Topock ( Mojave: Tuupak) (pronounced ''/'Toe-pock'/'' by locals) is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

(CDP) in

Mohave County Mohave County is in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is the fifth largest county in the United St ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population within the CDP was 2. Topock and the surrounding region have a ZIP Code of 86436; in 2010, the population of the 86436 ZCTA was 2,104, almost all of whom live in the Golden Shores CDP to the north. Topock lies between

Bullhead City Bullhead City is a city located on the Colorado River in Mohave County, Arizona, United States, south of Las Vegas, Nevada, and directly across the Colorado River from Laughlin, Nevada, whose casinos and ancillary services supply much of the em ...

and

Lake Havasu City Lake Havasu City (, ) is a city in Mohave County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 57,144, up from 52,527 in 2010. It is served by Lake Havasu City Airport. History The community first started as an ...

and southeast of

Needles, California Needles is a city in San Bernardino County, California, in the Mojave Desert region of Southern California. Situated on the western banks of the Colorado River, Needles is located near the Californian border with Arizona and Nevada. The city is a ...

, on the California–Arizona border. It is known for being a boating town as well as being home to the Old Trails Arch Bridge which used to be the old Route 66 bridge featured in the film ''

The Grapes of Wrath ''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize ...

''. The crossings 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 ...

at Topock, including the Old Trails Arch Bridge, are also featured prominently in the opening credits of the movie ''

Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...

''. Topock Marina is located just off

I-40 Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west Interstate Highway running through the south-central portion of the United States. At a length of , it is the third-longest Interstate Highway in the country, after I-90 and I-80. From west to ea ...

on Historic Route 66. Situated on the Colorado River between Needles and Lake Havasu City, the marina is the traditional refueling point for boaters traveling between these two cities. Topock is the site of one of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)'s recompression stations on its super-rich natural gas pipeline from

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

completed in 1930.

Demographics

History

Topock-Old US Highway 66 (Route 66) underpass-1945

Topock was originally called Mellen, a

railroad station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

and

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

landing, at the site where the

Atlantic and Pacific Railroad The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad was a U.S. railroad that owned or operated two disjointed segments, one connecting St. Louis, Missouri with Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the other connecting Albuquerque, New Mexico with Needles in Southern Californi ...

built the

Red Rock Bridge The Red Rock Bridge was a bridge across the Colorado River at Topock, Arizona that carried the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. It was built in 1890, replacing a wooden bridge dating to 1883 that was repeatedly washed out during spring flooding. It ...

, a

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

cantilever bridge A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end (called cantilevers). For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beam (structure), beams; however, large cantilever ...

across the Colorado River in May 1890 after three of its earlier less well-built bridges had been washed away by the river upstream at a poorly chosen site at Eastbridge, southeast of

. The town was named for Captain "Jack" Mellon, a 40-year veteran Colorado River steamboat captain and an owner of the

Colorado Steam Navigation Company Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

, though it was misspelled as "Mellen".US 66 Photo Gallery Needles and the Colorado River
from gbcnet.com accessed 11/1/2114. From 1903 to 1909 Mellen had its own post office.John and Lillian Theobald, ''Arizona Territory Post Offices & Postmasters'', The Arizona Historical Foundation, Phoenix, 1961.

Topock PG&E compressor station

PG&E began delivering natural gas to

and northern California in 1930 through the longest pipeline in the world, connecting the Texas gas fields to northern California with compressor stations that included compressor stations with cooling towers every , at Topock, Arizona, on the state line, and near the town of Hinkley, California. Today there is a network of eight compressor stations linked by "40,000 miles of distribution pipelines and over 6,000 miles of transportation pipelines" serving "4.2 million customers from Bakersfield to the Oregon border." In the 1950s and 1960s, at both Topock and Hinkley compressor stations,

hexavalent chromium Hexavalent chromium (chromium(VI), Cr(VI), chromium 6) is chromium in any chemical compound that contains the element in the +6 oxidation state (thus hexavalent). Virtually all chromium ore is processed via hexavalent chromium, specifically the ...

in the form of an additive was used in rust-prevention in "the cooling towers that prepared the gas for transportation through PG&E's pipeline to northern and central California." These cooling waters were then disposed of "adjacent to the compressor stations." Topock Compressor Station is located in eastern

San Bernardino County, California San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the ...

, approximately southeast of Needles, along the

. In 1996 following the

Hinkley groundwater contamination From 1952 to 1966, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) dumped about 370 million gallons (1,400 million litres) of chromium-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California, located in the ...

lawsuits related to the dumping of hexavalent chromium, PG&E began "an investigation and cleanup process governed by the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). PG&E continues to provide reports on their soil investigation and remedial activities at the Topock compressor station site regarding potential future impacts to the Colorado River and to Arizona's groundwater.

References

External links

Construction of Red Rock Cantilever Bridge nearing completion in 1890. Below Needles.
from hdl.huntington.org Huntington Digital Library, accessed June 30, 2015.
Building of the Topock Bridge. The steamer is the "Gila."
from hdl.huntington.org Huntington Digital Library, accessed June 30, 2015.
Train crossing completed bridge at Red Rock Cantilever Bridge.
from hdl.huntington.org Huntington Digital Library, accessed June 30, 2015. {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Mohave County, Arizona Communities in the Lower Colorado River Valley Lower Colorado River Valley Unincorporated communities in Arizona Arizona populated places on the Colorado River

Demographics

History

Topock PG&E compressor station

See also

References

External links