History
In the fall of 1882, Thomas Blythe was present for the final blasting of a cut in a point jutting into the Colorado River. The river back then was 5 miles wide during the spring floods. The cut was the new diversion intake for his proposed land development and colonization plan. With him was 28-year-old Englishman George Irish, who had been appointed by Blythe to be manager of the project.
Blythe, in his 60th year already had spent $82,000 on an undertaking to clear and irrigate a wilderness of 40,000 acres, including a 40-acre experimental farm. The development scheme, on the west banks of the Colorado less than 90 miles north of Fort Yuma, was Blythe's dream of an "Empire on the Colorado".
Edwin F. Williams probably played a bigger part in the development of this wilderness than any other man. Williams arrived to find a jungle, and lived to see Blythe a modern, progressive city and the Palo Verde valley, more than 100,000 acres of well maintained farmland producing crops and livestock valued at over $100,000,000 a year.
The die was cast and a hardy group of determined pioneers made the right decisions that have led to this self-sufficient, proud community; all created in just over a century. Blythe was incorporated on July 21, 1916.
