Colorado City is a ghost town in what is now

Yuma County, Arizona Yuma County is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 203,881. The county seat is Yuma. Yuma County includes the Yuma, Arizona Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county bor ...

. It was located on the south bank of the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...

Jaeger's Ferry Jaeger's Ferry was a major river ferry at the Yuma Crossing of the Colorado River in the 1850s until 1862, 1 mile below Fort Yuma. Early History of the site Long a crossing point on the river, from the time of Juan Bautista de Anza it was used b ...

, 1 mile down river from

Fort Yuma Fort Yuma was a fort in California located in Imperial County, across the Colorado River from Yuma, Arizona. It was on the Butterfield Overland Mail route from 1858 until 1861 and was abandoned May 16, 1883, and transferred to the Department of ...

. Colorado City was a

land speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many s ...

, surveyed to pay for a ferry crossing fee at Jaeger's Ferry and later sold in San Francisco by

Charles Poston Charles Debrille Poston (April 20, 1825 – June 24, 1902) was an American explorer, prospector, author, politician, and civil servant. He is referred to as the "Father of Arizona" due to his efforts lobbying for creation of the territory. ...

in 1854. It became the site of the U. S.

custom house A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting c ...

, sprang up on the south side of the Colorado River in what is now Arizona, but at that time was just north of the border between Sonora, Mexico and California. After the

Gadsden Purchase The Gadsden Purchase ( es, region=MX, la Venta de La Mesilla "The Sale of La Mesilla") is a region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Mesilla, which took effe ...

it bordered on the

Territory of New Mexico The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of '' Nuevo México'' becoming ...

, that became the

Territory of Arizona The Territory of Arizona (also known as Arizona Territory) was a territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863, until February 14, 1912, when the remaining extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of ...

in 1863. The Colorado City site at the time was duly registered in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, demonstrating that both banks of the Colorado River just below its

confluence In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...

with the Gila were recognized as being within the jurisdiction of California. The

county of San Diego San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...

collected taxes from there for many years. Richard E. Lingenfelter, ''Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852–1916'', University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978
, p. 15 It was destroyed, along with Jaeger City across the river, in the

Great Flood of 1862 The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows in the very high elevations that began in ...

, it was rebuilt on higher ground and became part of Arizona City, later renamed

Yuma, Arizona Yuma ( coc, Yuum) is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. The city's population was 93,064 at the 2010 census, up from the 2000 census population of 77,515. Yuma is the principal city of the Yuma, Arizona, M ...

, in 1873.Thomas Edwin Farish
''History of Arizona'', Volume I
The Filmer Brothers Electrotype Company, San Francisco, 1915. pp. 252–253

References

{{Yuma County, Arizona Ghost towns in Arizona Former populated places in Yuma County, Arizona 1854 establishments in New Mexico Territory