Driving Around Bullhead City, Arizona in 4k Video

Filmed on Saturday, February 24 2024, I drive around Bullhead City, AZ to see what's going on.

In March 1864, the current site of Bullhead City was the location of a settlement called "Hardyville". It was named for early resident and politician William Harrison Hardy.

A New York native and an entrepreneur, Hardy established a ferry service and steamboat landing where the Mojave Road crossed the Colorado River. He also built and owned the Hardyville–Prescott Road, a toll road from Hardyville to the new Arizona territorial capital of Prescott, and raised Angora goats. In 1864 his personal worth was over $40,000, making him the second-richest man in Arizona.

From 1864 to 1883, steamboats made regular trips up the Colorado River from Port Isabel in Mexico, stopping at Hardyville regularly to deliver supplies to the mines of the surrounding mining districts.

Hardyville had a population of 20 in 1870. The 1870s saw a population boom in Hardyville as mining became more profitable. With the end of hostilities with the Native Americans in Mohave County, mines in the interior boomed again, and the small town later grew with the construction of a general store, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, a billiard hall, and a respectable public hall.

In May 1881, Issac Polhamus, captain of one of the Southern Pacific-owned Colorado Steam Navigation Company steamboats, went into competition with Hardy for the trade to those mines, establishing Polhamus Landing, a rival landing five miles up river, closer to the mines, taking away most of its river trade.

As the silver price declined in the late 1880s and early 1890s, the Hardyville mill, its only remaining economic resource, became idle and the remaining population of the town left, leaving it to become a ghost town.

Decades later, Hardyville would be resurrected as Bullhead City with the construction of Davis Dam between 1942 and 1953. As the nearby Lake Mohave developed into a major tourism destination, and as the casino and resort town of Laughlin, Nevada, sprouted up across the river, Bullhead City grew rapidly.

Today, tourism is by far the main economy in Bullhead City. In the summer months, tourists from all over come for water recreation on Lake Mohave and the Colorado River. Starting in the fall, tourists from colder states flock by the thousands in their motor homes because of the mild winters.

Bullhead City hosts many annual events, the most notable being a river regatta, attracting tens of thousands of participants.

#drivingtour #desertlife #arizona