geography, LXVII (December 1968), 545-47; Norris Hundley, Jr., Dividing the Waters: A Century of Controversy Between the United States and Mexico (U. of California Press, 1966); Godfrey Sykes, The Colorado Delta (American Geographical Society Special Publication 19, 1937); Francois D. Uzes, Chaining the Land: A History of Surveying in California (Sacramento, California: Landmark Enter- prises, 1977); and Richard Yates and Mary Marshall, The Lower Colorado River: A Bibliography (Yuma, Arizona: Arizona Western College Press, 1974).

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CHANGE at YUMA CROSSING 1 57

[Maps 1-8]

No. 1. Map of a Survey and Reconnaissance of the Vicinity of the Mouth of the Rio Gila.- adapted from A. W. Whipple map (November 1849).

Lieutenant Amiel W. Whipple made the first detailed survey of the channels of the Colorado and Gila rivers in the Yuma Valley. Whipple prepared his map in conjunction with the Joint Boundary Commission, established under Article V of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). Whipple's specific instructions were to locate and monument the point at which the Gila joins the Colorado. The treaty defined the international

boundary between Alta or Upper California (U.S.) and Baja or Lower California (Mexico) as being a straight line running west from the Colo- rado-Gila junction and ending at a specified distance south of San Diego on the Pacific Coast. In surveying, Whipple found that the Colorado, after its confluence with the Gila, actually flowed slightly north of due west for some seven miles, before it made a great turn to the south. Therefore, the

boundary created a narrow strip of U.S. territory along the south (or east) bank of the Colorado.

The question of the "Whipple Strip" and how to locate the westernmost

boundary point south of San Diego were the first of many problems the

Boundary Commission faced. The Gadsden Purchase, concluded some four

years after the Whipple survey, made the question of the international

jurisdiction of the Whipple Strip moot. However, it remained a matter of conflict between California and Arizona. The Arizona Constitution at statehood in 191 2 declared the state's western boundary to be the center of the Colorado River. California finally abandoned any claim to the strip as

part of an interstate boundary compact approved in 1966.

No. 2. Map of the Colorado River of the West Explored in 1857 and 1858. -

adapted from map 1 in Joseph C. Ives Report.

Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives, of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, published a lengthy report on his exploration of the Colorado River from its mouth at the head of the Gulf of California north to the southern entrance to Black Canyon, a distance of some 530 river-channel miles. Ives's maps, included in his report, were more comprehensive than the limited survey by Whipple. Ives noted significant differences in the location of the channel of the Colorado in the Yuma Crossing vicinity -

differences that had accrued in less than ten years. He showed the Colo- rado flowing well south of the generally westerly direction on the Whipple survey. Whipple had traced the river flow slightly north of true west for almost seven miles after it passed through the bluffs between Indian Hill and Prison Hill at Yuma. The differences in the Ives and Whipple maps, documenting a period of less than ten years, illustrates the rapid changes occuring along the meandering Colorado River.

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1 58 ARIZONA and the WEST

Ives conducted his notable expedition in the winter of 1857 - 58, and

published his report in Washington, D.C., in 1861. The maps in the report portray topographic features by utilizing a new technique. The results of the new technique were reproduced maps which clearly described the terrain by combining the draftman's hatchure and stipple methods and

printing in two colors.

No. 3. Boundary Between the United States and Mexico As Surveyed and Marked

by the International Boundary Commission under the Convention of July 29, 1882 (Revised February 18, 1889).

The United States-Mexican Convention of 1882 charged the Interna- tional Boundary Commission with reviewing the accuracy of previous boundary surveys. The commission conducted an extensive mapping pro- gram and erected new boundary monuments. The Colorado River section was mapped in 1893 by the U.S. Commission surveyors and in 1894 by the Mexican Commission. The surveys did not map the Colorado upstream from its junction with the Gila.

A comparison of the 1893 map with both the Whipple and Ives maps documents the broad and constant meandering of the Colorado over the section that is part of the international boundary. The commission noted the meandering action of the river even during the few months between the U.S. survey in 1893 and the Mexican survey in 1894.

No. 4. U.S. Geological Survey (Dept. of the Interior). 30 minute quad. - edition

1905 (reprinted 1944) (scale 1:125,000).

This map shows a complex drainage pattern for that part of the lower Yuma Valley lying between the main channel of the Colorado River on the west and the edge of the Yuma Mesa on the east. An area of more than 100

square miles, the lower Yuma Valley lies within the river floodplain. The

drainage pattern on the U.S.G.S. Quad, (edition 1905) vividly documents the extensive meandering of the Colorado River through the valley. The confluence of the Colorado and Gila is shown one mile east of the location

mapped by Whipple in 1849. In 1905 the diversion of Colorado River water to the Imperial Valley by

means of a cut on the west bank about four miles south of the International

Boundary led to uncontrolled flooding of the Salton Sink in the Imperial Valley for two years. The river breach was closed only after a massive

engineering effort was mounted in 1907.

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CHANGE at YUMA CROSSING 1 59

No. 5. U.S. Geological Survey (Dept. of the Interior). 15 minute quad. - edition 1940. (scale 1:62,500).

Prior to June of 1920, the Colorado River had approached Yuma from the north, flowing along the east base of Indian Hill before turning sharply to the west. Between 1902 and 191 5 the constant meandering had gradually formed a large oxbow in the broad floodplain about four miles northeast of Yuma. The oxbow was a great bend in the river that measured two and one half miles wide by some three and one half miles north to south in dimen- sion. Over 4,570 acres (more than seven square miles) lay within the oxbow.

The late spring freshets of 1920 suddenly cut off the oxbow by forming a new channel which flowed directly south about one mile to the east of the oxbow, before gently turning westerly toward the narrow confinement of Indian Hill and Prison Hill. This major channel change created a feature which came to be known as The Island" or "Yuma Island" or The Lost Island." The island created a long standing question of legal jurisdiction between Imperial County (California) and Yuma County (Arizona). Also involved in the dispute were the Fort Yuma (Quechan) Indian Reservation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, and representatives of squatters who had occupied parts of the island since the 1930s. The dispute over the island was settled to the satisfaction of many, but certainly not all, when Congress ratified an Interstate Boundary Compact between California and Arizona in 1966. By the settlement, Arizona received more than six square miles of land on the north or west bank of the Colorado as it existed in its post-1966 channel location.

Note: Previous Map 4 (U.S.G.S. - edition 1905) shows the Colorado

prior to the creation of the island; Map 5 (U.S.G.S. - edition 1940) shows the cut-off which created the island; and Map 7 shows the California- Arizona boundary after the 1966 compact.

No. 6. U.S. Geological Survey (Dept. of the Interior). El Centro, United States:

Mexico, compiled in 1958 by the Army Map Service, (scale 1:250,000).

By 1940 the Colorado River had largely been "tamed" by a series of dams built upstream from Yuma. Significant diversion of river water had greatly reduced the flow in the Yuma region. Also, over the years an extensive

system of levees had been built to protect valuable farmlands and growing urban areas in the valley. With the reduced streamflow confined by the levee system, the Colorado River no longer meandered in the Yuma region. The 1958 map shows little channel change since 1940.

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160 ARIZONA and the WEST

No. 7. U.S. Geological Survey (Dept. of the Interior). Compiled from a series of 7.5 minute quads: Yuma West, Yuma East - editions 1952-65; Grays Well Northeast - edition 1953 - 64; and Gadsden - edition 1965 - 73. (scale 1:24,000).

The 1952 and 53 U.S.G.S. quads, which were updated in 1964-65, depict a stable river channel. The most notable feature of this map series is the extensive urbanization occuring in the Yuma Valley.

No. 8. Composite of previous Maps 1 through 7.

By combining Maps 1 through 7 in a single depiction, one can get an overview of more than a century of the Colorado River's meanderings in the Yuma area. It is interesting to note that within the time period represented by these maps, the only point where the river channel never changed its location is the section between Indian Hill and Prison Hill.

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