While in Arizona we stayed in Yuma, Parker, and Lake Havasu City – all on the Colorado River. Below are some photos of the river.
Colorado River
South-Western Arizona History
We have been in south-western Arizona for the past month. Arizona has many historic locations.
While we were in Yuma we visited the Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Historic Park. At this location supplies (food, clothing, ammunition) was stored for US Army forts in the Southwest.
Yuma is also the location of historic Yuma Territorial Prison. All the Arizona bad guys in the late 1800s were jailed at this prison.
Tombstone Arizona was one of the Wild West boom towns. Silver mines allowed the town to grow and prosper during the late 1800s. It was also the location of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral.
In 1958 Robert McCulloch (of McCulloch chainsaws) purchased a bunch of land on the shore of Lake Havasu along Pittsburgh Point. This area became Lake Havasu City in 1963. Between 1968 and 1971 the London Bridge (actual bridge that crossed the Thames River in London) was disassembled, shipped to Arizona and re-assembled in Lake Havasu city. A canal was dug transforming the Pittsburgh Point peninsula into an island and the reconstructed bridge crosses that canal from the mainland to the island.
Another part of Arizona history is historic route 66. Oatman, AZ is an old mining town on route 66. Due to the mining history of this area there are large numbers of wild burros, descendants of the burros that were used for mining operations.
Blooming Desert Parks in Southwest
During the past month we visited a number of national parks in the desert southwest: Big Bend National Park in Texas, Saguaro National Park in Arizona, and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona. We lucked out with timing of these visits. There was an unusually high amount of rain over the winter which has made the desert turn green with an abundance of wildflowers.
And the landscape that is so different from the northeast is spectacular.
