Ehrenberg

Overview

The port that replaced La Paz

Ehrenberg began in the fall of 1863 as Mineral City, a steamboat landing and ferry crossing on the Arizona bank of the Colorado, downriver from the gold camp of La Paz. When the river cut a new channel and left La Paz stranded, the trade moved here. Steamboat captains of George A. Johnson & Company backed a new landing in 1866, and in 1869 the town got a post office and a new name. It honored Herman Ehrenberg, a German mining engineer and surveyor who had been murdered at Dos Palmas, California, in October 1866.

For the next few decades Ehrenberg was a main supply port for western Arizona. Steamboats brought freight up the river, and wagon trains hauled it northeast on the road toward Prescott and the Army posts inland. The Army kept an officer here to forward its freight, and the Goldwater family, who had started out at La Paz, kept a store. By 1875 about 500 people lived in a town of low adobe houses strung along the riverbank.

Around the start of the 20th century the railroads took the freight business away from the river, and the post office closed at the end of 1913. In the 1950s many of the old buildings that were still standing were torn down for a trailer park. Ehrenberg today is a small community of RV parks and homes beside the I-10 bridge, with 763 residents in 2020. The pioneer cemetery, rock-covered graves on open gravel ground beside the Ehrenberg Parker Highway, is the plainest link to the river town.

Timeline

From steamboat landing to I-10 community

1. Fall 1863Mineral City starts as a steamboat landing and ferry crossing on the Arizona bank, a mile below Olive City, which served the La Paz diggings.
2. 1865A freight road is built from the river northeast toward Camp Date Creek, Skull Valley and Prescott.
3. 1866Captains of George A. Johnson & Company back a new landing between Olive City and Mineral City. The settlement keeps the name Mineral City, and Olive City is abandoned.
4. Oct 9, 1866Herman Ehrenberg, a German mining engineer and surveyor, is murdered at Dos Palmas, a stage stop on the Bradshaw Trail in California.
5. Sep 20, 1869A post office opens, and the town is renamed Ehrenberg in his memory.
6. 1870One historian counts 87 dwellings and 96 families.
7. 1875About 500 people live here. Martha Summerhayes arrives in May with her husband, sent to replace the Army officer posted at the landing.
8. Around 1900Railroads take over the freight trade, and the population drains away.
9. About 1911A motorist on a cross-country road tour photographs two saloons and S. M. Wilson's general store.
10. Dec 31, 1913The post office closes.
11. 1934The Arizona Highway Department builds a stone monument in the cemetery to the pioneers in its unmarked graves.
12. 1950sMany of the surviving old buildings are torn down to make room for a trailer park.
13. 1989E Clampus Vitus, Lost Dutchman Chapter, places a historical marker at the cemetery. The chapter rededicates the monument on April 27, 2003.
14. 2020The census counts 763 people in the Ehrenberg CDP.

Eyewitness, 1874–1876

An Army wife's Ehrenberg

The best picture of Ehrenberg in its working years comes from Martha Summerhayes, a New Englander married to an officer of the Eighth Infantry. Her memoir, Vanished Arizona, was published in 1908 and is now in the public domain.

She first saw the town from the deck of a river steamer in 1874: a row of low thatched huts on the edge of the bank, a road running along the river, and a store and some adobe huts across from them. She didn't go ashore. The Army kept one officer there, because the town was an important shipping point for freight bound overland to the interior.

Less than a year later her husband took that posting, and they arrived in May 1875. She describes one street along the riverbank, a few cross streets running back into the desert, and a government house of one-story adobe built around a courtyard with a freight house, a corral and an old pump. Supplies were hard to get, there was no doctor, and the summer heat drove her to San Francisco. The Goldwaters' store appears in her account, and so do the officers who stopped over on their way inland whenever the river boat came up.

She found the graveyard unfenced: a bare, sandy slope dotted with graves marked by heaps of stones and a few wooden crosses knocked askew by sandstorms.

Those heaps of stones are still the way most graves in the cemetery are marked. She left Ehrenberg for good in 1876. Her memoir was written decades later, so we use it for what she saw rather than for dates or numbers.

What's left

A cemetery and a few old buildings

The pioneer cemetery is the one place that clearly belongs to the river town. Most graves are low mounds of river rock, many with no name. A few carry wooden markers, some reading only "Unknown," and a 2013 visit report lists at least seven graves of the Daniel family, including Alfred M. Daniel, who died in August 1913. A wire-rope fence edges the grounds, and the remains of an old wagon lie inside it. The Sharlot Hall Museum's archive dates the first burials to about 1862 and the last to 1988.

At the entrance stands a tapering monument of dark stone with spurs, branding irons and other relics set into the concrete of its base. Its plaque credits the Arizona Highway Department and gives the year as 1934; some accounts say 1935. The plaque honors the pioneers, trailblazers and adventurers in the cemetery's unmarked graves. A 1967 guidebook found the monument vandalized; the 2013 visitors found it restored and the grounds kept up.

The historic maps below show more than survives today. The 1951 and 1970 Blythe sheets mark a cluster of ruins between the cemetery and the river, the cemetery beside the old highway, the Ehrenberg Bridge, and state checking stations on both banks. The 1970 sheet adds a trailer park and the new interstate. The same 1967 guidebook mentioned scanty adobe ruins east of the exit road. We haven't confirmed that any adobe walls still stand.

Along the highway, photos from 2021 show a few older store buildings, including a white block building now used for the Arizona Oasis RV Resort sign and an empty false-front store. The photographer dates the first to 1896; we haven't confirmed the age of either.

• Pioneer cemetery
• Rock-covered and unmarked graves
• Stone monument (1934)
• E Clampus Vitus marker (1989)
• Wagon remains
• Older store buildings on the highway

Historic maps

Ehrenberg on USGS maps, 1942–1986

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

19421:250,00019511:24,00019631:250,00019701:24,00019861:100,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Ehrenberg is just across the Colorado River from Blythe, California. Both routes leave I-10 at Ehrenberg, follow Poston Road north and turn left on the Ehrenberg Parker Highway to the cemetery. All of it is on highways.

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

Photos

Ehrenberg in photos

Ehrenberg and the Colorado River on a stereoview card, about 1875–1885Townspeople greet a motorist outside the saloons and S. M. Wilson's store, about 1911The 1934 Arizona Highway Department monumentRock-covered graves and an "Unknown" markerThe monument's plaque, rededicated in 2003Remains of a wagon inside the cemetery fenceThe I-10 bridge over the Colorado, from the Ehrenberg bankAn empty false-front store, labeled by the photographer as the old Mercado de Amigos meat marketAn older store building, dated 1896 by the photographer, now carrying the Arizona Oasis RV Resort signThe community church

Visitor reports

Been to Ehrenberg?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Ehrenberg

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Arizona index.

• Olive City0.4 mi N · La Paz
• Mineral City0.5 mi NE · La Paz
• La Paz5.7 mi NE · La Paz
• Drift Desert15.1 mi SW · La Paz
• Cibola21.6 mi S · La Paz
• Plomosa23.4 mi E · La Paz
• Poston27.6 mi N · La Paz
• Clip30.2 mi S · La Paz

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Ehrenburg": fact sheet fields (road, legal description, climate, best time, remains, post office dates).
2. Wikipedia, "Ehrenberg, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: the 1866 landing, post office and renaming, 1875 population, railroads, 1950s demolitions, census figures, climate records.
3. Wikipedia, "Mineral City, Arizona", citing Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852–1916 (1978): Mineral City in 1863, the George A. Johnson & Company landing, Olive City, site coordinates.
4. Wikipedia, "Herman Ehrenberg": his death at Dos Palmas on October 9, 1866, and the renaming of Mineral City.
5. Martha Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona (1908), Project Gutenberg: descriptions of the town, the Army freight station, the Goldwaters' store and the graveyard, 1874–1876.
6. American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Ehrenberg, Arizona: Historic Pioneer Cemetery," revised January 7, 2013: the 1870 count of dwellings and families, the monument, a 1967 guidebook's description, the January 2013 visit and the Daniel graves.
7. Kathy Lopez, "Ehrenberg Toll Road: Colorado River to Prescott," Sharlot Hall Museum, May 15, 2023: the 1865 road to Prescott.
8. Sharlot Hall Museum photo archive, "Ehrenberg, Arizona": the 1934 monument and burial dates, about 1862 to 1988.
9. Cesar DeLeon, ECV Historical Plaques by County and State, June 2025: the 1989 cemetery marker and its location.
10. Bureau of Land Management, "Blythe Intaglios", as of October 2026: location 15 miles north of Blythe on Route 95, six figures in three places, the 171-foot figure, best seen from the air.
11. Wikimedia Commons, Marine 69-71, Ehrenberg photos (taken April 11, 2021): the cemetery fenced and tended, its monument, graves and wagon, and the older store buildings on the highway.
12. Day-trip drive times to and from the Blythe Intaglios: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.
13. Coordinates: OpenStreetMap, "Ehrenberg Cemetery" (way 1014648147); the USGS GNIS populated place "Ehrenberg" (4361) is 0.15 mi southwest. Township and range: BLM PLSS CadNSDI. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits

• Ehrenberg and the Colorado River on a stereoview card, about 1875–1885: Continent Stereoscopic Company, publisher (New York Public Library), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Townspeople greet a motorist outside the saloons and S. M. Wilson's store, about 1911: A. L. Westgard, Bureau of Public Roads (National Archives), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The 1934 Arizona Highway Department monument: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Rock-covered graves and an "Unknown" marker: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The monument's plaque, rededicated in 2003: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Remains of a wagon inside the cemetery fence: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The I-10 bridge over the Colorado, from the Ehrenberg bank: Incaxyts, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• An empty false-front store, labeled by the photographer as the old Mercado de Amigos meat market: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• An older store building, dated 1896 by the photographer, now carrying the Arizona Oasis RV Resort sign: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The community church: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Blythe 1942, 1:250,000; Blythe 1951, 1:24,000; Salton Sea 1963, 1:250,000; Blythe 1970, 1:24,000; Blythe 1986, 1:100,000.