''Colorado'', second of its name on the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

, was a

stern-wheel A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wh ...

paddle-steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wh ...

, rebuilt from the original ''

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

'' was the fifth steamboat on the Colorado River. It was first put on the river in December 1862. At the end of its service life the first ''

's'' hull was dismantled in April, 1862. Its engine and boiler were removed and used to equip the new, larger stern-wheel ''Colorado'' that was built for the George A. Johnson & Company in San Francisco by John G. North a well known builder of steamboats in California. Scott, Erving M. and Others, ''Evolution of Shipping and Ship-Building in California, Part II'', Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Volume 25, February 1895, p. 125
/ref> It was assembled and launched under the guns of

Fort Yuma Fort Yuma was a fort in California located in Imperial County, across the Colorado River from Yuma, Arizona. It was established in 1848. It served as a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route from 1858 until 1861. The fort was retired from ...

, in Arizona City, for fear of an attack by

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

raiders. Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978
The new ''Colorado'' was equipped with the old ''Colorados 80 horsepower steam engine, it was a 179-ton boat slightly larger than the older boat, 145 feet long and with a 29-foot beam. Captained by Stephen Thorne, the ''Colorado II'' remained on the river until it was dismantled in 1882.

References

External links

Steamboat Landing and Ferry at Fort Yuma. The "Colorado II." 1865
from Huntington Digital Library, hdl.huntington accessed July 25, 2015. Note mast in foreground for the ferry, It was for raising the tow cable out of the way of the steamboat stacks. Steamboats of the Colorado River Stern-wheel steamboats of California Merchant ships of the United States Ships built in San Francisco 1862 ships {{California-transport-stub