USA > California > Imperial County > The history of Imperial County, California > Part 9
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The Colorado Valley is distinctly divided into two sections. The greater part of the lower third is but little above the level of the sea, some parts in fact being more than 200 feet below the sea level, but here and there occasional mountain ranges rise to a height of from 2000 to 6000 feet.
Its northern boundary is an almost vertical wall of cliffs, often thou- sands of feet high. The tableland which forms the rest of the valley is from four to eight thousand feet above the sea, and is surrounded on all sides but the south by snow-capped mountains, some of which are 14,000 feet high. The whole upper part of the Colorado Basin is cut by innumerable gorges of inaccessible depths, caused by the river and its
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branches. They are dry, however, except during the rainy season and when the snow melts on the mountains.
The erosion by the Colorado and its tributaries has played a leading part in making the geography of the country. All of the silt, broken and powdered rocks, vegetation and other rubbish eroded by a river is held in suspension while the river is moving rapidly; it is only when it spreads out, becoming shallow and sluggish, that its burden is deposited along the banks and on the bottom. The Colorado reached no such point until it emptied into the Gulf of California, known at various times as the "Sea of Cortez," the "Sea of California" and the "Vermillion Sea," the latter name originating from the red color imparted by the sedi- ment-laden river, which has been called "The Nile of America."
That the valley was originally an arm of the gulf is shown by the shell incrustations and reefs of oyster shells. That the level of the country was raised by volcanic uplifts as some contend seems to be dis- proved by the fact that the water lines are all unbroken and do not show any evidence of any convulsions of Nature. Hence the theory that the formation of the valley was caused by the silt of the Colorado spreading over the bottom of the gulf, thus displacing the water, seems the right one. Little by little the silt was deposited, and little by little the sea retreated, until what had been the sea became low marshy land. with the river meandering through banks of its own creating. But with the melting of the mountain snow the sluggish, sleepy river, basking lazily in the sun, became a veritable demon of savage irresponsibility, going wherever it would and leaving its burden. At such times it broke all bounds set by previous deposits. During one such flood such a vast amount of debris was deposited that an area in front of its mouth was covered by silt which rose higher than the normal height of the river, so that when the flood subsided a great dam was formed which shut off the northern portion of the gulf (now the Imperial, Salton and Coachel- la valleys). The channel connecting the two portions must have become more and more shallow until it filled up so that the tide no longer flowed in and out, thus forming a lake the southern boundaries of which were the silt and mud from the Colorado.
Prof. Blake's theory, formed from his investigations when with the Williamson expedition, is that at first this lake was kept fresh by chan- nels from the river, but these filling up shut off the supply, and being
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shut away from the sea also, a rapid process of evaporation took place under the hot rays of the sun and the dry winds, and in the course of a few years the lake dried up. Wharton James on the contrary contends that as the shut-off portion of the gulf contained salt water, that it evaporated by natural processes, and was filled with fresh water by the overflow from the Colorado breaking over channel and dam and form- ing the ancient Alamo River through which part of the Colorado flowed into the basin and created a fresh-water lake, which it continued to supply as the years passed, keeping as a lake for a time what had been first an arm of the gulf, then a dry basin hundreds of feet below the sea level, then a lake, then dry land again, but how often this region al- ternated between being lake and dry land no one knows.
It is assumed the Indians occupied the basin while dry, which will explain their tradition that after they had lived there many years they were driven out by the floods. This may have happened many times be- fore another flood epoch came and built a new dam across the Alamo channel, which closed the fresh water supply, and the Salton Sea again dried up until it was filled by accident in 1905 through a miscalculation of the Southern California Improvement Company's constructing en- gineer as to what might be expected of the Colorado River, giving the modern world the opportunity to see Nature at work. But while the cut made by the Southern California Improvement Company was responsi- ble for the divergence of the river primarily, scientists believe from the behavior of the river since that it would have happened from natural causes shortly, anyway. But what was of no particular moment in pre- historic times became a calamity when the basin was occupied by rail- roads, farms, orchards and homes. Hence at the present time all the in- genuity of man is being brought to bear upon the problem of curbing the riotous Colorado and making it return to its former channel.
The land formed by the deposit from the river was exceedingly rich, but unfortunately, except for flood waters, extremely dry, the annual rainfall, as before stated, averaged only about 81/2 inches, and it pre- sented all the aspects of a desert land.
The Colorado Desert, which is the local name given by Prof. Blake in 1853 to that portion of the great Sonorian Desert which lies between Parker, Arizona, and Picacho, California, a long, narrow strip of coun- try containing not less than 500,000 acres of alluvial soil, needing only
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water to make it fertile. The temperature registers as low as 17 degrees, and occasionally in summer as high as 125 degrees. In the cool of the morning the air is very stimulating and invigorating, but the heat of the afternoon is intense and exhausting. The rainy season is from Decem- ber to February, but sometimes there are showers in the heart of sum- mer.
EARLY EXPEDITIONS
The region around the Gulf of California and the Colorado Valley was visited by many of the earlier adventurers who in the interest of Spain were seeking places of colonization and conquest, and incidentally some of the vast wealth supposed to be possessed by the original owners of the soil. In 1539 Cortez sent an expedition, consisting of three vessels, up the waters of the gulf, which at that time was supposed to be a long strait leading to the North Sea, and Lower California was supposed to be an island.
Ulloa was the leader of the expedition, and when he found his way barred by the deposits of a huge river, and alarmed by the rushing wa- ter of the "Bore," he returned without exploring it. In 1540 Alarçon was sent up the Gulf by Mendoza, the Spanish Viceroy, to explore, and later joined the land expedition under Coronado, who started overland about the same time. They were looking for the seven cities of Cibola, which were believed to possess fabulous wealth. Marcos, a Franciscan monk, inspired by the tales he heard from the Indians about these cities, started to investigate, and sent Estaban, a negro, ahead to reconnoiter. The latter, however, was captured and killed at the first Pueblo village, and Marcos, in terror of his life, fled with only a distant glimpse of the coveted cities. This did not prevent his giving Coronado, then governor of New Gallicia, a glowing account of their beauty and vast wealth, drawing on a lively imagination for what he lacked in actual experience and knowledge. Coronado lost no time in taking Marcos to Mexico, where Mendoza organized the two expeditions to hunt up these wonder- ful towns and appropriate their possessions.
Alarcon left his vessel at the mouth of the river and traveled upward for about sixteen miles. He discovered several harbors not seen by Ul- loa, and also discovered that the natives were ignorant of most of the names supposedly characteristic of the region, that Marcos had given,
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and it began to dawn upon him that the good father was a romancer of considerable skill and fluency. However, the natives themselves told marvelous tales of things to be seen inland, but no news of Coronado, so Alarcon returned to his vessel. A little later he again ascended the river about 85 leagues, according to his estimate, but probably much less when we consider the winding course of the river. He left letters for Diaz at the foot of a large cross, and Diaz, who came by land to the spot, claimed the distance to be about 15 leagues. Diaz and his men are supposed to be the first white men to walk on the Colorado Desert.
After reading Alarcon's letter, Diaz followed the course of the river for nearly a week, then crossed over on rafts, owing to the hostility of the natives, undoubtedly the Yumas, who even now consider the white man a trespasser. They consented to help Diaz cross the river, thinking this would give them an opportunity to separate the party and then de- stroy them. Diaz, however, was sufficiently alert to meet them on their own ground ; becoming suspicious, one of the Indians was subjected to torture until he admitted the plot. In the engagement which followed Diaz by his superior weapons was able to drive the Indians back into the mountains, but four days wandering in the desert was enough for him and he was glad to leave further exploration to others.
In 1604 Juan de Onate went from San Juan de los Caballeros, a small town near the present location of Santa Fe, toward the west. He crossed New Mexico and left his autograph chiseled on a rock called El Moro. He went up the Colorado to tidewater and returned in April, 1605. He was the last known white man to visit the region until the missions were established.
All the early maps represent California as an island, and the Gulf of Mexico as a strait extending nearly to 50 degrees north latitude, and Sir Francis Drake named it New Albion, supposing it to be an island separate from the Spanish New World; this error was perpetuated in the English maps as late as 1721, although Father Kino and his asso- ciates show by his map of about 1700 that they understood California was a peninsula and that the Colorado River was responsible for the land formed at the head of the gulf. According to one historian, Father Consag, or Sontag, made the first survey of the gulf in 1746. He passed up the western side of the gulf in small boats and reached the mouth of the Colorado, the land around which, he said, was low
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and swampy, red in color, and so soft that his men could not stand on it. After the Franciscans had established five missions in Upper Cali- fornia, or "Alta California," as it was called to distinguish it from the Peninsula, it was found to be a long and tedious trip between them and the Sonora missions the way they had to go (i. e., by way of the gulf and up the Peninsula), and the missionaries of Northern Sonora made several attempts to reach them by crossing the Colorado River, particularly Francisco Garces and the Jesuit Father Kino, who were very persevering in their efforts, and Garces finally succeeded in cross- ing the river and penetrating the desert for some distance, but without any results worth mentioning.
. At this time there were no white men in California except at the missions, and the whole region was one of desolation. The first Chris- tian to make the trip across the desert was Sebastian, an Indian who had run away from the San Gabriel mission with his parents and wife, and crossed over to the Presidio of Tubac, about forty miles south of what is now Tucson, Arizona. He had roamed far into the eastern part of the desert to avoid being captured by soldiers and returned as a deserter. His family all died either from hardships or were killed by hostile Indians. It is certain Sebastian crossed the desert to Yuma where he was taken by natives to the Pima and Papago country and there met Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, who was a very gallant officer, at that time commandant of the Presidio of Tubac, and who had long been anxious to have a part in the colonization of California. Bu- careli, the viceroy, was finally induced to give him a license to explore the country from Tubac to the California missions, and find a conveni- ent and practical route for travelers to and from the missions. He started in January, 1774, with Sebastian for guide and Padres Garces and Font as his spiritual guides, and an escort of 34 men, 140 horses and 65 cattle. Reaching the river, de Anza made friends with Palma, chief of the Yuma Indians, who went with him across the river and as far as a lagoon to the southwest, a body of water left by the last Colo- rado overflow. After Palma returned, De Anza wandered for six days in a region devoid of water and grass, and so desolate and barren that he returned to Palma for help. It is not known positively where he was during those six days, but if the lagoon to the southwest of Yuma was below the Mexican line there is reason to believe he was in what is now
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known as the Imperial Valley. Palma proved amenable to persuasion, and giving De Anza directions as to the proper path from one water hole to another, followed with the baggage, horses and cattle, and they thus had very little difficulty in making their way over the sand hills and into the Salton Basin, until they reached the San Gorgonio pass (which they called Puerto de San Carlo), over the Santa Ana River to San Gabriel. De Anza then went on to Monterey and sent Padre Garces back to the Colorado River to await his return. He stayed in Monterey three days and then returned, following Garces' trail.
This journey of a thousand miles over untrod desert being successful, a second one was taken over the same route in 1775. This consisted of 240 people and over a thousand horses, mules, sheep, etc., and they went from Tubac to San Francisco. They evidently experienced unusual weather, for De Anza's diary tells of continued storms of rain, hail and snow, accompanied by extremely low temperature. However, while many were sick, none died, although many were women ; and eight des- ert-born infants raised their number to 248.
The route which these two expeditions covered was used for a num- ber of years. In 1780 Garces established two mission pueblos at Yuma, but Palma's influence was not enough to overcome the antagonism the Yumas always had for the traveler, and in June, 1781, Riviera, who had been governor of both Upper and Lower California, stopped at Yuma with a party of colonists he was taking to Los Angeles. He crossed the Colorado, and after sending his party on across the desert, camped on the east bank with twelve men. On Tuesday, July 17th, the Indians attacked the two Pueblos and Riviera and his soldiers and killed forty- six of them, including Riviera. The massacre was discovered by Ensign Limon, who had escorted the settlers to San Gabriel. He was on his way back with nine men, when some desert natives told him of the outbreak. He left two men in charge of his animals and went forward to investigate ; there the charred ruins of the buildings and the dead bodies lying about told their own story. While he was reconnoitering he was himself attacked, and he and eight men wounded. Starting to return to San Gabriel, he found the men he had left with the horses also killed. He with difficulty made his way back to San Gabriel with his bad news. In an attempt to punish the Yumas two forces were sent out at differ- ent times, one from Sonora and one from California, but as their efforts
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were but half-hearted, all they succeeded in doing was to further embit- ter the Yumas against the white man without particularly impressing them with his authority and power. As a result there was a practical abandonment of the new route, although it was occasionally used.
In 1782 Don Pedro Fages made the first trip from the Colorado to San Diego. In 1783 an attempt was made to follow the same route, but the party only went as far as the mountains and returned. The route was too difficult and few ever used it until the United States army of the west under Kearny came through in 1847, after which it became the southern route for the gold seekers.
The first English-speaking man to look upon the Colorado Desert was probably Lieutenant Hardy of the British Royal Navy, who led an expedition sent out by England in 1800 hoping to find a river ascending from the Gulf of California far into the interior of the great northwest navigable for a sufficient distance to make it a commercial highway into the interior. The river he discovered, however, was a narrow, shallow and sluggish stream, and with much difficulty he succeeded in passing the sand bars and low islands in the mouth, and finally entered a small lake. Not understanding the conditions he found, he landed and climbed a butte several hundred feet high which was washed by the waters of the lake to investigate. To the far north as far as the eye could reach stretched a barren and sun-blistered desert. The river of which he had expected such great things, was spread out over immense marshes. In his report he stated that the Colorado was not navigable. He manifestly was not in the channel which until 1906 was known as the Colorado River, but in one which ran from Volcano Lake to the gulf and which has since been known as Hardy's Colorado, or sometimes the Hardy River. Geographers have believed all these years that Hardy overlooked the entrance to the real Colorado, but since that erratic stream has deserted its bed, and is flowing across the marshes into Rio Paradones, thence into Volcano Lake and out to the gulf by way of the Hardy, they are inclined to believe it was doing the same at the time of Hardy's expedition, as he could hardly have helped seeing the channel it had occupied for years.
In 1807 Johnathan Trumbull, a native of Connecticut, but known in California as Juan Jose Warner, took an expedition to Santa Fe, and soon after with Jackson, Waldo and Young, left for California. They
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crossed the Colorado below the Gila, and thence across the desert to San Diego via San Luis Rey. Warner engaged in various mercantile ven- tures in Los Angeles, and having become a naturalized Mexican citizen, was given a grant of land covering a ranch which still bears his name, to which he moved in 1844 with his family, remaining thirteen years, when they were driven off by an Indian uprising.
About this time the American statesmen were awakening to the com- mercial value of the west and to try to save it for the United States. Mexico now being independent was the nominal owner of the Spanish possessions in the southwest, but was too far away to hold a very tight rein. It was clear to any thinker that some stronger government would soon appropriate them. Both France and Great Britain were known to be just awaiting an excuse. Senator Benton of Missouri, the gateway of the west, from the reports of the possibilities of the country beyond, was most anxious to obtain it for his own country. However, his fore- sight was not shared by his colleagues who debated the matter in Con- gress with arguments which in the light of succeeding events seem to us very laughable. Petty politics also interfered. Finally, through Ben- ton's efforts, John C. Fremont, a young engineer, was put in charge of an expedition whose secret intent was the occupation of the west by the United States. But even when he was ready to start petty politics inter- fered, and his wife, who was a daughter of Senator Benton (Jessie), intercepted and withheld the order, delaying them until the expedition was beyond reach, rather than see the fruit of her father's and hus- band's work lost by political filibustering. We probably owe it to her that California is one of the United States instead of a French or Eng- lish colony, as Fremont was accidentally turned into California and his reports roused the whole country.
In 1846 the Americans in Southern California, which was then part of the Mexican possessions, urged the government to send troops to protect them from the insults and depredations of an organized gang of Mexican bandits. Fort Leavenworth was the nearest fort to the coast, and the route between was little used and full of hardships, but as complaints and petitions were becoming more frequent, in June an order was issued to send a column of cavalry under Colonel Philip Kearny to their relief, with directions to proceed by the shortest route to San Diego. The war department asked that officers from the engi-
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neering department be sent along to take observations. Lieutenant Emory and two assistants were appointed for this end of the expedi- tion. They followed the old trail between the mouth of the Gila and San Diego. Some captured Mexicans informed them the waters of the lake some 30 or 40 miles away were too salty to use, but because other information did not tally with this statement they disbelieved it, and continued on their way. They found it even worse than the Mexican had said, and searching parties were sent out to locate a running stream which they said they had found a league west. Lieutenant Emory's re- ports were complete and detailed-he speaks, for instance, of reaching "an immense level of clay hard and smooth as a bowling green," which it is quite likely was the present site of the City of Imperial. He also noted the shells in the desert, and Captain A. A. Johnson, who was with him, was probably the first to realize that the desert was the bed of a departed body of water, for he wrote: "At a not distant day this place which is now a dry desert was a permanent lake." They make no men- tion of the fact that the desert was below the sea level, which is a sur- prising oversight considering the completeness of their notes.
Kearny's party reached San Diego early in 1847 and engaged with the Mexicans there and later at Los Angeles, where the American flag was planted to stay.
Kearny's party was followed by another; a company of Mormons expelled from Nauvoo, Illinois, were formed into a company consisting of 500 men of all ages, under Captain St. George Cook, known as the "Mormon Battalion." After many and extreme hardships, and ham- pered by a wagon train, for which they were obliged to hew the rocks to make a path wide enough to let them through the canyon at San Felipe, they reached Los Angeles.
The Mexican war resulted in the seizure of California and New Mex- ico and the purchase of Arizona. The treaties of Guadeloupe Hidalgo and the Gadsen Purchase stipulated that the boundary line between Mexico and the United States should be jointly explored and run, and in 1850 to 1853 John Russell Bartlett and assistants did the work for the United States and the route they followed was from San Diego to Yuma by way of San Pasqual (Warner's ranch ) and San Felipe, thence by Cameron Lake to the Colorado River.
Some time before gold was discovered in California a General Ander-
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son of Tennessee went from Tucson to California, and on reaching the Colorado built a ferry boat to transport his party and equipment. After- ward he gave this boat to the Yuma Indians with a certificate by which they held possession as long as they would ferry Americans across the river at the rate of one dollar per man, one for his horse or mule and one for his pack, but would forfeit it when they failed to keep this rate. The Indians were faithful to this contract and for some time operated the ferry at the lower crossing, some four or five miles below Yuma. But with the rush of adventurers to the gold fields the white men looked with covetous eye on a business they knew would prove a gold mine it- self, and this caused the first trouble with the Indians. Dr. Lincoln, said to be a relative of President Lincoln, seeing the possibilities of the ferry run by an American and not wishing to interfere with the Indians, es- tablished one at the junction of the Gila and Colorado. It proved very profitable, and he had a number of men working for him. One of them, a man named Glanton, quickly acquired a dominating influence in the business. Until his advent there had been no conflict between the In- dians and Dr. Lincoln, but Glanton determined to drive the Indians out of business, and is said to have destroyed the Indians' boat and mur- dered a white man working for them. This treatment infuriated the na- tives, who never had been very friendly to the whites, and it resulted in the murder of the white men at the ferry and the determination on the part of the Indians to kill every American they met. As a large party of immigrants was expected shortly, Governor Burnett, for their protec- tion and the punishment of the Yumas, ordered the sheriff of San Diego to enroll 20 men, and the sheriff of Los Angeles 40, to be placed under the command of General Bean of the State militia and proceed at once to the scene of the trouble. General Bean placed the command in the hands of General Moorhead, but the expedition did no good whatever, but sent in a tremendous expense account, so in the following November Fort Yuma was established for the protection of that part of the country, and Major Heintzel was put in command. Under his authority a party left San Diego in May, 1850, fully equipped to build and run boats at Lincoln's ferry. After a few years of successful operation, the ferry line was sold to Diego Yeager, who made a fortune out of it before the building of the Southern Pacific Railway, after which it ceased to be so profitable.
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