George A. Johnson & Company

George A. Johnson & Company was a partnership between three men who pioneered navigation on the Colorado River. Benjamin M. Hartshorne, George Alonzo Johnson and Alfred H. Wilcox. The George A. Johnson & Company was formed in the fall of 1852, and was reorganized as the Colorado Steam Navigation Company in 1869.

The three partners that formed the business came from various walks of life. But all had previous experience dealing with the extreme conditions of the Colorado River during their earlier frustrated attempts to bring supplies up that river to Fort Yuma. At that time Fort Yuma was one of the most remote and difficult to reach places in the United States. It had been at first supplied from San Francisco to San Diego by sea and from there overland across the Colorado Desert at the exorbitant rate of $500 per ton.

The expense of land transport drove the Army in November 1850 to send an expedition to attempt to carry supplies from San Francisco to the Gulf of California and 150 miles up the river to the Fort. The attempt was made in the Army transport schooner, Invincible under Captain Alfred H. Wilcox, one of the future partners of the company. The expedition was commanded by Lieutenant George Derby.

The schooner arrived in San Diego to pick up the rations, then proceeded to the mouth of the Colorado River, stopping only at Cabo San Lucas and Guaymas. The Invincible arrived at the river mouth on December 25. Captain Wilcox then ascended the river but with difficulty. Invincible drawing 8 feet of water was grounded at every ebb tide which was extreme in the Colorado River Delta. The expedition encountered difficulty in the estuary of the Colorado when the Invincible was nearly sunk by the tidal bore that regularly occurred following the ebb tide there. On January 3, 1850, some 30 miles up river Captain Wilcox was forced to drop anchor, his way blocked by shoals too shallow to pass. Local Cocopah people there that day agreed to carry a message to Fort Yuma of the arrival of the ship.

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