Camp Gaston, sometimes called Fort Gaston is a former U. S. Army camp, that was located 3 miles west of the old original course 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 watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

south of modern

Palo Verde, California Palo Verde ( Spanish for "Green Stick"; Mojave: ''Hanyomalivah'') is a census-designated place (CDP) in Imperial County, California. Its name comes from the native desert tree, Palo Verde (Parkinsonia florida), which in turn takes its name from ...

Imperial County Imperial Count (german: Reichsgraf) was a title in the Holy Roman Empire. In the medieval era, it was used exclusively to designate the holder of an imperial county, that is, a fief held directly ( immediately) from the emperor, rather than from ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, near Milpitas Wash Road. It was 80 miles (130 km) up river from Fort Yuma, and was active between 1859 and 1867. Camp Gaston on the Colorado River is not to be confused with the

Fort Gaston Fort Gaston was founded on December 4, 1859, in the redwood forests of the Hoopa Valley, in Northern California, on the west bank of the Trinity River, from where the Trinity flows into the Klamath River. It was located in what is now the Hoopa ...

, located in the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation on the Trinity River in Northern California from 1859 to 1892. The northern Fort Gaston was for a short time officially designated as Camp Gaston from 1866 to early 1867 before being re-designated as Fort Gaston.

History

Camp Gaston was first established in April 1859, as an advance base for two companies of the 6th Infantry, part of the 2nd Mohave Expedition during the

Mohave War The Mohave War was an armed conflict between the Mohave people and the United States from 1858 to 1859. With the California Gold Rush of 1849, thousands of American settlers headed west through Mohave country and into California. The influx of m ...

. Subsequently it remained as an outpost of

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 o ...

, intermittently until 1867. It was located along the

in what is now the Palo Verde Valley, 80 miles by steamboat up the

from

and 45 miles by land, on the west bank of the river in

. Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978

References

{{Imperial County, California 1859 establishments in California Closed installations of the United States Army Camp Gaston Lower Colorado River Valley History of the Mojave Desert region