Last Yuma Arizona Post for 2013

Tomorrow morning we are heading out to the desert for a couple of weeks. We're going to Joshua Tree National Park. I know what you're thinking.  "It's a National Park, dummy! They are all closed."  Of course those of you thinking that are right. However, we hope the whole shutdown thing will be worked out soon. If it's not, there is still plenty to see out there. 
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Okay, now back to today's post!
I know I said I was done with posts from Yuma this year, but how about just one more. This may be the last Yuma post for 2013, but it's also a teaser of things to come in 2014. We're a few months away and I already have an agenda of things I want to see. So bear with me, umkay?

   Laguna Dam

Believe it or not, this was the first dam built across the mighty Colorado River. It was basically an earthen dam  built to control flooding. This is the place that caused a bunch of controversy because of all the swastikas imprinted in the concrete structures. Some of you will remember it. It was just about the oddest thing we've run into in our travels. If you haven't see this and you have a minute or two, check it out.

This looks like a standard photo of some old stuff, right?  Not really...There is so much history both in the photo and where I was standing when I took it. The bridge in front is a very old and an important railroad bridge crossing the Colorado River. The white bridge behind it, is mega-famous. It's called the Ocean-to Ocean bridge and was the first auto bridge across the Colorado. Before it was built, if you wanted to go east, you had to travel about a thousand miles for to go around the river. The white structure in far right is also a famous place. To top it all off, I took this photo while visiting the Yuma Territorial Prison. After we return there in early 2014 and I take some more photos of each of these things, I'll do another post.

The next three photos were taken in old Yuma. These are the only photos I have of it. That will change in a few months. It looks pretty interesting there.

No shortage of trains in the desert.

Just because I thought it was pretty.

People like to shoot at old signs, right? Well, this one is inside the city limits! Did I mention that a high percentage of folks in Arizona carry weapons? 

Okay, this time I promise! This is the last post relating to Yuma this year.


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The Oddest Thing We've Ever Seen in the Desert

After four years of construction just north of Yuma Arizona, the Laguna Dam became operational. It was the very first dam constructed on the Colorado River and was built to divert water for the irrigation of many thousands of acres in the desert areas of southern Arizona and California.

In 1938 the Imperial dam was built several miles upriver from the Laguna Dam. That construction made the Laguna Dam redundant and the need for it to divert Colorado River water was eliminated forever.  As with most redundant things in the desert, the Laguna Dam was not destroyed. The dam and many of the works relating to it are still there. Two of those related items are one of the main diversion gates and a bridge leading from the closest road to the top of the dam. They were saved because it was a part of Arizona history.  Many Arizonans didn't want these things saved, in fact, they were many civilian pickax attacks on the bridge and diversion gate. The authorities had to protect these things with armed guards. Now, like most things in the desert than have outlived their usefulness this place is left to erode away. Most of the locals don't even know it's there.

You might be wondering why some people wanted this bridge and gate destroyed.  Well, here are the answers to those questions. 

It doesn't look like anything special from here.

When I saw this, I didn't know what to think...

No matter how you look at it, that bridge is adorned with Swastikas.

Like most of the things we find, this one is also in the middle of nowhere. 

Here is the diverter gate. It looks innocent enough.

Obligatory black and white

 There hasn't been any water in this thing for decades.

A closer look at the gate. The construction date of 1907 is clearly visible. 

I climbed thorough a hole in the fence and climbed out onto the gate to get this photo.

Another Swastika!

 I really liked this view, barbed wire and all.

Another string of them.

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Obviously, these things were imprinted into the concrete many years before the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, but many people around the Yuma area during the war weren't buying it. There were many rumors relating to who did this and why. The truth is that this symbol has been used in many cultures for hundreds of years and was usually thought of as a positive thing. Still, when I saw these things last month, in the year 2013, I FELT them. I can see why people tried to destroy them with picks, but I can also see why they are protected.   

I truly think that this is the oddest thing we've run across in all the time we've spent roaming the deserts of the southwest. It got a lot odder when I was doing some research on the "Swastika Bridge." Authorities in Arizona consider these things to be part of the historical record of their state.  I get that, because these things were built many years before the rise of the Nazi Party. What I don't understand though, is why did they have Swastikas on their state highway signs into the 1940's?

Fact truer than fiction...

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