USA > California > Imperial County > The history of Imperial County, California > Part 14
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HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
the resurvey of the lands in the Imperial Valley. The act was passed in July, 1902 ; it is now the month of April, 1909, and the work of the gov- ernment to straighten out the surveys covering less than twenty town- ships of land is not yet completed. Except for the cumbersome machin- ery and red tape of the government, there is probably no reason why these surveys should not have all been completed during the year 1904. Had this been done, the story of the Imperial Valley today would prob- ably be very different from what it is now, as the people would have gotten their titles and, having their titles, they would have been able to obtain sufficient funds for the development of the lands where now they find it impossible to obtain money ; consequently, the work of develop- ment is necessarily greatly retarded.
It was early in the year 1905 that negotiations for the purchase of the property by the reclamation service were ended and we were then con- fronted with an empty treasury, the hostility of the people in the Val- ley, and much work that it was necessary to do for the safety and per- manency of the system, and to fulfill our agreement with the various companies in the Valley.
The banks absolutely refused to extend us any further credit and were clamoring for the repayment of moneys already loaned, and it seemed to us at this time that there was but one logical source from which we could hope to obtain sufficient funds to carry on the work, and this source must necessarily be one which was equally interested with ourselves in the development of the territory, namely, the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Mr. Heber returning at this time from Washington, the question was taken up and discussed with him and he approached the subject of a loan to Mr. J. K. Krutschnitt, director and manager of operation of the Harriman lines, but was turned down by him. He afterward, however, succeeded in obtaining an interview with Mr. Harriman, and at Mr. Harriman's request, Krutschnitt authorized the officials of the road in San Francisco to take the matter up for investigation and report to him. After investigating they offered to loan us the $200,000, for which we had asked, on condition that two-thirds of the stock of the company should be placed in trust to secure to them the voting control and man- agement of the company until the loan had been repaid. Mr. Heber re- fused to agree to this proposition except it be agreed that he would be
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retained in the management ; but the Southern Pacific positively refused to advance the money unless Mr. Heber should retire from the manage- ment. Notwithstanding the friction that had arisen on business and personal matters between Mr. Heber and myself, I had great faith in his ability as an executive, and in his ability to handle the land and col- onization of the Valley ; but I also believed, as did my other associates with the exception of Mr. Heber, that unless money could be obtained quickly from some source the company would soon be thrown into bankruptcy. Consequently, Mr. Blaisdell, Dr. Heffernan and myself went to San Francisco in April, 1905, and in an interview with Messrs. Calvin, Hood and Herrin of the Southern Pacific, succeeded in getting them to agree to lend to the California Development Company $200,000, on condition that we should succeed, at the annual meeting of the com- pany to be held in Jersey City early in June, in placing on the board three men to be named by them, one of whom should be selected as the president and general manager of the company; also precedent to the loan, that we were to place in the hands of a trustee to be named by the Southern Pacific 6300 shares of the capital stock out of a total of 12,500.
Mr. Heber was not at the time informed of these negotiations. He left for Jersey City in May in order to hold the annual meeting in June, and I went east during the same month. The result of the annual meet- ing was that we succeeded in doing that which we had undertaken to do, and as a final result the management of the company was turned over to the Southern Pacific on the 20th day of June.
The Southern Pacific officials named as their representatives on the California Development's board, Mr. Epes Randolph, Mr. George A. Parkyns, and Mr. R. H. Ingram, and the members of the board named by the California Development Company were under the contract made satisfactory to the Southern Pacific.
It was the desire of Messrs. Blaisdell, Heffernan and myself that Mr. Epes Randolph, in whose integrity and ability we had the utmost confi- dence, should become the president of the company, and as this seemed to be satisfactory to the San Francisco officials, he was so selected.
.It was not at the time stipulated that I should be retained as an officer of the company. In fact, on account of the serious difficulties that had arisen between Mr. Heber and myself, I doubted very much wheth-
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er it was good policy for the company to retain me actively in the man- agement of its affairs. This whole question was broached to Mr. Ran- dolph and he was left with entire freedom to decide as he might see fit. He decided, however, that as neither he nor any of the Southern Pacific officials knew anything in regard to the affairs of the California Development Company, that it would be necessary to retain me in the position that I afterward filled, namely, that of assistant general man- ager.
In June, 1905, the break in the Colorado River was a source of great alarm, not only with the people in the Valley, but was becoming so to ourselves. As I have already stated, there was a serious shortage of water in the Valley in the winter season of 1903-04. There had been some trouble with the silting of the first four miles of the main canal below the Chaffey gate, due to the fact that it had not as yet been exca- vated to a sufficient depth ; and also that Mr. Chaffey, instead of build- ing the canal on the alignment originally planned by me, had followed excavation of a few yards of material in the tortuous channel of an old slough which left in the canal many sharp bends that not only retarded the velocity of the water, but caused, at times, serious erosion of the banks and a consequent deposit of sediment.
With the machinery at our command and which we could purchase with the money controlled by us, we had been unable up to this time to straighten and deepen this section of the canal as I had intended, and I evolved the theory that by putting in a waste gate about eight miles be- low the head gate, from which point we could waste water into the Paredones River and from this into Volcano Lake, that we could carry through the upper portion of the canal during the flood season of 1904 a sufficient volume of water to deepen and scour out by its own action this upper portion of the canal. This waste way was constructed and the flood waters were allowed to run freely through the upper portion of the canal during the summer season of 1904. The first action of the heavy volume of water coming through the canal was as I had expected. From investigations and measurements frequently made, some two feet of the bottom was taken out, and I believed, then, that we were absolutely safe for our Valley supply during the following season ; but I had count- ed without my host, and my theory was disproven a little later in the flood season, as when the river reached its flood heights, instead of
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scouring the bottom of the canal as I had expected, the heavy sand waves which are carried along the bottom of the river in extreme flood periods, were carried into the canal and deposited within the first four miles below the gate. As soon as the summer flood dropped and I discov- ered this condition of affairs, and that instead of the bottom being low- ered, it was approximately one foot above that of the year previous, we adopted the only means at our command to attempt to deepen the canal.
Knowing the character of the material to be removed, we knew that with the dredging tools that we had it would be impossible to dredge out this four miles of canal in sufficient time for the uses of the Valley, providing the water in the river should drop as low as it had the previ- ous year. The dredgers were brought back, however, and put at work; but the result proved as I had anticipated, that it would take practically all winter to dredge the canals; that is, it would take all winter to pro- vide new machinery, even if we had the money ; and in hopes, then, that it might possibly prove effective, I employed the steamer Cochan, and. placing a heavy drag behind it, ran it up and down the canal in hopes that by stirring up the bottom there would be sufficient velocity in the canal itself to move the silt deposits on below the four mile stretch to a point where I knew the water had sufficient velocity to keep the silt moving. A month's work, however, with the steamer proved that the work being done by it was inadequate.
We were confronted then with the proposition of doing one of two things, either cutting a new heading from the canal to the river below the silted four miles section of the canal, or else allowing the Valley to pass through another winter with an insufficient water supply. The lat- ter proposition we could not face for the reason that the people of the Imperial Valley had an absolute right to demand that water should be furnished them, and it was questionable in our minds as to whether we would be able to keep out of bankruptcy if we were to be confronted by another period of shortage in this coming season of 1904-1905.
The cutting of the lower intake, after mature deliberation and upon the insistence of several of the leading men of the Valley, was decided upon. We hesitated about making this cut, not so much because we be- lieved we were incurring danger of the river's breaking through, as from the fact that we had been unable to obtain the consent of the Gov- ernment of Mexico to make it, and we believed that we were jeopardiz-
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ing our Mexican rights should the cut be made without the consent of the government. On a telegraphic communication, however, from our attorney in the City of Mexico to go ahead and make the cut, we did so under the presumption that he had obtained the necessary permit from the Mexican authorities. It was some time after this, in fact after the cut was made to the river, before we discovered that he had been unable to obtain the formal permit, but had simply obtained the promise of cer- tain officials that we would not be interfered with providing that plans were at once submitted for the necessary controlling structures to be placed in this heading.
This lower intake was constructed not, as is generally supposed, be- cause there was a greater grade from the river through to the main canal at this point. The grade through the cut and the grade of the main canal above the cut were approximately the same, but the cut was made at this point for the reason that the main canal below the point where the lower intake joined it was approximately four feet deeper than the main canal through the four miles above this junction to the Chaffey gate, consequently giving us greater water capacity. In cutting from the main canal to the river at this point, we had to dredge a dis- tance of 3300 feet only, through easy material to remove, while an at- tempt to dredge out the main canal above would have required the dredging of four miles of very difficult material. We began the cut the latter end of September and completed it in about three weeks.
As soon as the cut was decided upon, elaborate plans for a controlling gate were immediately started and when completed early in November were immediately forwarded to the City of Mexico for approval of the engineers of the Mexican government, without whose approval we had no authority or right to construct the gate. Notwithstanding the insist- ence of our attorney in the City of Mexico and various telegraphic com- munications insisting upon this approval being hurried, we were unable to obtain it until twelve months afterward, namely, the month of De- cember, 1905.
In the meantime serious trouble had begun. We have since been ac- cused of gross negligence and criminal carelessness in making this cut, but I doubt as to whether anyone should be accused of negligence or carelessness in failing to foresee that which had never happened before. We had before us, at the time, the history of the river as shown by the
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EARLY HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
daily rod readings kept at Yuma for a period of twenty-seven years. In the twenty-seven years there had been but three winter floods. In no year of the twenty-seven had there been two winter floods. It was not probable, then, in the winter of 1905, that there would be any winter flood to enlarge the cut made by us and without doubt, as it seemed to us, we would be able to close the cut before the approach of the sum- mer flood by the same means that we had used in closing the cut for three successive years around the Chaffey gate at the head of the canal.
During this year of 1905, however, we had more than one winter flood. The first heavy flood came, I believe, about the first of February, but did not enlarge the lower intake; on the contrary it caused such a silt deposit in the lower intake that I found it necessary, after the flood had passed, to put the dredge through in order to deepen the channel sufficiently to allow enough water to come into the Valley for the use of the people.
This was followed shortly by another heavy flood that did not erode the banks of the intake but, on the contrary, the same as first, caused a deposit of silt and a necessary dredging. We were not alarmed by these floods, as it was still very early in the season. No damage had been done by them and we still believed that there would be no difficulty whatever in closing the intake before the approach of the summer flood, which was the only one we feared. However, the first two floods were followed by a third, coming some time in March, and this was sufficient notice to us that we were up against a very unusual season, something unknown in the history of the river as far back as we were able to reach ; and, as it was now approaching the season of the year when we might reasonably expect the river surface to remain at an elevation that would allow sufficient water for the uses of the Valley to be gotten through the upper intake, we decided to close the lower.
Work was immediately begun upon a dam similar to the ones here- tofore successfully used in closing the cut around the Chaffey gate. The dam was very nearly completed, when a fourth flood coming down the river swept it out. Work was immediately begun on another dam which was swept away by the fifth flood coming down during this winter season.
About this time I left for the east, and, at the earnest solicitation of Imperial Water Company No. I, which agreed to advance $5000 for
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HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
the effort, a third attempt to close the break was made under the direc- tions of Mr. C. N. Perry and the superintendent of Imperial Water Company No. 1, Mr. Thomas Beach. On my return from the east, on the 17th of June, I found them heroically attempting to stop the break with the water so high in the Colorado that all of the banks and sur- rounding lands were flooded, and I immediately stopped the work as we realized fully that nothing could be done until after the summer flood had passed.
At this time the lower intake had been enlarged from a width of about sixty feet, as originally cut with the dredger, to a width of possi- bly 150 feet, and it did not then seem probable that the Colorado River would turn its entire flow through the cut, but as the waters of the river began to fall the banks of the intake began to cave and run into the canal ; the banks of the canal below the intake fell in and, as known by most of the residents of the Valley, the entire river began running through the canal and into the Salton Sea in the month of August of this year of 1905.
After stopping the work of Messrs. Perry and Beach in June of that year, it was decided that nothing further should be done until the sum- mer flood had passed. When that flood had receded and we found that the entire river was coming through into the Salton Sea, the question as to how to turn the river became, perhaps, as serious a one from an en- gineering point of view, as had ever before confronted any engineer upon the American continent.
Immediately opposite the heading of the lower intake an island lay in the Colorado River about a half mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, being merely a sand bar upon which there had accumulated a growth of cottonwood and arrow weed, and in the month of July, while still a very large portion of the water was flowing through the east channel along the Arizona shore, I conceived the idea that possibly we might, by driving a line of piling from the upper end of this island to the Lower California shore and weaving in between the piling barbed wire and brush, create a sand bar that would gradually force all of the water into the east channel, after which we could throw in a perma- nent dam across the lower intake. Under the supervision of George Sex- smith, our dredger foreman, and E. H. Gaines, the present county sur- veyor of Imperial County, both of whom had been with us for years
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EARLY HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
and made good, this jetty was started from the upper end of the island and directed toward the California shore at a point about 3000 feet above the island. I hardly expected this plan to be a success, but there was a possibility of its succeeding, and it was the only means that could be adopted that might turn the water from the Salton Sea quickly enough to prevent the necessity of moving the Southern Pacific tracks ; and also, if successful, it was the most economical means of turning the river. We succeeded in building a bar throughout the length of about 2800 feet, but there was left an opening, approximately 125 feet long, through which the rush of water was too great to control. This work was abandoned about the first of August.
The one plan that I had advised, that I felt surely would succeed, was to construct a gate of sufficient size to carry the entire low water flow of the river, believing that when the water was turned through this gate we could, by closing the gates, raise the water to an elevation that would throw it down its original channel. This plan was fully discussed with Mr. Randolph and with our consulting engineer, Mr. James D. Schuyler, as well as with engineers of the Southern Pacific, who fully agreed as to the feasibility of that plan, and who expressed their belief that no other plan gave as great assurance of success. Mr. H. T. Cory, who was at that time Mr. Randolph's assistant and confidential man at Tucson, was sent from Tucson to examine into my plans and to re- port to Mr. Randolph upon their feasibility. At Mr. Cory's suggestion, an engineer from San Francisco was brought down to go over the works. Both Mr. Cory and his friend agreed upon the feasibility of the gate plan. Every one interested agreeing, I then, on rush orders, got to- gether all material necessary for the construction of this gate, the floor of which was to be of concrete on a pile foundation with a wooden superstructure, and it was my expectation to have the entire structure completed by the middle of November, 1905. If I remember correctly, the first material for this structure left Los Angeles on the 7th day of August, 1905.
It had been my intention originally to construct the gate in a channel to be built by the dredge west of the intake, but the soil proving of a quicksand formation and saturated with water, I found it difficult to make this excavation, and after working a few days I abandoned that idea and decided to construct a by-pass immediately east of the intake
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HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY
channel through which I would force the water of the river and would then build a gate in the intake itself. The intake at this point was about 300 feet in width, no more than we would require for rapid and success- ful construction of the work.
The dredger was immediately put to work upon the by-pass and this material was so easily moved that the dredger found no difficulty what- ever in making the short cut of about 700 feet that was required, and as soon as the cut was made a large portion of the water in the intake began naturally to pass through; and work was begun upon the first dam required to force all of the water through the by-pass, it being the intention that when this dam was completed and all of the water was going through the by-pass to throw in another dam about 250 feet be- low the first in order to inclose that portion of the intake to be used as a site for the gate; the second dam being built in still water, would have required only two or three days' work with the dredger, as it would have been simply an earthen bank thrown up by that machine.
It was at this time that I decided that it would be necessary for me to either put some one at the river to take absolute charge of the con- struction of the gate and the closing of the river, or else it would be necessary to put some one in the Los Angeles office to handle the busi- ness affairs of the company, as I found that I was spending fully one- third of my time on the train between Los Angeles and Yuma and that the strain was becoming too great and that either work required my presence all the time. I met Mr. Randolph about the middle of Septem- ber and discussed the question with him and he fully agreed with me that I could not fill both positions, and also agreed with me that it would be easier to find some one capable of completing the gate in ac- cordance with the plans outlined, than it would be to find some one to take charge of the business end of affairs of the company, as no one but Mr. Heber and myself knew fully in regard to all contracts that had been entered into. Mr. Randolph asked me who I had in mind for the river work and upon my replying that I had not decided, he suggested that Mr. F. S. Edinger would be the right man if we could get him. I did not know Mr. Edinger intimately, but had known him for several years as the superintendent of bridges for the Southern Pacific Rail- road. He had built the bridge at Yuma and I believed him to be a man of integrity and of great ability, and I concurred with Mr. Randolph in
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the wisdom of placing Mr. Edinger in charge of the work at the river, providing his services could be obtained. He had left the employ of the Southern Pacific about three months previously and was then interested with the contracting firm of Shattuck & Desmond of Los Angeles and San Francisco, with headquarters at San Francisco.
I had to leave the following day for San Francisco in order to pass upon the plans for the concrete head gate which were being gotten out by our consulting engineer, Mr. James D. Schuyler. In San Francisco I attempted to find Mr. Edinger, but learned that he was in Arizona. On my return to Los Angeles, I found a letter from Mr. Randolph stat- ing that he had met Mr. Edinger in Tucson and had arranged with him to take entire charge of the work at the river for the construction of the gate in accordance with my plans ; he requested me to go to Yuma with Mr. Edinger and turn the entire work over to him. Mr. Edinger had left for San Francisco, but returned in three or four days, when I accompanied him to the river, discussed with him the entire gate plans, went with him over the ground and turned at the time the entire work over to him. He expressed himself as entirely satisfied with the plans of this gate and as believing that the gate could be put in place much easier than I had anticipated, but agreed with me that if I was erring it was on the side of safety, and that the work would go ahead as out- lined by me. He said that it would be necessary for him to return to San Francisco at once in order to obtain some additional pumping machin- ery, which we decided we would require, and also to get several of his old men whom he thought would be of very material assistance to him in carrying through the new work rapidly.
He went to San Francisco and was to return in a week. He did not return for two weeks, and when he did return passed through Los An- geles without notifying me. He went to the river, and at this time we were having what we ordinarily expect about the first of October, a slight rise in the river of two or three feet. This rise I had been ex- pecting and hoping for, as I believed it would enlarge the by-pass and would, without the aid of the dam, throw a larger amount of the river water through the by-pass.
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