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==History== The earliest inhabitants of the Colorado River Valley were the [[Mojave people]]. The rich soil and plentiful water provided the valley's natives with the necessities to create a prosperous farming community. According to Mojave legend, life began on [[Spirit Mountain (Nevada)|Spirit Mountain]], the highest peak visible from the Bullhead City area.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mojaveindiantribe.com/about/ |title=About Us | Fort Mojave Indian Tribe |publisher=Mojaveindiantribe.com |date=December 5, 2010 |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref> The first account of European contact was with Spanish explorer [[Melchor Díaz]], who in 1540 documented his travels in what is now northwestern Mohave County.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails.php?fileID=472 |title=New Mexico Office of the State Historian: Diaz, Melchior |publisher=Newmexicohistory.org |access-date=January 5, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131010042202/http://www.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails.php?fileID=472 |archive-date=October 10, 2013 }}</ref> He recounts meeting a large population of natives who referred to themselves as the Pipa Aha Macav, meaning "People by the River".<ref name="fortmojave">{{cite web |url=http://mojaveindiantribe.com/about/ |title=About Us – Fort Mojave Indian Tribe |access-date=February 26, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110130085535/http://mojaveindiantribe.com/about/ |archive-date=January 30, 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref> From "Aha Macav" came the shortened name "Mojave" (also spelled "Mohave"). While Mohave County uses the modern English spelling, the tribe retains the traditional Spanish spelling "Mojave". Both are correct, and both are pronounced "Moh-''hah''-vee".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Mojave |title=Mojave | Define Mojave at Dictionary.com |publisher=Dictionary.reference.com |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mojaveindian.com/ |title=Mojave Indian |publisher=Mojave Indian |date=May 2, 2003 |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref> Father [[Francisco Garces]], a [[Franciscan]] missionary and explorer, crossed the Colorado River in the Bullhead City area in 1774.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://anza.uoregon.edu/garces74.html |title=Garces 1774 |publisher=Anza.uoregon.edu |date=October 28, 1999 |access-date=January 5, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111000933/http://anza.uoregon.edu/garces74.html |archive-date=January 11, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> ===Hardyville=== In March 1864, the current site of Bullhead City was the location of a settlement called "Hardyville". It was named for early resident and politician [[William Harrison Hardy]].<ref>{{GNIS|24040|Hardyville (historical)}}</ref> A [[New York (state)|New York]] native and an entrepreneur, Hardy established, with the support of [[George Alonzo Johnson]]'s steamboat company, a ferry service and steamboat landing where the [[Mojave Road]] crossed the Colorado River. He also built and owned the [[Hardyville–Prescott Road]], a toll road from Hardyville to the new Arizona territorial capital of [[Prescott, Arizona|Prescott]], and raised [[Angora goat]]s. He was a colorful and somewhat controversial figure. He was the town's first postmaster from January 17, 1865, and is credited with the invention of the riveted mail sack. He was also a Mohave County supervisor and a member of the [[Arizona Territorial Legislature]].<ref name=Theobald>John and Lillian Theobald, ''Arizona Territory Post Offices & Postmasters'', Arizona Historical Foundation, Phoenix, 1961.</ref>{{rp|104}} In 1864 his personal worth was over $40,000, making him the second-richest man in Arizona. From 1864 to 1883, [[steamboats of the Colorado River|steamboats made regular trips]] up the Colorado River from [[Port Isabel, Sonora|Port Isabel]] in Mexico and, after the arrival of the railroad from [[Yuma, Arizona]], stopping at Hardyville regularly to deliver supplies to the mines of the surrounding mining districts and those to the east in the interior of Arizona and carry out their ore for processing and sale. These [[stern-wheeler]] riverboats played an important part in the early development of the areas bordering the Colorado River, and Hardyville was considered the low water limit of navigation for the steamboats. Steamboat travel above that point to places in like [[El Dorado Canyon (Nevada)|El Dorado Canyon]], [[Callville, Nevada|Callville]] and later [[Rioville, Nevada|Rioville]] was possible only during the few months of the late spring to early summer flood caused by snowmelt in the upper Colorado River watershed. Hardyville was the starting point for wagon roads and pack trails to the mines and other settlements in the upper region of the river. It was also the port for flatboats that ascended the river as far as Callville in the extreme low water time of the year.<ref name=Lingenfelter>Richard E. Lingenfelter, [http://www.ansac.az.gov/UserFiles/PDF/08182014/X028_FMIBurtellLingenfelterSteamboats/FMI%20Lingenfelter%20Steamboats/Steamboats%20on%20the%20Colorado%20River%201852-1916.pdf Steamboats on the Colorado River (PDF)] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160118031332/http://www.ansac.az.gov/UserFiles/PDF/08182014/X028_FMIBurtellLingenfelterSteamboats/FMI%20Lingenfelter%20Steamboats/Steamboats%20on%20the%20Colorado%20River%201852-1916.pdf |date=January 18, 2016 }}, 1852–1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978</ref>{{rp|37–40}} In April 1866, [[Brevet (military)|Brevet]] [[Brigadier General]] [[James Fowler Rusling]] visited the settlement and described it: {{cquote|Hardyville itself was then more of a name than place, consisting chiefly of a warehouse and quartz-mill, with a few adobe shanties. Near Hardyville, some ten or twenty miles away in the outlying mountains, there were several mines—gold, silver and copper—of more or less richness, and the mill was located here to take advantage of the two great essentials, wood and water. The mill, however, was standing idle, like most enterprises in Arizona, and but little was doing in the mines.<ref>[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42706/42706-h/42706-h.htm James F. Rusling, ''Across America, The Great West and the Pacific Coast'', Sheldon & Company, New York, 1874] from gutenberg.org accessed January 29, 2015</ref> {{rp|413–14}}}} Hardyville received a boost in 1867, when it became the county seat of [[Mohave County, Arizona|Mohave County]] and the mills at Eldorado Canyon began operating, stimulating trade up river again. Hardyville had a population of 20 in 1870.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_ewINAAAAIAAJ |quote=1870 population 20. |title=The Handbook to Arizona: Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins, and Scenery. |author=Richard Josiah Hinton |location=San Francisco |publisher=Payot, Upham & Company |year=1878 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_ewINAAAAIAAJ/page/n51 43]}}</ref> The 1870s saw a population boom in Hardyville as mining became more profitable. With the end of hostilities with the Native Americans in Mohave County, mines in the interior boomed again, and the small town later grew with the construction of a general store, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, a billiard hall, and a respectable public hall. However, in 1873, the county seat was moved to the mining boomtown of [[Cerbat, Arizona|Cerbat]]. In 1877, the [[Southern Pacific Railroad]] arrived at Yuma. It bought out Johnson's Colorado Steam Navigation Company, and by 1878 had built rails into [[Maricopa, Arizona|Maricopaville]], resulting in wagon traffic moving to that railhead that was closer to the mines in the northern interior than Hardyville. Traffic on the road to the interior mines of the east from Hardyville waned except for that to Cerbat, [[Mineral Park, Arizona|Mineral Park]], and [[Chloride, Arizona|Chloride]]. In May 1881, [[Issac Polhamus]], captain of one of the Southern Pacific-owned Colorado Steam Navigation Company steamboats, went into competition with Hardy for the trade to those mines, establishing [[Polhamus Landing, Arizona|Polhamus Landing]], a rival landing five miles up river, closer to the mines, taking away most of its river trade. Worse yet, the construction of the [[Atlantic and Pacific Railroad]] to its bridge crossing on the Colorado River near [[Needles, California|Needles]], in May 1883, saw the remaining interior mining trade move away from the Colorado River and Hardyville.<ref name=Lingenfelter/>{{rp|78, 82, 84}} The Hardyville post office was discontinued in favor of the one in [[Mohave City, Arizona|Mohave City]] on February 19, 1883.<ref name=Theobald/>{{rp|104}} As the silver price declined in the late 1880s and early 1890s, the Hardyville mill, its only remaining economic resource, became idle and the remaining population of the town left, leaving it to become a ghost town.<ref name=Lingenfelter/>{{rp|84}} Hardyville still appears with that name on a September 1911 reprint of a U.S. Geological Survey Reconnaissance Map, Arizona, Nevada, California, Camp Mohave Sheet, Edition of March 1892.<ref>[http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/topo/arizona/pclmaps-topo-az-camp_mohave-1892.jpg U. S. Geological Survey, Reconnaissance Map, Arizona, California, Nevada, Camp Mohave Sheet, Edition of Mar. 1892, reprinted Sept. 1911] from lib.utexas.edu accessed June 14, 2015.</ref> [[Hardyville Cemetery|Hardyville Pioneer Cemetery]], a small cemetery, now a historic landmark at {{coord|35|7|16|N|114|35|17|W|display=inline}}, is the most significant existing remnant of Hardyville.<ref>{{cite web |author=Peggy Smith |url=http://www.uscemeteryproj.com/arizona/mohave/hardyville/hardyville.htm |title=Hardyville Pioneer Cemetery |publisher=Uscemeteryproj.com |access-date=January 5, 2012 |archive-date=June 28, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170628195126/http://www.uscemeteryproj.com/arizona/mohave/hardyville/hardyville.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{GNIS|2670235|Hardyville Pioneer Cemetery}}</ref> An unofficial historical marker for the town is in the parking lot across Highway 95 from the cemetery at {{coord|35|7|16|N|114|35|17|W|display=inline}}. The Hardyville Mill ruins appeared on a USGS topographic map, at {{coord|35|7|14|N|114|34|47|W|display=inline}}.<ref>{{GNIS|5563|Hardyville Mill (historical)}}</ref> ===Bullhead City=== [[Image:Bullhead City, Arizona southern city limits sign (2012) (crop).jpg|thumb|right|Bullhead City's southern city limits as seen from [[Arizona State Route 95|SR 95]]]] Decades later, Hardyville would be resurrected as Bullhead City with the construction of [[Davis Dam]] between 1942 and 1953.<ref name="bullheadcity.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.bullheadcity.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={387FAC15-81E3-42A5-A2B2-00CB5B5DBBF1}&DE={66999C05-4ACE-4926-A4A9-F79E0BFD6EEC} |title=History – Community – Bullhead City, Arizona |publisher=Bullheadcity.com |date=August 28, 1984 |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref> The dam was originally called Bullhead Dam after "Bull's Head Rock", a well-known rock formation along the Colorado River.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lon=-114.573&lat=35.2047 |title=Bulls Head Rock USGS Davis Dam Quad, AZ, NV, Topographic Map |publisher=Topozone.com |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref> Steamboats on the river used the rock as a navigation point. After the construction of Davis Dam, the water level rose and now almost completely covers the landmark.<ref name="bullheadcity.com" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bullheadcity.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={AA17A224-ED08-4B73-A976-A5AA3F7C1BAE}&DE= |title=Residents – Bullhead City, Arizona |publisher=Bullheadcity.com |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref> The community that arose during the construction of Bullhead Dam was nicknamed Bullhead. Bullhead City became the headquarters for the construction project, which was completed in 1953. Thus the name Bullhead City was born. As the nearby Lake Mohave developed into a major tourism destination, and as the casino and resort town of [[Laughlin, Nevada]], sprouted up across the river, Bullhead City grew rapidly.<ref name="bullheadcity.com"/> In 1970, Bullhead City was the name of the six blocks that ran north–south along Highway 95 across the river from Don Laughlin's casino. About a thousand people lived in the original Bullhead City at that time, with about 3,000 people in [[Riviera, Arizona|Riviera]]. In 1984, the small communities of Bullhead City, Riviera, and Holiday Shores voted to incorporate, choosing the name "Bullhead City" for its historical significance.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sangres.com/arizona/places/mohave/bullhead-city.htm |title=Bullhead City, Arizona |location=us-az |publisher=Sangres.com |date=November 27, 2011 |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref> Bullhead City and the neighboring town of Laughlin, Nevada, have grown in popularity as tourist destinations, and so has the population. Today, tourism is by far the main economy in Bullhead City. In the summer months, tourists from all over come for water recreation on Lake Mohave and the Colorado River. Starting in the fall, tourists from colder states flock by the thousands in their motor homes because of the mild winters.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arizona-leisure.com/bullhead-city-arizona.html |title=Bullhead City Arizona | Things To Do, Directions, Bullhead City AZ Map |publisher=Arizona-leisure.com |access-date=January 5, 2012}}</ref> Bullhead City is home to an international airport, two full-service hospitals, and a community college. The city has a stabilizing housing market. It also serves as the shopping hub of the tri-state area.
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