KLVX Steamboats on the Colorado Records (MS-00201)

Prior to the construction of numerous dams along the Colorado River by the Bureau of Reclamation in the first half of the twentieth century, the Colorado River was navigable in certain seasons by large, wide steamboats. Private and military steamers moved up and down the river from 1851 to 1906, transporting goods and persons through a desert region otherwise hostile to many travelers until the completion of a southern transcontinental railroad (the Southern Pacific Sunset Route from Los Angeles, California to Houston, Texas) in 1883.

With the passage of time and the completion of dams such as Boulder (Hoover), Glen Canyon, and Parker, many have forgotten about the history of the steamboats on the Colorado River. In preparation for the nation's birthday in 1976, Las Vegas' KLVX (Channel 10) proposed a half-hour documentary about steamboat service in the Southwest to the Arizona American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and the Nevada American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, which jointly funded the project. KLVX assigned Hank Tester to be the project's producer and contracted with Richard (Dick) Yates of Arizona Western University to write the treatment and script. The budget of the project was projected to be just under $19,000.

Yates and Tester pulled historical facts and photos from repositories throughout the Southwest as well as from the Library of Congress. After shooting concluded in late spring of 1976, the documentary appeared on stations throughout Nevada, southern Utah, Arizona, and southern California.