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Page 6 desert messenger celebrates the arizona's centennial with voices from the past in Quartzsite, AZ Excerpts from "In the Shadow of Saguaros" by Rosalee Oldham Wheeler Business in La Paz during the 1860's In 1863 the appointed governor of the newly created Territory of Arizona, John N. Goodwin created the Second Judicial District with 1,157 people, excluding In- dians. La Paz with its 352 inhabitants was its largest town. Viewed by his cabinet as nothing more than a shabby mining camp, Governor Goodwin had a greater vision for the second of his three Judicial Districts. La Paz was a steamboat landing where mining supplies, food and other impor- tant provisions were unloaded. Soon adobe buildings with roofs of ocotillo canes and mud sprang up overnight and new businesses were opened to supply the miners. Five years earlier, south of La Paz, there had been a mining boom near the conflu- ence of the Colorado and Gila Rivers that had brought in over 1,200 miners who furiously worked the silver ore deposits of the Gila Mine that played-out in less than five years. One year before becoming a territory, La Paz had experienced a seven-year gold rush that netted $8,000,000 in gold that was weighed and shipped to the mint in San Francisco. And that didn't account for the thousands of nuggets that didn't made it to the gold scales because many prospectors just couldn't part with their "lucky," "favorite," or "very unusual" specimens. La Paz prospered for another reason. Since there wasn't a railroad in this part of the Territory, it became an important steamboat landing. Ocean-going ships www.DesertMessenger.com and schooners brought supplies up the Gulf of California to the deep-water port at the mouth of the Colorado Riv- er. There at Port Isabel supplies were loaded onto shallow-draft river steam- ers that carried cargo to landings along the Colorado. From the first stop at Robinson's Landing steamboats went on to Gridiron, Ogden's Landing, Pe- dricks, Jaegerville, Castle Dome, Eu- reka, Picacho, and Norton's Landing. Further on up the river they pulled into the Clip, Rodes Ranch, Mineral City, Ehrenberg, Olive City, Bradshaw Ferry, La Paz, Aubrey City, Liverpool, and Polhamus Landings. Then the smaller steamers went on into Nevada (which had become a state in 1864) to the Callville and Rioville Landings, at Pierce Ferry Landing the steamers turned back south. Supplies of every nature was imported upstream, then on the return trip, gold and silver was shipped back to be sent to the mint in San Francisco. In the spring of 1867 La Paz experi- enced a double economic downturn. The unpredictable Colorado River changed its course leaving the town almost a mile from water and useless as a landing, and then the miners an- nounced that the placer gold was play- October 19, 2011 ing-out. Downstream, Ehrenberg was on higher ground and quickly became the new steamboat landing where stagecoaches picked up passengers with inland destinations such as Ty- son's Well, Prescott, and Tucson. Tent house eating establishments were set up offering home-cooked meals. Sam and Elsie Wilson opened a general store with horse feed, kerosene lamps, yard goods, bins of beans, and grocer- ies among hundreds of other items. Fascinated with the metal pots and pans, Indians were known to put one under their clothing and walk out of the door. Elsie (later Kuehn) told me how she used to keep a hammer close by so she could tap a suspecting bulge to see if "rang." The Bradshaw Stage crossed the river on the Bradshaw Ferry at Ehrenberg regularly bringing passengers to and from California. Two stagecoach lines competed for passengers into the Ari- zona interior; the Arizona Stage Com- pany began in 1868 with the California & Arizona Stage Company adding its service in 1875. Southwestern Arizona continued to expand as thousands of people arrived SEE LA PAZ ON PAGE 7