h
to heighten the reputation of the little city, which sometimes still has
applied to it the distinction of being the hottest place in the United
States. This, however, is scarcely correct, as many places in the
Southwest--Needles in California, and the Imperial Valley are
examples--have often demonstrated higher temperatures than have ever
been known at Yuma. A summer at the little Colorado River town is quite
hot enough, however, to please the most tropical savage. It may be
remarked here, in justice to the rest of the State, that the temperature
of Yuma is not typical of Arizona as a whole. In the region I now live
in--the Sonoita Valley in the southeastern part of the State, and in
portions around Prescott, the summer temperatures are markedly cool and
temperate.

Yuma, however, is not famed for its temperature alone; in fact, that
feature of its claim to notice is least to be considered. The real
noteworthy fact about Yuma from a historical point of view is that, as
Arizona City, it was one of the earliest-settled points in the Territory
and was at first easily the most important. The route of the major
portion of the Forty-Niners took them across the Colorado River where
Fort Yuma was situated on the California side; and the trend of
exploration, business and commerce a few years later flowed westward to
Yuma over the picturesque plains of the Gadsden Purchase. The famous
California Column ferried itself across the Colorado at Yuma, and later
on the Overland Mail came through the settlement. It is now a division
point on the Southern Pacific Railway, just across the line from
California, and has a population of three or four thousand.

At the time I first saw the place there was only Fort Yuma, on the
California side of the river, and a small settlement on the Arizona side
called Arizona City. It had formerly been called Colorado City, but the
name was changed when the town was permanently settled. There were two
ferries in operation at Yuma when our company arrived there, one of them
run by the peaceable Yuma Indians and the other by a company headed by
Don Diego Jaeger and Hartshorne. Fort Yuma had been established in 1851
by Major Heintzelman, U.S.A., but owing to scurvy (see De Long's history
of Arizona) and the great difficulty in getting supplies, the Colorado
River being then uncharted for traffic, it was abandoned and not
permanently re-established until a year later, when Major Heintzelman
returned from