Somerton: Colorado River Farm Country

Somerton sits south of Yuma in the Colorado River Valley, where the desert floor turns intensely productive the moment water touches it. The town was established in eighteen ninety-eight in the Colorado River Valley, where farmers settled the irrigable bottomland.

The Southern Pacific Railroad's presence made it viable as an agricultural shipping point. Somerton incorporated in nineteen eighteen and grew steadily as a farming community specializing in the crops that thrive in the extreme heat: lettuce in winter, melons and citrus through the warmer months.

Its population roughly doubled in the first decade of this century, swelled by proximity to Yuma and to the international border, which lies just a few miles to the south.