USA > California > Imperial County > The history of Imperial County, California > Part 10
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FORMATION OF COLORADO DESERT
Another expedition of military engineers, sent out to investigate pos- sible railroad routes to the coast, passed over the desert in 1853 under Lieutenant R. S. Williamson, and Professor William Blake was ap- pointed geologist of the party. His reports are both complete and very interesting.
In 1855 Congress appropriated money to buy camels for transporta- tion purposes across the desert, it being necessary in some way to re- duce the time, labor and discomfort of desert travel : and two different herds were purchased, one in 1856 and another in 1857. In some re- spects they were very satisfactory ; but a camel needs to be handled by men who understand it, and when the officers who did were transferred and the new men in charge neither understood nor cared to learn, com- plications ensued which resulted in the abandonment of the camel scheme, and the sale of the animals, save a few which escaped to the desert.
OLD STAGE ROUTES
As a preliminary to the building of the railroads, various stage lines were run. One called the San Antonio and San Diego. Semi-monthly stages ran for about a year. Then the historic Butterfield Stage Coach Line was started. It ran semi-weekly, and had a six years' contract with the government for carrying mails, at $600,000 per year. The route lay between St. Louis and San Francisco, and was covered in from twenty to twenty-two days, although it is said to have made the trip in sixteen upon occasion. There were three stations upon this line, at Coyote Springs, Indian Wells, and at the east side chain of sand hills.
The mail service of the Butterfield stage was not the first that Cali- fornia had. As early as the time when Benjamin Franklin was appointed postmaster general for the colonies, there were monthly mail trips be- tween Monterey in Upper California, and Loreto, at the end of Lower California. They even had a franking system in full force, which was seemingly as much abused in those days as in our own.
The California mail system was not only four hundred miles longer than the Continental one on the eastern coast, but it made better time, which is a surprise to those of us who are in the habit of considering California and its institutions as new and rather undeveloped.
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Northern California had a number of stage routes beside the Butter- field-the first in Southern California was Gregory's Great Atlantic and Pacific Express. It brought the eastern mail down from San Francisco. The first overland stage by a southern route started from San Antonio, Texas, and followed the extreme southern route through New Mexico and Arizona to California. Owing to Indian outrages this route was abandoned. The Butterfield route was the largest and best organized of all the stage routes, but it suffered so much loss through the Civil war that it was abandoned. The last stage company was Wells Fargo & Company, which was established in 1868.
The same year that the Butterfield stage line was established, Dr. Oliver Wozencraft began to agitate the question of bringing the waters of the Colorado River into the Salton Sink for irrigation purposes. Many people less informed on the subject of irrigation than he regarded him as a dreamer, but nevertheless his project might have gone through but for the breaking out of the Civil war. In 1859 a bill was passed by the California State Legislature which ceded to Dr. Wozencraft and associates about 1600 square miles of desert land in consideration of a water supply being introduced. The reclamation must begin in two years and be finished in ten, and as fast as it was introduced the government was to issue patents for the land reclaimed; the title to be granted when all conditions were filled. But the Civil war stopped proceedings. After the war, Dr. Wozencraft again endeavored to bring the matter up, but died suddenly in Washington just as it was about to come up for an- other hearing. He sacrificed his entire property to this project of recla- mation.
In 1881 to 1884 the tracks of the Southern Pacific were laid follow- ing the main survey of the government in 1853. Those who complain of the fatigue and dust of the trip across the desert in the comfortable Pullman of today should read the diaries of those pioneers of western progress and learn what discomfort in traveling really is. The comple- tion of the Southern Pacific Railroad closed the first part of the story of the Colorado Desert.
In 1883 the New Liverpool Salt Company filed on some land and leased more from the Southern Pacific and began to recover the layers of salt which covered the bottom of the Salton Basin-now the Salton Sea. They scraped the salt in heaps with steam plows and then purified
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FORMATION OF COLORADO DESERT
it. This company made a great deal of money until the overflow which in 1906 destroyed the whole plant.
EARLY SETTLERS IN THE VALLEY
P. J. Storms was one of the first permanent settlers in the Valley ; he came just after the annual overflow of the river and saw the land cov- ered with grass, and thousands of head of stock grazing.
In the valley were Andy Elliott, Tom McKane, Fred Webb, Nat Wil- lard, Bruce Casebier, Bert McKane, Wash Lawrence, Arthur Ewens, Thomas Silsbee and Charles Hook. The Valley then had one voting pre- cinct with ten voters on the list : P. J. Storms, Arthur Ewens, A. J. El- liott, Fred Hall, William Huitt, W. Wilkins, Thomas Silsbee, A. N. Jones, William Harris and Peter Larson. It was still part of San Diego County and they were 140 miles by stage and 300 miles by rail from the county seat, and as a result the election supplies did not arrive for the first election until it was over.
In October, 1900, the Imperial Land Company started the towns of Imperial, Brawley, Calexico, Heber and Silsbee. Imperial was located in the center of the irrigable district, and was intended to be the chief city of Imperial Valley, Calexico on the international line, Silsbee to the southwest, Brawley north, and Heber to the south ; afterward Holt- ville and El Centro were added to the list.
The first store in Imperial was for general merchandise and was built and stocked by Dr. Heffernan, and Millard Hudson erected a tent hotel. The next year was built the Christian Church and a printing office. They were the only wooden buildings in the Imperial Valley until late in 1901. As the accommodations improved the stream of land seekers in- creased. W. F. Holt built a telephone line from Imperial to Flowing Well telegraph station. The Imperial Press, Henry Reed, editor, was the first paper. The first child born was a son of Tom Beach, superin- tendent of construction of the canals. Most of the necessaries used by the settlers in the early days was brought in by the freighter with a long string of mules, but the mule is being displaced by the automobile and traction engine, and one of the picturesque effects of the country is fast disappearing.
In May of that year (1891) a postoffice was given to Imperial with Dr. Heffernan as postmaster, and in the fall a public school was organ-
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ized by Professor J. E. Carr from Nevada City. This school was to serve for the entire district and was located in the center of the popula- tion, which was about 10 miles south of Imperial City on the bank of the main canal. The night before the school was to open Professor Carr took two men and drove to the location in a wagon and set up a tent, and next to it they built the school house of arrow weed, with eight sup- porting poles and the next day this sheltered 50 pupils, many of whom later walked five miles every day. In the following spring the district was divided and permanent buildings erected.
In April, 1902, the Imperial Land Company invited the Southern California Editorial Association to make an excursion to the Imperial Valley, and they were so well treated that they felt very friendly to the Valley and the publicity they gave to the work of development brought a great many settlers.
In 1902 the government put out "Circular No. 9," a so-called soil ex- pert's report on the soil of the Valley which had been eagerly watched for both by the settlers and prospective settlers. He proved conclusively, to his own satisfaction, that the land was too full of alkali to grow any- thing. It did not leave the settlers a ray of hope. Many newspapers gave publicity to the pamphlet and featured it. One editor, Isaac Frazier of the Oceanside Blade, treated the thing as a joke and with some others refused to take the government expert seriously. There is no doubt but the report did a great deal of damage to the community, beside injuring the credit of the California Development Company. Dissensions arising in the company itself, the Chaffeys withdrew from the enterprise. Time has disproved the report of the government's inexperienced expert, and the settlers have gone on raising all sorts of things that were said to be impossible.
In 1902 the first Farmers Institute was held in the new brick block of the Imperial Land Company. In August they gave a big watermelon fes- tival where 250 people feasted. In fact the year 1902 witnessed the birth of many business enterprises and a rapid growth of construction and settlement. Water was turned into the main canal in March, 1902.
@ R. Rockwood
CHAPTER III
EARLY HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
BY C. R. ROCKWOOD (WRITTEN IN 1909)
EARLY in 1892, while located at North Yakima, Washington, I received a letter from one John C. Beatty, writing from Denver, sending to me a prospectus and plans of what was called the Arizona & Sonora Land & Irrigation Company. They proposed to take water from the Colorado River and carry it on to a tract of a million and a half acres in Sonora, which they claimed to own. The board of directors of the company con- sisted of several of the leading financial men of Colorado, and Mr. Beatty's desire was that I should make them a proposition whereby I would become the chief engineer of that project and undertake the con- struction of its proposed canals.
After a correspondence extending over a period of four or five months, I finally met Mr. Beatty at Denver in August, 1892, and enter- ed there into an agreement with this company, and in September of that year came to Yuma in order to outline and take charge of the pro- ject of their company.
In Denver I met Mr. Samuel Ferguson, who afterward became con- nected with me in the promotion of the California Development Com- pany and who was at that time the general manager of the Kern County Land Company. Mr. Ferguson had written to me previously, asking me to become the chief engineer of the Kern County Land Company, situ- ated at Bakersfield, California, and he met me in Denver in order to outline their project to me before I might close with Mr. Beatty. As the Kern County canal system was partially completed, I decided to under- take the new project rather than the rebuilding of an old house, with the result that I came to Yuma in September of the year 1892 and un- dertook surveys to determine the feasibility of the Arizona & Sonora Land & Irrigation Company's proposition. After projecting these sur- veys I decided that the irrigation of the Sonora land at the time was en-
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tirely unfeasible and reported to my people that, in my opinion, they would lose any money they might spend on the project.
In the meantime, however, while these surveys were in progress I had taken a team and made a trip into that portion of the Colorado Desert which is now known as the Imperial Valley. We knew that during the flood of the Colorado River in the year 1891 the overflow had found its way into this territory. Mr. Hawgood, at the time the resident engineer of the Southern Pacific Company at Los Angeles, had for his company made a study of this overflow and from the data at his command had compiled a map of the territory. This map, as well as the government surveys of 1854 and 1856, showed that not only was there in all prob- ability a large area of fertile land in the valley, but that these lands lay below the Colorado River and could be irrigated from it. Many years before this, Dr. Wozencraft of San Bernardino had attempted to get the government to bring water into the Colorado Desert, and I believe that General Fremont also attempted to get the government to turn the wat- er into what is known now as Salton Sea, not for the purpose of irriga- tion, but for the purpose of creating a large inland lake in the hope that it would ameliorate the severe climatic conditions that obtained in this territory.
The result of my investigations at this time was such as to lead me to believe that, without doubt, one of the most meritorious irrigation projects in the country would be bringing together the land of the Col- orado Desert and the water of the Colorado River.
In the preliminary report made to the Denver corporation early in the year 1893, I urged them to undertake the surveys which might be necessary in order to prove or disprove my belief, and I was authorized to run preliminary lines in order to determine the levels, the possible acreage of available lands and, approximately, the cost of construction.
They were so well assured from the nature of my preliminary report that the Colorado Desert project was a meritorious one that they imme- diately took steps to change the name of their company from the Ari- zona & Sonora Land & Irrigation Company to that of the Colorado Riv- er Irrigation Company, and assured me that if my report, after making the necessary surveys, was sufficiently favorable, they had back of them a fund of two million dollars to carry out the project.
I undertook then during the winter of 1892-1893 very careful sur-
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veys, starting from a proposed heading about twelve miles above Yuma, at a point called the Pot Holes, situated about one mile below the La- guna dam of the reclamation service; the surveys extended from this point into the Colorado Desert and around to the Southern Pacific Rail- road in the neighborhood of Flowing Well.
It was necessary for the canal to enter Mexico. All of the lands in Mexico were owned by General Guillermo Andrade, although the Blythe estate claimed to own one-half of the Andrade lands. Beatty, un- fortunately for him, consulted his personal friend, General W. H. H. Hart, who was at that time attorney general for the State of California, as well as attorney for the Blythes. Hart showed so little faith in An- drade's ability to deliver title that Beatty, instead of attempting to pla- cate Andrade and obtain his co-operation, succeeded in antagonizing him and was afterward unable to enter into any agreement that would permit his company to build in Mexico.
In the panic of 1893 most of the directors of the Colorado River Irri- gation Company were so crippled financially that they were unable to carry out this project, notwithstanding the fact that my surveys and reports developed a much more favorable proposition than my prelimi- nary report even had anticipated. Unfortunately, Mr. Beatty, who was the promoter and manager of this enterprise, was of the Colonel Sellers type of man and his ideas were not always practical.
Beatty, however, not discouraged, went to New York in that year and attempted to secure the funds required for construction. He elim- inated from his board of directors the Denver people, substituting very strong New York men. Among his original New York board was John Straitton, the multimillionaire president of the Straitton & Storm Cigar Company, manufacturers of the Owl cigar ; F. K. Hains, superintend- ent of the Manhattan Elevated Railway Companies ; Thomas L. James, postmaster general under Cleveland's administration, and several other men of equal prominence, but whose names I forget.
Those men were mostly dummy directors, receiving in addition to the stock bonus for use of their names, so much for every time they at- tended a directors' meeting, and Beatty succeeded in obtaining very little aid financially from them. He had interested, though, a cousin, James H. Beatty, of Canada, from whom he obtained a great deal of financial assistance. James H. Beatty, I believe, put in over fifty thou-
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HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
sand dollars at this time, but in the next year, 1894, he not only with- drew his support, but entered suit against John C. Beatty in order to prevent him from selling any more stock in the Colorado River Irriga- tion Company.
As an illustration of the character of John C. Beatty, in March, 1894, he came from New York to Los Angeles. At that time I had not been paid for my services to the company ; on the contrary, while a sufficient amount of money had usually been forthcoming to pay the monthly bills, when I disbanded the engineering forces in June, 1893, I was obliged to pay part of the men from my own funds, and at the time of Mr. Beatty's visit to Los Angeles in 1894, I had not succeeded in getting a refund of this money. Consequently, I told Mr. Beatty that as other. creditors had not been paid that I proposed to bring suit quietly in order to gain legal possession of all the surveys and engineering equip- ment in order that it might not be scattered among various creditors and its value rendered largely nil. I told Beatty it would be useless for him to defend it and that I would give them six months if I obtained possession of the property in which to redeem it. He agreed to this and left Los Angeles for the City of Mexico to obtain, as he said, the right from the Mexican government to carry his proposed canal through Lower California in spite of the opposition of General Andrade. Mr. Beatty, at this time, was practically broke, as I judged from the fact that notwithstanding he had on a new suit and looked as if he had come from a tailor's shop. I unfortunately accompanied him as far as Yuma on this trip, and when, after getting his supper at the station, he put his foot on the car step, he turned to me and said : "By the way, Rockwood, I believe I am a little short of cash. I will get plenty in El Paso. Let me have ten dollars until I get there when I will return it." I did this and I have never seen the ten dollars since, although Mr. Beatty did succeed in raising $100 in El Paso by getting a stranger to cash a sight draft on the Colorado River Irrigation Company of New York for that amount. At that time, the Colorado Irrigation Company did not have a dollar in its treasury, nor did it have a treasurer. After Beatty got his hundred dollars he went to Mexico. There, notwithstanding the fact that he spoke the language fluently, and had many acquaintances in the city, he fell into financial depths to such an extent that he was unable to pull himself out and get away from the country until his son Herbert, a
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EARLY HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
young man then in his twenty-first year, sent him $250 from Providence, Rhode Island, and told his father to get back to Providence as soon as possible as they could raise all the money they required there.
The $250 which Herbert sent to his father in Mexico was half of $500 which he succeeded in borrowing from a man by the name of Green, living in Providence, Rhode Island. This man Green, Beatty had met at Chicago during the world's fair the previous year, and having at that time discussed the possibilities of the Colorado River project with him, liad gone to Providence to see if he could obtain any funds from him.
Beatty returned from Mexico to Providence in July, 1894. I went east from California in the same month, and having interested myself with General Andrade and believing that it would be impossible for Beatty to carry out any scheme of irrigation, I went to Scotland in Sep- tember of that year in order to see a syndicate of Glasgow and Edin- burgh men who held an option from Andrade on all of his lands in Lower California. My desire was to see if I could not induce these men to raise the necessary capital to carry out the project and to join the Lower California lands with those north of the line and finance the whole thing as a complete project, but very much to my disgust I found that these Scotch people were all interested in the coal trade; that coal had taken a tremendous slump in a few months previous, and that these men were so financially stricken that they could do nothing; they would not, however, agree to give up their option except at a very high figure. Consequently, I was obliged to wait until the expiration of this option, which was to take place on the 15th day of May, 1905.
I returned from Europe in October, 1894, and found a letter waiting me at my hotel in New York from John C. Beatty urging me to visit him in Providence, Rhode Island, before I returned to California. I de- cided to do so and went to Providence. Mr. Beatty, who, you will re- member, was broke in Mexico City in July of the same year, met me at the train and insisted that I should go to his house instead of a hotel, and I accepted his invitation. He took me to one of the suburbs of Prov- idence, the old village of Pawtuxet, and to a beautiful old colonial house situated in ten acres of ground sloping down to Naragansett Bay. The property, which I can readily believe had originally cost over $50,- 000, had been repainted, replumbed, green houses rebuilt, solid marble
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washstands with silver trimmings put in every bedroom, and two new bathrooms had been built. I looked at Beatty in astonishment. The only explanation he would give me was that he had come to the conclusion that in order to raise money in Providence it was necessary to be one of the people and not a carpet-bagger, and for that reason he had pur- chased this place from the noted evangelist, Rev. B. Fay Mills. I discov- ered afterward that the only money that the Rev. B. Fay Mills had re- ceived from Mr. Beatty was the sum of $500, payable on account of purchase, the remainder to be paid after Mr. Beatty had examined the records, but unfortunately Mr. Mills had given Beatty possession. The $500 which he paid Mills had been borrowed from this same Nathaniel Green. Of all the bills, plumbers', carpenters', painters', bills for furni- ture and dishes, I was told that not one had been paid, and that Beatty had succeeded in paying the workmen in notes so it was impossible for them to get a lien on any of the property.
Beatty had a thousand dollar piano in the house on which he had paid nothing. One of his daughters, who was a fine musician, played for me in the evening. I noticed that she had but a few sheets of music and I afterwards discovered that all of her music was in her trunks and that the trunks of the entire family were then being held in the Murray Hill Hotel in New York for non-payment of bills.
When I landed in Providence in October, 1894, at Beatty's request, he first took me out to his house where I remained over night and the next morning he took me to his offices down town. His offices were, at that time, in the finest building in the town ; he took me to the top floor of the building, where I found he had a suite of six magnificent rooms most beautifully furnished; he had four stenographers employed and, wonderful to say, he had his showcases and tables filled with oranges, lemons, bananas, figs, apricots, all products of the Colorado Desert, which, at that time, was producing nothing but a few horned toads and once in a while a coyote.
He also had in Providence six agents at work who were rapidly bringing in the coin, because it was afterward discovered in a suit brought against Beatty and his company that he had obtained from the people of Providence between his coming there in the latter end of July and this time, which was about the middle of October, something over $35,000, in cash; notwithstanding the fact that his cousin, James H.
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Beatty, had succeeded in getting an injunction preventing him from selling any of the stock of the Colorado River Irrigation Company. Beatty had obeyed this injunction, but, under a technicality, had imme- diately turned around and sold his own private stock in the company ; consequently, the money, instead of being property of the company, was his own property and was evidently devoted to his personal uses.
Beatty desired me to remain in Providence in order to help him fi- nance his scheme. He assured me that he had men in tow who, if every- thing could be shown up to them to be all right, would put up all of the money that was necessary to carry the enterprise through, but I refused to join Beatty in his proposition unless he would put the enterprise in what I considered an honest business shape, which was to throw out his entire basis of capitalization. His Colorado River Irrigation Company was capitalized for seven and a half millions, which was based at $5.00 an acre upon one and a half million acres of land wholly in Sonora, which lands were not worth two cents an acre and never could be made worth any more, and which had no more connection with the enterprise of the Colorado Irrigation Company than if they had been situated in Alaska ; but if Beatty were to abandon these lands as a basis of his capi- talization, he would have no reason or excuse for holding the control of the stock of the company-consequently he refused absolutely to con- sider the reorganization and a decrease in the capitalization of the com- pany. I declined then to have anything whatever to do with him and came to California.
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