Port Isabel

Mexico / Baja California / Estaciyn Coahuila /

As best I can tell, Port Isabel is somewhere in here, but darned if I can find it . . . .
Picture is of a schooner discharging cargo into what appears to be Barge No. 1 and the "Mohave I" at Port Isabel.

Port Isabel was the port where ocean going vessels transferred their cargo to paddlewheel river boats for transport up the Colorado River. The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in Yuma in 1877 signaled the end of Port Isabel. Trade by sea was replaced with cargo carried by rail. Yuma then became the head of navigation for steamboats operating on the river. Port Isabel was abandoned in 1879.

"At the mouth of the river the steamboatmen had finally located a safe harbor, Port Isabel, for transferring passengers and freight. It was a slough which opened into the gulf a few miles east of the mouth of the Colorado. Sam Adams claimed that he and Trueworthy had discovered the slough in 1864, but it took its name from the schooner Isabel - captained by William H. Pierson - which first ventured into the slough in the spring of 1865. Three miles up the slough from the gulf the tidal bore was much less severe than on the Colorado, so seagoing vessels could anchor in relative safety while they transferred their freight to the barges. In 1867 the barge White Fawn was lengthened and moored in the slough as a wharf boat. "
Steamboats on the Colorado River, by Richard Lingenfelter pg 51
www.ansac.az.gov/UserFiles/PDF/08182014/X028_FMIBurtell...

In her quite good book "Salt Dreams: Land and Water in Low-Down California" Joan Myers has a couple of photos she took of what remains of Port Isabel. Alas, photos are not available in the free preview here:
books.google.com/books?id=DnQ_v6LEgEcC&lpg=PA121&dq=New...
From the photos, appears there are still some remnants of the port remaining.

Pic & info about Colorado River boats here:
fire.biol.wwu.edu/trent/alles/TheDelta.pdf
at pg 9
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   31°47'24"N   114°41'7"W

Comments

  • Anybody know if you can visit this place? The road in from the north looks like it might have a gate across it . . .
This article was last modified 7 years ago