cember 14, 1876, she caught fire off Cape Harrow, and the ship and cargo were a total loss/^^ Passengers and crew were rescued and taken to the office of the United States consul at Guaymas, where they were forced to remain until picked up by the Neivbern. The Sentinel carried a complete account of the accident and stated that the Montana was insured for $60,000.^^^ On January 20 it was announced that the Colorado Steam Navigation Company had replaced the Montana with the 1,077-ton steamer Idaho. She arrived on her first voyage on February 7, 1877, bringing 450 tons of freight, and returned on the ninth.^^2 A second voyage was made in April. She returned to San Francisco with twenty-five passengers, 220 tons of freight, and $177,081 in treasure.^®^ By 1876 other factors contributed to the decline of the river trade. The Arizona and New Mexico Express Company, a $500,000 concern, and the Calif ornia- Arizona Stage Lines began a tri-weekly service delivering passengers and mail from San Francisco to the Colorado in five and one-half days. This decreased the time in transit by one-half and appropriated much of the passenger traffic formerly going to the navigation company.
In April 1877, the long awaited Southern Pacific Railroad reached Yuma, and the fate of steam navigation on the Colorado River was sealed. Train service began early in May, and on the 1 9th of that month the navigation company abruptly ceased advertising for freight and passengers. Shortly thereafter, the picturesque "Arizona Fleet" was sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The Nenjobern left San Francisco on her last voyage to the mouth of the Colorado on May 1 6, and a month later she was advertised to sail for Guaymas, La Paz, Mazatlan, and San Lucas. Death, however, was was not instantaneous, and river steamers continued operation in a slowly diminishing degree for the next thirty years. On the river, the headquarters for the bulk of the traffic were now shifted from Port Isabel, on the Gulf, to the new railroad terminal at Yuma, and steamers distributed freight both up and down stream from that point. Before the end of the year the General Zaragoza and a second small Mexican craft were the only vessels engaged in the coastwise trade between Yuma and Mazatlan, and the once thriving Port Isabel fell into decay.^^* From a bustling river port in the seventies, Yuma became a much faded railroad town; her days of prosperity ended. Writing in 1880 a reporter stated: "The population, which three years ago exceeded 1,500, is now reduced to less than 500 . . . Yuma has a look of having seen better days . . ."^^^ Five years later the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad crossed the river at Needles, bringing relief to the merchants of the upper Colorado and forcing the river steamers still farther into the background of unimportance in the life of Arizona. Between 1880 and 1887 the Gila and a small 56-foot sloop, the Southwestern were engaged in the salt trade between the Mormon settlement at Rioville, at the junction of the Virgin and Colorado rivers, and the mining camp at El Dorado.^^^ There were thirty-nine such voyages made, the Gila carrying about 60 tons and the sloop 1 8. The
