Yuma History

More than 150 years ago, the first steamboats rolled down the Colorado River with supplies to an Army outpost in California known as Fort Yuma.

"People in the 1850s said if we can get supplies here, they could live here," said Megan Reid, director of the Arizona Historical Society in Yuma. "A community started on the other side of the river in Arizona. Eventually the fort closed and the city continued, because the river was the transportation hub. All your supplies that came from California would be brought up the river and, by wagon, taken to Tucson or Phoenix or wherever."

That hub on the Colorado River has grown into the city of almost 100,000 people Yuma residents know today.

Sitting on the dividing line between California and the U.S.-Mexico national border, as well as the borders with the Quechan and Cocopah American Indian tribes, Yuma has always served as a gateway to other states and nations.

"Every border community is influenced by the other side of the border," said Miguel Escobar Valdez, the Mexican consul in Yuma. "An added culture so nearby and the influx of other nations coming down here, buying things and making the economy work ... it has to be of great value."

Yuma is also home to America's armed forces, with both Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground serving as major economic and population centers for the city.

Combined with the region's rich agricultural history, thriving tourism market and expanding retail and industrial economies, Yuma is a city at a crossroads of keeping up with new growth and maintaining the history that built it.

"All aspects of the economy are important here that have contributed to growth but agriculture has been here the longest, I would say," said John Boelts, president of the Yuma County Farm Bureau. "And hopefully it's here to stay. As long as we have water, it'll be here."

Yuma agriculture brings in about $3 billion a year, according to Boelts.

In addition to that, the hotels in the city are often at 95 percent occupancy and Mayor Larry Nelson said the construction of more is on the horizon.

Nelson said the Yuma Palms Regional Center has served as a retail anchor, drawing business into the community. He said the planned events center - which includes a hockey arena - and a water park resort in that area should only increase that draw.

A planned General Motors test track on the horizon at YPG will bring 200 more jobs into the community, many of them in high-paying technical fields.

"I think the face of Yuma 10 years from now is going to be so much larger than it is now that it's pretty hard to comprehend it," Nelson said. "It's going to be a dynamic time for Yuma. Probably one of the most dynamic times in our history."