Cochan (sternwheeler)
Colorado River steamboat
Cochan, (Quechan) last of the stern-wheel steamboats built for the Colorado Steam Navigation Company (CSNC). It ran on the Colorado River between 1900 and 1909.
History
In 1899 Issac Polhamus and Jack Mellon owners of the CSNC had to choose one of their remaining steamboats to rebuild to keep up with the competition. The old boats were wearing out in competition with newer boats. Both the 23-year-old Mohave II and the Gila, with 35 years on the Colorado River, had worn hulls only kept going with a lot of maintenance. The Gila despite its age had better engines, and so it was chosen.
In late 1899 the Gila's machinery was refurbished and its hull rebuilt for $25,000 in the shipyard at Yuma, Arizona. Launched on November 8, 1899, it was renamed the Cochan it was two tons lighter and 14 feet shorter than the Gila. Cochan displaced 234 tons, was 135 feet long, 31 feet wide beam, and drew only 11 inches of water unloaded. It could carry 125 tons of freight, drawing less than two feet of water.
The public source identifies “Cochan (sternwheeler)” as colorado River steamboat. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cochan, sternwheeler and Colorado.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 22, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q20711086. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1909 and 1899.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cochan (sternwheeler)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.