Hysterical Journey to Historic Places

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LA PAZ

Pauline Weaver, that old fur trapper, trader, scout, prospector and scamp discovered gold nuggets in a wash on the Arizona side of the Colorado River in January of 1862. Those nuggets triggered the Colorado River Gold Rush. A bustling community of 1500 soon popped up in the wash like a wildflower after a rain. The town came to be known as La Paz and was the largest gathering of people in the state. It was booming and rich and between 1864 and 1870 it became the seat of Yuma County. After separate territorial status was finally granted to Arizona in 1863 La Paz was a leading contender for the territorial capitol. While the political hacks were still arguing about it the gold placers at La Paz began to play out. The district had produced about 50000 troy ounces of gold by 1864. The little community got a post office on January 17, 1865 and bravely hung on although little gold was being produced. La Paz was an important link between Fort Whipple and San Bernardino along the Bradshaw Trail and commerce flowed through there supported by the riverboat trade. In 1866 the Colorado River shifted its channel and La Paz was left high and dry. A new town called Ehrenberg popped up like a wildflower six miles down the river to handle the freight. By 1870 the population of La Paz had shrunk to 254 and they had lost the county seat. By March of 1875 the post office closed due to lack of interest. Now it is just another forgotten place in the desert although when the north part of Yuma County decided to split off and form a new county in the 1970s the new county was named La Paz.

The Confederacy launched an invasion on New Mexico in the spring of 1862 just as La Paz burst from the sandy wastes. One of the first things that the Confederate government did was confer its own territorial status to Arizona with Mesilla being the capitol. What the Confederacy most wanted was an all season route to California and it made sense to them that Arizona should be the Gadsden Purchase lands south of the 34^th latitude. New Mexico would occupy the land north of the 34^th latitude between Texas and California. The Confederate territory only lasted from February of 1862 until May of 1862 when Colonel Carleton and his ragtag brigade of California Volunteers drove the rebels out of their stronghold at Tucson. Arizona had become during that short occupation a hotbed of Confederate sympathy. One of the first things that Carleton did was to round up suspected rebels, confiscate their property, and throw them in jail over at Fort Yuma. Sylvester Mowry was at the top of his list of suspects. Another of the jailed suspects was named Frog Edwards. Both Frog and Mowry were released from custody in the spring of 1863 and Mowry came back to Tucson to see about recovering ownership of his rich silver mine. Frog didn’t have a silver mine to go to but he was mightily pissed off about being jailed by federal usurpers in a Confederate territory. He went up the river to La Paz to see about finding some gold. What he found instead, on May 20,1863 was an unarmed detachment of federal soldiers trying to buy supplies at Cohn’s Store. Frog hauled out his revolver and opened up on the soldiers. He killed one of them outright and wounded two others and an innocent bystander before high tailing it out of town. It was a cowardly attack that became known as the La Paz Incident. One of the wounded men died that night and the rest of the soldiers returned to Fort Yuma with the wounded and deceased. Another detachment returned to La Paz to hunt down Frog Edwards. They found him hunkered down in the desert dead as a hammer. He had died from dehydration and exposure. It was a cowardly way to go.

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Photos

LA PAZ MILL
All that is left of La Paz are these old workings. They appear to be the foundations of a stamp mill for liberating gold held in gravel.