Boulder Canyon (Colorado River) steamboats as they passed over the dangerous rapids of Devil's Gate Canyon, during their high water runs to the mouth of the Virgin River at Rioville, Nevada. Boulder Canyon (Colorado River) Boulder Canyon, originally Devils Gate Canyon, is a canyon on the Colorado River, above Hoover Dam, now flooded by Lake Mead. It lies between Clark County, Nevada and Mohave County, Arizona. It heads at western end of the Virgin River Basin of Lake Mead, at about . Boulder Canyon divides the Black Mountains into the Black Mountains of Arizona, and the Black Mountains of Nevada. Its mouth is now
Gold mining in the United States at the Moss mine at Oatman. In 2006, all of Arizona's gold production came as a byproduct of copper mining. Spanish prospectors found gold in the Potholes district between 1775 and 1780, along the Colorado River, in present Imperial County, California, about ten miles northeast from Yuma, Arizona. The gold was recovered from dry placers. Other placer deposits on the west bank of the Colorado River were quickly found, including the Picacho and Cargo Muchacho districts. Placer gold deposits were found at San Ysidro in San Diego County in 1828, San Francisquito Canyon and Placerita Canyon in Los Angeles County