When many think about Lake Havasu City history, it’s natural to imagine the city’s birth began the day Robert McCulloch flew over Lake Havasu, searching for a place to test his outboard engines.  Yet, even before McCulloch purchased the land in 1963, people were coming to Lake Havasu to fish and water ski. Other developers came, perhaps not with the same grandiose expectations as the founder of Lake Havasu City, yet with their own unique dreams and special plans for Lake Havasu.
          Six miles south of Lake Havasu City on the California side of Lake Havasu, just past Copper Canyon and Pilot Rock is a portion of lease land. It includes about 4¼ miles of California shoreline, and was my family’s home for over thirty years. 

          Technically speaking, its name is not Havasu Palms, yet people have become accustomed to calling it that. Havasu Palms is actually the name of the corporation that operated a business on the site from 1963 to 1999.  Up into the turn of the century it was still a California Corporation. My mother, Caroline Johnson, was its major shareholder, and during the last few years of the corporation’s life Havasu Palms was not affiliated with the property. 

Before the lease land was known as Havasu Palms, it was called Road’s End Camp, and noted as such on old California maps.

          Lake Havasu is a manmade lake, created from a section of the Colorado River. On the California side, the Mohave and Halchidhoma Tribes occupied land that would eventually be under the waters of Lake Havasu, or its shoreline and land to the west of the lake.  The border of the two tribes was a few miles south of the land that would become Road’s End Camp. 

The Yuma and Mohave Tribes chased the Halchidhoma from the area, and around the 1800’s some of the Chemehuevi began moving into this area, according to anthropologist, A. L. Kroeber.
          Within fifty years of the Chemehuevi moving into this region, the control of California shifted from Mexico to the United States, and by 1900, the California side of the Colorado River was open to homesteading. Yet, seven years later, in 1907, the Secretary of Interior withdrew land along the California side of the Colorado River from all forms of settlement and entry, pending action by Congress, authorizing the additions of lands to various Mission Indians.  The Chemeheuvi were not Mission Indians, yet Special Agent Kelsey mentioned them in the report he prepared which prompted the land withdrawal.

           In the late 1960’s or 1970’s my mother, Caroline Johnson, received old photographs from one of the first settlers to Road’s End Camp.  His name was Bob Orchard. He also gave her information on those early settlers. 

          According to Orchard, two brothers came into the area prior to World War I. Lincoln Bailey was the name of one brother. They had mining claims along the river.  One of these claims was located at what would become Road’s End Camp. They leased this claim to J. Flemings in the 1920’s.  According to Orchard, Flemings would be the first owner of Road’s End Camp.          

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Photo: Havasu Palms, circa 1960s