Explorer (sternwheeler)

Explorer was a small custom made stern-wheel steamboat used by Second lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives to carry the U. S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers expedition to explore the Colorado River above Fort Yuma in 1858.^{[1]:14,16-23,162}

Built at Philadelphia on the Delaware River in 1857, at the direction of Lt. Ives, the Explorer was an iron hulled, stern-wheel paddle steamer. It was 54 feet long and 13 feet wide and drew 33 inches of water but left only 6 inches of freeboard when loaded. Ives had it launched and tested on the Delaware before having it disassembled and shipped to Panama, transported by rail across the Isthmus to the Pacific and shipped again up to the Colorado River Delta where it arrived November 30. There Ives oversaw its reassembly and launch on December 30, 1857 at Robinson's Landing, Baja California. David C. Robinson, owner of the landing and a pilot for George Alonzo Johnson, was captain of the boat.^{[1] :14,16-17,162}

After Ives used the Explorer to ascend the Colorado River he sent it back to Fort Yuma with Richardson. There it was put up for auction and sold to George A. Johnson for $1000. He had its engine and paddle wheel removed and used it for a barge to carry firewood to steamboat landings. In 1864 it broke free from it moorings at Pilot Knob and was carried away 60 miles down river into the Delta and lost. Its wreck was found in 1929, by a survey party, in a dried up slough miles away from the new course of the river. A mere skeleton remained, its iron plates long ago removed to make comales for baking tortillas.^[1]:23

Reference

External links

• Ives's steamboat, the Exþlorer, commanded by Captain Robinson, steaming upriver past Chimney Peak, in 1858]. From a lithograph by expedition artist Balduin Möllhausen, from southwestexplorations.com accessed 12/25/2014.