page_title: Yuma, Arizona
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Yuma, Arizona / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Steamboats on the Colorado River, at Yuma, ca 1880. Published as a "Rothrock's Arizona Scenery" stereophoto card, ca. 1880.
context_page_description: Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. The city's population was 93,064 at the 2010 census, up from the 2000 census population of 77,515.
  Yuma is the principal city of the Yuma, Arizona, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of Yuma County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2014 estimated population of the Yuma MSA is 203,247. More than 85,000 retirees make Yuma their winter residence.
  Yuma is in the state's southwest corner, in the Sonoran Desert, Yuma Desert sub-region.
context_section_description: The area's first settlers for thousands of years were Native American cultures and historic tribes. Their descendants now occupy the Cocopah and Quechan reservations.
  In 1540, Spanish colonial expeditions under Hernando de Alarcón and Melchior Díaz visited the area and immediately recognized the natural crossing of the Colorado River as an ideal spot for a city. The Colorado River narrows to slightly under 1,000 feet (300 m) wide in one area. Military expeditions that crossed the Colorado River at the Yuma Crossing include Juan Bautista de Anza (1774), the Mormon Battalion (1848) and the California Column (1862).
  During and after the California Gold Rush to the late 1870s, the Yuma Crossing was known for its ferry crossings for the Southern Emigrant Trail. This was considered the gateway to California, as it was one of the few natural spots where travelers could cross the otherwise very wide Colorado River.
caption: Steamboats on the Colorado River at Yuma, circa 1880
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