Colorado River State Historic Park

The Office of the Quartermaster features a period room depicting the quartermaster's workspace and telegraph, as well as information about the Yuma Proving Ground that was located north of the city. In the Commanding Officers Quarters, visitors will see period furnishings from the 1870s. The Corral House contains exhibits about the Yuma Irrigation Project, the Laguna Dam, and other project's of the area's water reclamation history. The exhibits in the Storehouse focus on transportation history, featuring an Army Escort Wagon, antique wagons and farm vehicles, a section of an original plank road and a Model T car, and a room dedicated to the history of steamboats on the Colorado River. The grounds feature interpretive panels, a steamboat paddle axle, a steam boiler, and the passenger coach car.

The depot was established in 1864, fourteen years after Fort Yuma was founded across the river. At the time, the Civil War was in its third year and Yuma had become an important strategic location. Two years earlier, a Union force led by General James H. Carleton traveled east through Yuma to drive Confederate forces out of New Mexico. The purpose of the depot, which received supplies from California, was to supply the U.S. Army's frontier forts in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Southern Utah, and West Texas. This function continued until the late 1880s. The depot later became a custom house and immigration checkpoint in 1908 and remained so until 1954. Efforts to convert the site into a park began in the 1960s.

"Heintzelman, Patricia." Yuma Crossing. National Park Service - National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. November 13, 1966. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/3cd129d0-aca0-4d8d-aaf4-70a67b1bd44b.

"Park History." Arizona State Parks. Accessed September 15, 2020. https://azstateparks.com/colorado-river/about-the-park/park-history.