The Mohave came to be built by the George A. Johnson Company in response to a challenge to their monopoly of the Colorado River trade.
George Alonzo Johnson, who had neglected to deal with the building crisis, finally took action and had a third boat built by famed shipbuilder John G. North.
North built it at his shipyard in San Francisco in sections and brought it down to the estuary, where it was assembled and launched in late May 1864.
[1]: 125 The power of its engines and cargo carrying capacity was illustrated by its May 27 – June 6, 1866 run upriver 365 miles to El Dorado Canyon from Yuma, under the command of Captain Issac Polhamus.
She was dismantled there and her machinery was sent back to equip the Sacramento River stern-wheeler, Onward, a longer, heavier steamboat, being built in San Francisco in 1877 and which ran until 1909.