Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/163

 of the company, who used her as an excursion steamer during the eighties and nineties.^^*

"She was really a four-decker forward, since the pilot house was on top of the texas. Her tall jack-staff rose high at the bow, and her stacks climbed nearly forty-five feet above the river. Amidships and aft rose other staffs; on state occasions they were decked with flags, and the white boat was draped with green garlands, which hung in festoons from the trusses and decks, and spiraled up around the staffs.^^^"

Decked out in such an attire she presented a picture which thrilled the heart of every Arizonan. A year earlier the hundred-ton Mohave No. 1 was taken on her final voyage to Port Isabel, where her hull remained for many years. Her machinery was sent to San Francisco and was put aboard the Onward, which was still operating between San Francisco and Stockton in 1878.^^^ The launching of the Mohave No. 2 seems to have been very unpretentious and a little mystifying. On October 30, 1875, the Sentinel announced that a new steamer, the Structure No. 11, had been successfully launched at the mouth of the river on the thirteenth, but it was not until several months later that she received her rightful name, Mohave No. 2.^^^ She had been designed in San Francisco and shipped piecemeal to the mouth of the river. Since it was not known what her name would be, the sections were marked "Structure No. 1 1," although, counting the barges, she was the twelfth to be built on the river by the Colorado Steam Navigation Company. Her misleading title was changed before March 1876.^^^ She was 170 feet long, with a 33-foot beam, and a capacity of 188 tons. With these two new additions, the Gila and the Mohave No. 2, the Colorado Steam Navigation Company continued operations until the coming of the railroad in 1877.^^^

The average life expectancy of Colorado River steamers was approximately ten years, and although some ceased to be useful at the end of seven, others, such as the Cocopah No. 2, Gila., and Mohave No. 2, were in active service for some fourteen to twenty years. The rough usage to which they were subjected made a shipyard indispensable. The first yard was constructed at Yuma in 1862, although boats were assembled at the mouth of the river prior to that time. At Yuma were constructed the Colorado No. 2, the Mohave No. I, and the Cocopah No. 2. In the early seventies a shipyard was constructed at Port Isabel on the California shore near the mouth of the river. Here the Mohave No. 2 and the Gila were launched, and here, too, the constant business of scraping, calking, and painting the "Arizona Fleet" was conducted. The most important single feature of the port was the dry dock. This ingenious device was dependent entirely on the tide for its operation. It consisted of a small, plank-lined basin excavated into the bank at high tide level. Across the end facing the gulf were constructed floodgates to hold or release the water of the dry dock. The tide did the rest. The average range of the gulf tide is about twenty-one feet, although spring tides often reach more than thirty feet. To operate the dock the gates were raised at high tide.