USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 18
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The enterprise later had more or less notoriety from the manner of its advertisement. In one circular was stated that
The canal should be considered a cause, planned primarily as a missionary undertaking, largely that Christianity might be thereby advanced, and that the hope of personal prosperity be the secondary matter. The history of the enterprise contains scores of proofs, which cannot be questioned by any reasonable man, that it has been the object of serupulous care of Almighty God, who has nations and causes in his keeping and controls the wealth of the universe and the minds and the hearts of men. We feel deeply assured that God's time is now near at hand to crown the enterprise with full success. For the glory of his name we now feel led to ask all of the friends of the enterprise to stand with us in earnest prayer for the victory which we believe is near at hand, having the deep conviction that millions for the development of the enterprise are to be supplied in answer to the united prayers of all who have been led to become interested in it. All that is needed is for God to speak the word and make. clear his will te earnest Christian men of large means.
In 1904 subscriptions were acknowledged of over $500,000, with water rights sold to 150,000 acres and with the expectation that irrigation would be started in 1905.
When it is understood that this company collected nearly $1,000,000, very largely through appeals to Christian people, who were told that in Arizona was to be established a colony, wherein God's will was to be the law, the char- acter of the enterprise can be appreciated. These people, mainly under the Desert Land Act, located an immense amount of land and made one or more payments upon it, but their filings nearly all reverted to the Government.
In April, 1899, bankruptcy proceedings were started in Phænix against the Minnesota and Arizona Construction Company, which was alleged to be in debt $1,000,000, with solvent credits of only about $1,000. This was the construction company of the Rio Verde Canal Company. The principal claim was that of A. H. Linton, who rated as worth only $1 a note given by the Verde Canal Company for $120,273.
A serious blow to the Rio Verde enterprise was given by Judge Kent in the United States District Court at Phoenix, January 11, 1912, though his judg- ment concerned only a canal right-of-way northwest of Phoenix. Since that time, however, the scheme appears to have fallen through. The Reclamation Service has reserved all ground on which a canal might be dug within the lower Verde Valley. The Rio Verde Company, in another form, was still in existence as late as 1914.
WATER LITIGATION FOREVER SETTLED
In the early days of Salt River Valley irrigation, litigation ever was pres- ent between canals and communities and there even had been threats of force, as when the Mormon headgates were closed in the summer of 1879. There was an accession to the legal trouble as soon as the Arizona Canal Company (organ- ized December 22, 1882) began diverting water from the river. There had
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been an assumption that a water right had value in itself. Water rights were sold and even mortgaged, and were transferred from farm to farm, at the pleasure of the owners. On this theory, the Arizona canal interests, seeking a larger supply for their lands and the absolute control of the water supply of the northern part of the valley, purchased a controlling interest in the Grand, Maricopa and Salt River Valley canals and, on the authority of the transferred water rights, sought to carry the water thus appropriated to new lands of their own choosing. This action started law suits that continued for years. The principal cases were brought by Michael Wormser, who owned about 7,000 acres of land south of Salt River, later included in the Bartlett-Heard hold- ings (this somewhat representing the Temple Canal) and by Martin Gold, a farmer southwest of Phoenix, whose water "right" had been sold, but who insisted that his land still was entitled to irrigation.
However illogical the last contention seemed at the time, it later was given legal standing. In 1892 Judge Kibbey, in the United States District Court, in passing upon one of Wormser's law suits, involving the right of the San Fran- cisco ditch to water, rather went out of the narrow track of the judgment in stating his views concerning the status of the irrigation flow. He then an- nounced his opinion that canals were merely carriers of water, that priorities of appropriation should be upon the basis of the first irrigation of the lands benefited and reclaimed and that the land and the water should not be separated in the manner theretofore assumed proper. This later was known as the Kib- bey decision, though the jurist always insisted that it was not a decision at all, but merely a bit of gratuitous advice. At any event, it since has become the law of the land, sustained by courts throughout the arid regions and now undisputed in its application.
In February, 1899, Judge R. E. Sloan of Prescott, sitting temporarily on the bench of the Third Judicial District, in a decision on the case of H. E. Slosser against the Salt River Valley Canal Company took an advanced posi- tion in irrigation jurisprudence, sustaining the Kibbey decision. While the decree simply permitted Slosser to purchase the carriage of water in a canal in which he had no "water right," the court inclined toward the contention that to the farm and not to the farmer belonged the water that might be appropriated from a stream. The decision stated that water should go to the land that first uses it and considered the canal in question a carrier of water, though not a "common carrier" in the full meaning of the legal term. Float- ing or unattached water rights were held of little value. Judge Kibbey and Judge W. H. Stillwell were of counsel for plaintiff.
About the same time Chief Justice Street heard other cases in which the same general idea was involved. On the day his decision was to be announced, the farmers, feeling sure of a judgment in their favor, paraded the streets, each man bearing a shovel or pitchfork. But the court found for the canals. However, the Supreme Court, in June, 1901, reversed the Street decision and, in the same period, sustained Judge Sloan.
In 1910 water priorities in the Salt River Valley finally were fixed by a decision, made of record March 1, 1910, by Chief Justice Edward Kent in the District Court at Phoenix. The case was docketed as "Patrick E. Hurley, plaintiff, and the United States of America, intervener, against Chas. F. Abbott
LOUIS C. HILL Who built the Roosevelt dam
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and 4,800 others, defendants." Abbott simply happened to be the first name on the list and Hurley was the representative of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association. This suit had been brought on the advice of Counsel Kibbey and had been in progress for nearly five years. Evidence was intro- duced showing the date of cultivation of every plat of land within the valley. In the decree Judge Kent definitely declared that no corporation or individual may become possessed of a water right other than in the attachment of such right, for beneficial uses, to a certain plot of land. In the same decision tenta- tively was accepted a proposition that forty-eight miners' inches of water per annum to the quarter section should be considered a sufficient supply for the irrigation of crops, though this since has been modified and generally is con- sidered excessive. It should be explained that in Arizona a miners' inch is defined under the Reclamation Service standard as "the one-fortieth part of one cubic foot of water flowing per second of time."
COMPLETION OF THE LAGUNA DAM
March 30, 1909, Yuma celebrated the harnessing of the American Nile, by which, in plainer language, is meant the completion of the Laguna diversion dam across the Colorado River, fourteen miles north of the city. Citizens of Yuma had provided a fête in honor of the occasion and had as specially honored guests Governor Kibbey and staff and a trainload of Los Angeles business men.
The Laguna was the first finished of the three southwestern river dams projected by the Reclamation Service. In reality it is merely a weir for diver- sion and not storage. It raises the river level only about ten feet, thus being little more than an artificial reef. Its total depth is only nineteen feet, retain- ing place upon sand and silt through its own enormous weight, for there is no such thing in the lower Colorado Valley as bedrock. Up and down stream it has a total width of 244 feet, with length from bank to bank of over 4,470 feet. It is built of loose rock, dumped between three concrete walls, capped with an eighteen-inch pavement of concrete, and with a downstream apron of large stone.
Work on this dam was begun in July, 1905, after preparations that had consumed a year. The contractors, who had bid $797,000 for the dam itself, failed and most of the work had to be done directly by the Reclamation Service. Early in 1908 there was a change in the first plans of the Reclamation Service and the main supply canal was transferred to the western side of the river. At first it was planned that the supply for Yuma should be brought by viaduct across the Gila River at a point some miles to the eastward. The total cost first was estimated at $3,000,000, though this has been about doubled, owing to extensions of the original idea. The gross sum is to be repaid by assessment on about 130,000 acres of land, which has been brought under the control of a water users' association, organized in the same manner as that of the Salt River Valley. The main canal leaves the dam on the California side and passes through the Yuma Indian reservation to a point just opposite Yuma. There the water is conducted into a siphon and is carried under the channel of the Colorado, again bubbling out on a hillside below the town and flowing away as far as the international line. The first water flowed through the siphon June 28, 1912, and the day was made one of rejoicing in the locality. Inci- Vol. II-9
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dentally, 700 Yuma Indians are to be enriched in the irrigation of 16,000 acres of their land, divided between themselves and white settlers.
As a part of the Yuma project, there had to be built scores of miles of levees, protecting bottom land of wonderful richness. It is deemed probable that in days to come the canal on the California side will need to be enlarged, to act as a head ditch for the irrigation system of the Imperial Valley.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CASA GRANDE PLAIN
When General Kearny in 1856 at last cleared the confines of the Gila River Cañon, he saw to the westward a plain of rare beauty and of vast extent, dotted with the ruins of a past civilization and scored by the lines of ancient irriga- tion canals. This same plain today is known as the Casa Grande Valley, stretching southward from the Gila and westward from the Buttes past Florence, the Casa Grande ruins, Sacaton and the railroad town of Casa Grande as far as Maricopa, fully fifty miles in all. Throughout, the country generally is level, with deep and rich soil, its cultivation limited only by the water supply available for irrigation-for the rainfall of south-central Arizona is too erratic and too small in its gross annual volume for much benefit to agriculture.
On the authority of Editor Thos. F. Weedin of Florence, the earliest irriga- tion of the plain around his home town, dating back to 1870, was by six small ditches, the Alamo Amarillo (Yellow Cottonwood), Montezuma, Holland, Adamsville, Spines and Mclellan. In 1884 was started construction of the Florence canal, into which nearly all the smaller ditch rights were consoli- dated. A few years later, at the cost of a bond issue of $30,000, a reservoir was built on the canal line, especially to supply lands around Casa Grande and Arizola.
Thereafter came trouble. Settlers on the upper river, in years of relative drought, diverted about all the summer flow of the stream. The canal failed to earn a sustaining income and became bankrupt. Bought by judgment creditors, it was neglected and was allowed to fill with silt. The system finally went into a receivership, from which it has been taken only lately. Naturally, development of the tributary farming country was retarded. The farmers along the Florence Canal arose in wrath and took possession of the waterway, defying the receiver of the canal company and the court that protected him. The grangers saved their crops by a proper handling of the canal and all was serene until the next term of court. Then about forty of the leading citizens of Pinal County were arrested and charged with contempt of court, assault and unlawful entry and detainer and, incidentally, were sucd for $50,000 dam- ages. For several court terms the farmers stood off the litigation, but at last had to acknowledge judgment, though it was no more severe than a perpetual injunction and a mandate to pay all costs of litigation. Now the main canal has been returned to ownership within the community and better days are assured.
For years at Florence there has been a struggle for water storage in the Gila. Keen disappointment was expressed when the Roosevelt dam was determined upon, for a dam site also was offered at The Buttes. Later The Buttes site was demonstrated unavailable, bed rock being too deep. Similar natural features caused rejection of a dam site near Riverside, but, still
LAGUNA DAM YUMA PROJECT Built by the United States Reclamation Service
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further up-stream, at last what is considered an ideal location was found in a narrow cañon of the river, a few miles below San Carlos.
Over the San Carlos dam site arose complications due to a claim on a right- of-way through the canon made by the Arizona Eastern Railroad Company, which sought a low-grade connection between San Carlos and Winkelman. On the basis of an understanding that water storage at the point suggested was not feasible, due to unfavorable bed-rock conditions, silt and other reasons, there was general hope in Phoenix that the railroad would secure its right-of- way. In Tucson, per contra, there was even financial support for the reser- voir proposition. The discussion within Arizona having waxed too warm for the further maintenance of good will between the localities affected, the Phoenix Board of Trade, on March 25, 1911, finally suggested that the whole matter be referred to the unbiased arbitration of a board of United States army engineers. It was believed such a reference was the only one logically possible, for eminent irrigation authorities had flatly contradicted each other on the subject.
The suggestion was well received and, in due course of time, on request of the secretary of the interior, detail to the work was made by the secretary of war of three engineer officers. Their report was made public in February, 1914, and declared in favor of construction of the dam, though at a site 1,000 feet above the point where it originally had been planned. Bedrock was found within a reasonable average depth and the question of silt was con- sidered one of relatively slight importance. The cost of an adequate dam and diversion weir was estimated at $6,311,000, in this being included heavy con- demnation costs, payable to the Arizona Eastern for trackage damage to its Globe branch, and to the Interior Department, for Apache Indian agency buildings and property within the proposed reservoir's lines.
It was decided that, while much more than that area of good land was available for irrigation below Florence, the average flow of the Gila River could be relied upon for the watering of 90,000 acres, of which 35,000 should be on the Pima Indian Reservation, for the benefit of 7,000 individuals, leaving 55,000 acres to be served elsewhere. Of this about 30,000 acres on the old ditches around Florence already have prior rights. Repayment of the cost chargeable to the Indians could be assumed by the United States, while the white settlers would be assessed not over $70 an acre. As the Reclamation Service already is overburdened, a bill has been introduced in Congress author- izing construction of the San Carlos dam on the same plan of repayment as enjoyed by the neighboring Salt River Valley.
The needs of the Indians in this connection are keen. Years ago they had an ample irrigation supply, gradually lost to them by the encroachment above of white men. With power for pumping secured from the Reclamation Serv- ice works at. Roosevelt, 10,000 acres lately have been added to the reservation's possible tillable area, but this method for securing water is considered imper- manent and conservative Indians refuse to profit by its utilization. With an assured water supply, the Pimas of the Gila Valley would become even wealthy, for they are industrious and are possessed of skill in agriculture. following cultivation of their lands for centuries past.
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ARIZONA IRRIGATION IN GENERAL
Beside the Salt River Valley, Yuma and Florence districts, irrigation in Arizona for years has been known in the lower and upper Gila valleys, and on the Santa Cruz, San Pedro and Little Colorado rivers. In the last named section $200,000 damage was done the spring of 1915 by the breaking of the improperly constructed Lyman dam above St. Johns, the disaster involving also the loss of two lives. About the middle eighties, an immense sum was spent by the South Gila Canal Company, which started construction on a great storage and diversion dam near Agua Caliente. Further up the river near Gila Bend, to cover land that had been irrigated for a time in the early seventies, materialized one of the most ambitious irrigation schemes of the Southwest, that of the Gila Bend Canal Company. A short distance below its junction with the Hassayampa, the Gila was dammed by the company, which was headed by Governor Lewis Wolfley. The dam washed out and the enter- prise, renamed the Peoria Canal Company, was absorbed by the Greenhuts of Peoria, Ill., who are said to have sunk over $1,000,000 in the scheme. The plans contemplated the irrigation of about 100,000 acres of excellent land, much of it along the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
The upper Gila Valley has been farmed and irrigated for over thirty years from the Apache Reservation eastward almost to the headwaters of the stream.
During the past few years a Chicago corporation has spent over $1,000,000 in the purchase of lands along the Santa Cruz and in the installation of an irrigation system that has served to add a considerable farming community within a short distance of Tucson.
Near Prescott a similar enterprise has placed a concrete dam across Gran- ite Creek and is reclaiming a large expanse of land north of Granite Dells.
Probably the first hydro-electric power system in Arizona was that of the Consolidated Canal Company, which in 1899 secured a right to carry Tempe Canal water over the thirty-five-foot Mesa bluff, thus generating several hun- dred horse power. This power plant has been absorbed by the hydro-electric system of the Reclamation Service. Of importance to the mining industry of Central Arizona is a hydro-electric plant on Fossil Creek, where a compara- tively small volume of water tapped at a great height produces electric current to supply the needs of Prescott and all of the principal mines of Yavapai County.
Only within the last few months has a start been made to utilize the enormous power that is wasting in the Grand Canon of the Colorado. The initial unit of what may become the largest power producing plant in the Southwest is now under construction at the foot of Diamond Canon, north of Peach Springs.
COWBOYS OF NORTHWESTERN ARIZONA Joseph T. Woods; Nigger Jeff; Nat Greer; Hi Hatch; Albert F. Potter
CHAPTER XXXVI THE LIVE STOCK INDUSTRY
Cowboys, Typical and Otherwise-Stacking of the Arizona Ranges-Sheep and Their Faithful Shepherds-Antagonism of the Two Stock Divisions-Elk Imported from Wyoming-Rise and Decline of the Arizona Ostrich Breeding Industry.
The cowboy of Arizona is often a composite character. To the cast and to the west of him the range riders preserve a uniformity of style and trappings, but not so the cowman of the "Sun Kissed Land." His saddle may be "Colo- rado," his cinch "Texas," his bit "Mexico," and his riata "California." Still the eyes of the cattlemen are keen in all things and the locality of a newcomer is soon determined, and infallibly by a rapid glance at the equestrian trappings of the stranger.
Unfettered by a social code, free to roam a boundless expanse of mountain and plain, it is remarkable that the land knows no more conservative individual than the "cowboy." His ideas are fixed at the outset of his career and rarely, if ever, changed. If he hail from Texas, mark you the characteristics of his "rig." A long, low-cantled, broad-horned saddle, loosely strapped to his pony by a double cinch, with buckles on the "latigo" straps. His bit will be a rather light concern, possibly reinforced by a "hackamore," and his "rope" will prob- ably be either hemp or Mexican grass. And especially should be noted the fact that "tapaderos" are never seen. Now, hitch up the stirrups until the knees of the rider are somewhat bent and you have the "rig" that a Texan most de- lights in.
The Californian despises Texas methods and puts his forty pounds of leather upon a horse's back in a very different shape. The saddle is higher and the "tree" broader, and the stirrups are so hung that the rider sits upon his animal in true clothespin fashion. Tapaderos are deemed a necessity and are often so long as to nearly sweep the ground. A single broad cinch is used, the girth strap being dexterously fastened by a slip knot. The headstall is usually an elab- orate affair and the bit a heavy one, of the "ring" or "half-breed" patterns. The "lariat," as he terms it, is made of braided rawhide or calfskin and is the pride of its possessor.
These peculiarities are marked and unalterable. There can be no argument as to their respective merits, and each class of cowmen looks at the other with the same distrust and contempt that would be given a "tenderfoot."
As regards the horses, fully as broad a difference exists. The California "mustang" comes of proud lineage and, really, it would be difficult to find else- where, grander saddle horses for rough usage. A matured animal often is put
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to the strain of 100 miles' travel in a day, without injury. The mustangs are commonly tall, "rangy" animals, "buckskin," gray or "pinto" in color. They are broken when several years old and well experienced must be the vaquero who mounts them upon this interesting occasion. The exhibition of bucking, rearing and general cussedness given at the debut of a mustang is truly phenomenal ; but through it all he comes unscratched, tough, willing and speedy.
The Texas pony or "bronco" is somewhat undersized, fairly docile in tem- perament, and is of Mexican origin. He is thick-legged, strong and hardy, and if not as available as the mustang, has the doubtful advantage of being held at only half the price. In Arizona the Texas pony predominates.
The cattle district of Arizona embraces the whole eastern half, and in this vast expanse the cowboy flourishes. But let me hasten to note, he is not the "wild and woolly" specimen that the eastern comic papers picture. You will find him an honest, hospitable sort of a fellow, not averse to whiskey, yet rarely intoxicated. A large portion of the livestock of the state is made up of small holdings, and upon the large ranches none but sober, steady men are wanted.
HOW CATTLE WERE BROUGHT INTO ARIZONA
The cattle rearing industry of Arizona has had many ups and downs, what with drought and with the necessity for feeding a large part of the Apache peo- ple. The rich grasses of Pimeria early caused the importation of cattle from Mexico. As early as 1770 is a record that tells of great cattle increases and of the depredations of the Indians, who drove off the herds and killed the herders. But around 1820 a number of great ranchos had been established, mainly in the upper San Pedro and Santa Cruz valleys, where yet are to be seen the ruins of large haciendas. By 1843 the Indians had become so bold that the last of these haciendas had been abandoned and the population of the region had been con- centrated in the walled presidios of Tucson and Santa Cruz. Large herds of wild cattle were encountered on the San Pedro by the Mormon Battalion in 1846. A rather better grade came after 1849, with the California goldseekers, whose cattle often gave out on the arduous journey.
Bill Kirkland claimed that he was the first American to bring a band of cattle to Arizona, to the old Canoa Ranch, forty miles south of Tucson, in 1857. The stock was bought in Sonora. According to Colin Cameron, in 1864 the only domestic cattle were forty head of cows at Tucson, owned by Wm. S. Oury, and the same number in Williamson's Valley, near Prescott, owned by a man named Stevens, these guarded by armed herders and corraled every night. A large number of cattle and sheep came with the Northern Arizona military parties of 1863, brought for food. For this same reason, in 1866, cattle were driven from California by one of the Bannings and in succeeding years there were drives from Texas by Hooker & Hines, who were beef contractors supplying Govern- ment posts. In 1868, H. C. Hooker unsuccessfully tried to turn cattle on the range in Williamson Valley and in the following year tried to hold 4,000 head near Camp Crittenden, but the Apaches were too bad at both points. The latter band had to be wintered in the Papago country, 100 miles southwest of Tucson, where the friendly Indians took toll of 400 head and for a time "lived high." In 1872 Hooker's firm supplied 15,500 head to the posts, or in unwilling contri- butions to Apache appetites.
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