The Colorado River Museum

 Traveling along U.S. Route 95 in Bullhead City, one cannot help but notice the beautiful desert scenery that borders the east shoreline of the Colorado River.

Stop for a moment, and the sights and sounds of this desert community come alive. Walk to the edges of the crystal-blue waters of the Colorado to witness the majesty of the tall, lanky egrets making their way from river stone to river stone. Look up into the sky as a belted kingfisher slows its flapping while making a landing on the strong current of the river. Perhaps, there is a chance to see a pair of osprey spring into the air as a boat rushes close to the shore.

Colorado River looking north toward Davis Dam

The Colorado River in Bullhead City and the gambling mecca of Laughlin across the river is a magical experience. For nature lovers, it is a must. For desert historians, it is a destination.

This naturally carved water artery that begins 1,450 miles north of the Sea of Cortez, meanders - sometimes furiously- through seven states, ending in Arizona before entering Mexico and beyond.

I have traveled the 95 for decades, writing travel articles about this and that. Places that hum with activity and places that can no longer be found on maps. To me, that is one of the joys of traveling. To see places people love to visit and to witness places that people have never heard of or would think of traveling to.

Years ago, I wrote an article about Hardyville, present-day Bullhead City. Some of the folks I interviewed knew its history, some had never heard of it, even though there is a huge mural of Hardyville directly across U.S. Route 95 from the local Stater Bros. market.

U.S. Route 95 is not an interstate. There are stop lights, crosswalks, and pedestrians making their own non-guarded crossing lanes all through the town.

So, recently, while driving through Bullhead City, I decided to stop at the Colorado River Museum. I learned that it was not the Bullhead City Museum since it covered the entirety of the region. They like to share their history with Laughlin, across the river, Fort Mojave, south of Bullhead, Oatman to the southeast, and all points in between.

One of the many exterior displays on exhibit

I had meant to stop by for years. Those years slipped by like a wet noodle on a wet napkin. But I finally stopped, and was glad.

The two docents on duty were Carol and Ray. Both silver-haired, like me, and with that same flame of wanting to keep history alive.

Carol met me at the door and explained the purpose of the Colorado River Museum. “We want people, both locals and visitors, to understand the importance that this town and this river had.”

I nodded. That’s what I do.

The Colorado River is the dammedest in the United States. That is, there are 15 major dams along its waterways, as well as hundreds mixed in with the many tributaries.

There was a time when large barges and steamboats used to chug up and down the Colorado River from various places in present-day Arizona to the Gulf of Mexico, including Bullhead City.

Plaque outside of the Colorado River Museum

There is a great exhibit at the museum depicting the times and sorts of ships that made their way delivering goods for the ranches, farms, and mining towns that existed along the shores. Photos, letters, and delivery receipts adorn the walls near the exhibits. It is fascinating and sad at the same time. What if those dams had not been built? Would large boats still ply the waters of the Colorado River as in the old days?

Then again, dams bring hydroelectricity, which, if it were not available, cities like Las Vegas could not exist. And, you do not want to make Bugsy Segal mad.

An old one-armed bandit from the Riverside Casino

I wandered the museum, which is very well laid out and detailed in facts, and I was fascinated by what I learned.

For example, I did not know that the extremely prolific western writer, Louis L’Amour, who wrote over 100 books, actually worked at the Katherine Mine when he was 18 years old. Katherine Mine was named after the sister of S.C. Baggs, who discovered gold near present-day Bullhead City in 1900.

History of Loui's Lamour in the Colorado River Museum

The boating mecca, Katherine Landing, at Lake Mojave, is the same name for the same gal,

Wandering here and there, I learned a lot from the exhibits and from speaking with Ray and Carol - they are both founts of knowledge.

One-room schoolhouse built in 1946

Ray took me on a tour of the one-room schoolhouse located on the property that was built in 1946. Inside is a perfect replica of what a school day must have been like. Students sitting in their desks, at the ready to learn whatever the teacher in front of the class wanted them to learn, with all sorts of books, drawings, pictures, and American flags flying.

Just like today.

Docent Ray inside the one-room schoolhouse

The school was actually manually moved from where it was originally built, Ray informed me. “It was near Third Avenue, and about five or six years ago, it was moved totally intact without any damage.”

And I cannot move a refrigerator without marring the floor.

The school was only in use for approximately five years. “The town grew too quickly for a one-room schoolhouse.”

When the Davis Dam, just north of Bullhead City, was started in 1942, pausing during World War II, and finished in 1953, the area grew exponentially. Many of the workers and their families decided to stay in the warm climate of the Mojave Desert, along the glistening waters of the Colorado River.

Of course, in 1964, an entrepreneur named Don Laughlin flew over the area and believed a gambling haven might be a good bet.

John R Beyer standing alongside Don Laughlin,

He was right, and the population soared. I sat through a very interesting tale of how one man's dream helped forge two towns on opposite sides of a river that could benefit from each other.

A dreamer whose dreams paid off well.

The Colorado River Museum is a must when traveling near Laughlin, Bullhead City, or any of the nearby cities. It is stocked with artifacts from the mining period, exhibits of the ingenious people who lived there prior to settlers moving in, Davis Dam history, and anything else that a curious - and hopefully we all are- traveller would enjoy.

Enjoy the interior exhibits, the exterior exhibits, but just take a moment to stop and reflect on the history of a couple of towns built along the shores of the Colorado River.

You never know who you will meet at the museum

For more information:

https://coloradoriverhistoricalsociety.org/

John can be contacted at: beyersbyways@gmail.com

Hardyville, AZ

On a recent trip to Bullhead City, Arizona J and L (along with two of their four footed family members) happened onto an old cemetery perched high above the city. It sat just east of the Safeway shopping center and had a spectacular view of the mountains to the west, the Colorado River and the gambling meccas in Laughlin, Nevada.

Overlooking a Safeway and beautiful sunset

A tranquil respite from a tough life in the Mohave Desert

A peaceful and serene patch of land, but aren’t most places where the deceased rest? There was a visitor information sign that read: Hardyville Pioneer Cemetery and the plaque was erected by the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution on November 6, 1999.

Another bronze plaque bolted into a large stone and cement base had a few of the people buried there in the Pioneer Cemetery: Bill Boone – 1866, William Brown – 1866, Thomas Gillan – 1872, and a few others not to be forgotten. It is always a little discomforting thinking about one’s own mortality, especially when in front of a grave yard. These people were alive with dreams and desires just like anyone currently viewing their names except they lived over one hundred and fifty years in the past.

Some of those buried in Hardyville Pioneer Cemetery 

No one is immortal in the physical realm.

So, what was life like so long ago by the shores of the Colorado River in Arizona before this modern era? What was a Hardyville and why this cemetery overlooking the grandeur of the Mohave Desert?

There was research to be completed.

The history of this area roughly 90 miles south of Las Vegas and directly opposite of Laughlin is in Mohave County nestled on the southern border of Lake Mohave. It is now a boater’s paradise with the lake and river close by but what drew people here before speed boats and jet skies were the norm?

In 1540 Spanish explorer Melchor Diaz traveled through the Mohave Desert and met the locals who inhabited the area. The Pipa Aha Macav which meant ‘people by the river’ were friendly to the traveler and it didn’t take much to understand why these people chose this area. Fresh water from the Colorado alive with fish and perfect for agricultural purposes. Eventually with more adventurers coming through the area after reading of Diaz’s exploits the name ‘Aha Macav’ simply shortened to Mojave (also spelled Mohave). It should be noted that the county uses the modern English spelling of ‘Mohave’ but the tribe still spells their name as ‘Mojave’.

William Harrison Hardy

In 1774 Father Francisco Garces crossed the river from what would be Nevada into what would later become Bullhead City. It may have been the first crossing of the wide river by a foreigner in this part of the country.

Years went by and more and more visitors to the region came and went but one gentleman by the name of William Harrison Hardy decided to plant roots in the desert by the river. He began a steamboat enterprise bringing goods to trade up and down the river to small mining camps and larger towns along the river. Hardy ventured into other businesses as well: toll roads, delivering of mail, and other occupations that made him the second richest man in Arizona by 1864 and also the same year as Hardy’s settlement officially adopted the name Hardyville. 

The richest man at this time in Arizona was Edmund William Wells who was a businessman, politician and eventually would serve on the Arizona territorial Supreme Court.

Boats plowed the Colorado River making Hardyville a busy port

Hardy was also an inventor and is credited with creating the first riveted mail sack to be used by the United States Postal Service. A pretty good conception since he was also the first Postmaster General of the town of Hardyville.

As with all good things, Hardyville saw a sharp drop in business in the following twenty years with the coming of the railroads to Yuma, Arizona, the movement of the county seat to Cerbat (an up and coming mining district), and competition with other barge companies on the Colorado River. Soon the railroad got all the way to Needles, California knocking another huge money making opportunity for Hardy and fellow businessmen. Silver prices plummeted and many of the mining operations ceased to exist since it was no longer profitable to mine the ore.

Of course, like most old west towns, fire struck a few times turning much of the small town into cinders. Rebuilt but without the same enthusiasm as there once was left and the town getting smaller and smaller in population left the future a bit uncertain for Hardyville. There wasn't enough work to support a single man let alone a family so most people moved onto where the grass was supposedly greener.

At the turn of the twentieth century Hardyville was a ghost town sitting idle along the beautiful flowing waters of the Colorado River.

William Harrison Hardy left, moving to Yuma to oversee the construction of the territorial prison there and died of cancer in 1906 at his sister's house in Whittier at the age of either 82 or 83 (a bit of a discrepancy on his birth year). He is buried at the Broadway Cemetery in Whittier, California - seems somewhat unfair that he wasn't returned to the town he had founded but fairness isn't always a part of life or death.

With Davis Dam came the modern day tourists

Decades later, an engineering feat called the Bullhead Dam project, named after the 'Bulls Head Rock' formation along the Colorado River in the 1940's changed the area for good. Later renamed the Davis Dam creating the huge Mohave Lake to the north of what was once Hardyville.

With the huge construction project came numerous businesses to support the crews needed to build the dam which was finally completed in 1951. More businesses came into the area in the following years making the area more profitable and the name of Bullhead City came into being in 1953.

The rest is modern history.

Of course, with the development of the gambling mecca of Laughlin, Nevada along the blue waters of the Colorado River employment was no longer an issue. The population on both sides of the river continued to grow to their present sizes.

Laughlin, Nevada - right across from what once was Hardyville

William Harrison Hardy probably would never have dreamed that one day his little venture along a river in a pretty hostile climate would eventually become so well known. No, like those other folks buried int he Hardyville Pioneer Cemetery he didn't live long enough to see his dreams cone to fruition.

Just a fact - life's funny like that sometimes.

So, again - go out and travel and see what you can learn by accident. The explorer may be surprised what is in their own backyard.

For further information on the cemetery:

http://www.apcrp.org/BLOCK_KATHY/HARDYVILLE_II/Hardyville_II_082111.htm