Commanding Officer's Quarters & Kitchen

In 1859, steamboat entrepreneur George Alonzo Johnson built a riverside home for his bride, Estefana Alvarado. Now known as the Commanding Officer's Quarters, it is believed to be Arizona's oldest Anglo-built adobe building. In the devastating Colorado River flood of 1862, this building and the nearby Hooper residence, now the detached kitchen, were unharmed because they stood on high ground. Quartermaster personnel used the buildings from the mid-1860's until the military abandoned Fort Yuma in 1883. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt designated the Commanding Officer's Quarters as a customs reserve, and the U.S. Customs Service remained there until 1955. In 1956, the City of Yuma purchased the Commanding Officer's Quarters and Kitchen from the federal government, and ownership passed to Arizona State Parks Board in 1986, with rehabilitation completed in 1991.

Yuma, Arizona · United States