Yuma Crossing
Immediately after the Mexican–American War in 1848, the U.S. Army built Fort Yuma here to protect travelers from Indians raiding the area. It was the center point of conflict in the Yuma War of 1850–53. From 1864–1890, the fort and nearby facilities was the main army base to support the US Army's efforts to control the Indians throughout the greater southwest.
Utah War
Meanwhile, George Alonzo Johnson, a merchant who had an established business transporting goods by steamship between the Colorado River Delta and Fort Yuma, was upset that he had not been awarded command of the expedition's original exploratory mission. When Ives was chosen instead, he used the rumors of Indian unrest and purported Mormon designs on the Colorado river and successfully organized a second armed expedition in competition with Ives. He obtained an escort of soldiers commanded by Lt. James A. White from Fort Yuma's acting commander, Lt. A. A. Winder. On 31 December 1857, several days before Ives's arrival at Fort Yuma, Johnson's party steamed upstream from Yuma aboard the steamer "General Jesup".