[citation needed] In 1862, a gold strike on the Colorado River near present-day Yuma brought American prospectors, who searched for minerals throughout central Arizona.

Wickenburg in turn became a supply point for the mines and army posts in the interior of Arizona Territory.

In those years, the rapidly growing town had even once been viewed as a possible candidate for territorial capital and lost the opportunity in 1866 by just two votes in the newly-established legislature.

A company of Confederate cavalry brought temporary relief, but it fell back before the advance of Union troops from California.

With the end of the war, the Union troops and local volunteers forced the Yavapai onto a reservation, where they remain to this day.

Having broken their treaty with America several times, with most of the friendly and allied chiefs killed by insurgent Yavapais, who also killed Americans, Crook was authorized to enter into new negotiations with the aim of reducing the size of the Yavapai reservation and removing it to an area more readily cordoned off from American communities and their communication lines.

The surviving Yavapai warrior leaders grudgingly accepted the treaty which left the nation in far worse conditions than previously.

They were compelled to surrender their firearms, move to the Fort Verde Reservation, accept a permanent Army garrison on their territory, accept direct administration by American Bureau of Indian Affairs agents and commissioners, have trade firmly emplaced in the hands of American government agents, and be regulated by an Indian Police force picked and trained by the US Army and later Arizona Territorial officers.

The infant town of Wickenburg went through many trials and tribulations in its first decades, surviving the Indian Wars including repeating Indian raids, outlaws, mine closures, drought, and a disastrous flood in 1890 when the Walnut Creek Dam burst, killing nearly 70 residents.

The historic train depot today houses the Wickenburg Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center.

Along the town's main historic district, early businesses built many structures that still form Wickenburg's downtown area.

The Hassayampa community became a vital contributor to the US effort during World War II when the Army trained thousands of men to fly gliders at a newly constructed airfield west of Wickenburg.

Wickenburg has a semi-arid, warm steppe (Köppen BSh) climate decidedly cooler and moister than Phoenix, although extreme summer heat is possible.