Ancient 'Park Avenue' Under Roosevelt Lake

the handiwork of the Hohokam, a Pima Indian name that translates as "those who have gone." Around A.D.1, this Indian tribe settled the Salt River Valley's dry and barren desert, and their irrigation magic transformed it into lush green farmlands and thriving villages. By A.D. 600, they'd created hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles of waterways winding out from the Salt and Gila rivers. All were dug by hand through hard, sun-baked soil using large wedge-shaped stone hoes, stone axes and digging sticks. The Hohokam people also built complex villages with ball courts and traded goods along networks stretching across the entire Southwest and into Mexico. Then they seemed to vanish around A.D.1450-leaving the area without a trace. More than four centuries later, the remnants of their prehistoric canal system fascinated Swilling and many others who'd seen them. But he was the first to act on his discovery. He recruited men from Wickenburg to dig the first modern irrigation ditch in the Salt River Valley in the winter of 1867. Using hand tools and mule-drawn earth-digging tools called fresnos, they inched along the outline of a Hohokam canal. Swilling's Ditch, as it was called, located near what is now 32nd Street and Van Buren in Phoenix, was completed in March 1868, and the vast no-man's-land again sprang to life with water from the Salt River. By the fall of 1868, 100 people had settled nearby. One year later, the settlers had cultivated 1,000 acres of farmland. Then in 1870, that acreage doubled. By May 1871, the hot topic was where to establish the township for this booming community. One of the men who camefrom Wickenburg with Swilling, Darrell "Lord" Duppa, named the community "Phoenix," the bird from Egyptian mythology that sets itself on fire and rises renewed from the ashes. During the 1870s, Phoenix grew from a tiny outpost into a small town. By 1889, it became the Territorial capital with a population of about 3,000. Meanwhile, a debate raged in Washington, D.C., over whether the federal government should fund irrigation projects in the dry, barren West. In 1889, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Land toured the West to investigate conditions firsthand. In preparation, a county agency sent a three-man survey team to find possible reservoir sites in the Salt River and Verde River watersheds. On a scorching August day, the team embarked on horseback and skirted the

HISTORY An Ancient 'Park Avenue' Lies Under Roosevelt Lake

splashed across The New York Times' pages, the headline read: "Ebbing Lake Bares Ancient City in Arizona, with Apartments Bigger Than Park Avenue's." The sensational news flash in 1925 refers to Theodore Roosevelt Lake and the submerged "ancient city" built by a prehistoric tribe known as the Salado. The remarkably advanced civilization populated the central Arizona area roughly between A.D. 1150 and 1450. While sophisticated, the Salados weren't exactly living in Manhattan-style high-rises, as the headline hints. What Columbia University anthropologist Erich Schmidt did find in 1925 was the Armer Ruin, dated to the 14th century. It was a pueblo -an aboveground structure of connected room blocksin a signature Salado style. A similar Salado pueblo, Besh-Ba-Gowah, has been stabilized and partially reconstructed in Globe. The 200-room, cobble-walled pueblo that once housed 1,400 people is one of a sprinkling of remnants that can still be found in Tonto Basin, the wide valley below the Salt River Canyon. Scientists struck an archaeological mother lode in the lake bed between 1989 and 1993, when the federal Bureau of Reclamation footed a $16-million bill for about 700 digs in the area. The impact study, prompted by plans to expand Roosevelt Dam, divulged secrets about this vanished civilization. Theirreligious leaders wielded the most clout, although men and women held positions of equal power in this oligarchy. Intriguing artifacts found included shelled ornaments worn during ceremonial dances, quartz crystals and red and blue pigments for painting the face and body. Here religious leaders lived in a posh Salado address, where imported, exotic materials like marine shell, turquoise and obsidian were found. Remnants of exquisite crafts, such as multicolored pots called polychromes, also peppered the area. Others included a cradleboard beautifully handcrafted of twill-weave beargrass, yucca sandals, grass hairbrushes, reed cigarettes-and a bundle of 16 saguaro spines

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Believed to be tattoo needles. Pieces of finely woven cloth revealed the skill level of Salado weavers, who created exquisite open work, delicately embroidered pieces and even plaid. Also unearthed was the Schoolhouse Point Mound, where residences and workrooms surrounded central storage rooms. Experts suspect this was a huge food warehouse and meeting and trade hub. Burial sites held clues about the average lifespan, height, diet and illnesses plaguing the Salados. For reasons unknown, the Salado abandoned their heartland between 1400 and 1450. While the fate of the Salado remains a mystery, the silent bed of Roosevelt Lake still may be keeping a few secrets.

North base of the Superstition Mountains. Just below the junction of Tonto Creek and the Salt River, they found an ideal spot for a dam and reservoir. The men dug to measure the depth of the bedrock, test the hardness of the canyon's rock (which would be the dam's quarry) and examine the Salt River's high-water mark on the canyon's sheer walls. Back in Phoenix, the survey team reported it had discovered a reservoir location that could hold far more than a year's runoff from rain and snow. It would become the site of the future Theodore Roosevelt Dam and lake. But the $3.7 million then needed to build the dam couldn't be raised before disaster struck. In 1897, a seven-year drought devastated the Salt River Valley. Trees died by the acre, range cattle by the thousands. Many desperate residents pulled up stakes and fled. Those remaining grappled with how to store enough water. Citizens rallied in 1900, but they couldn't agree on a money-raising plan for dam construction. Finally, former book publisher B.A. Fowler traveled to Washington, D.C., to wrangle help from the government, but to no avail. President William McKinley's administration rejected the idea of federal support. Then a tragic twist of fate McKinley's assassination in September 1901-turned the tide in favor of the Salt River Valley project. Succeeding McKinley was Theodore Roosevelt, the popular Rough Rider of the SpanishAmerican War, irrepressible outdoorsman and ardent conservationist who had become a champion of federal support for irrigation development. On June 17, 1902, he signed the National Reclamation Act that allowed the sale of public lands in the West to help fund water reclamation projects that would enhance the growth and settlement of the western U.S. territories and states. Eight months later, ranchers and farmers in droughtstricken Phoenix formed the Salt River Valley Water Users'

n the job, Apache laborers amazed engineers with their ability to lay and fit rocks without mortar.

Association, marking the beginning of the Salt River Project's history. They pledged more than 200,000 acres of their own land as collateral for federal loans to build a dam. The federal government agreed, and Roosevelt Dam became the first project launched under the new act.

In 1904, tortuous preparation work began on the 280foot-high, 1,000-foot-long stone-masonry arc wedged in the Mazatzal Mountains 60 miles east of Phoenix. Damming the Salt River at this inaccessible spot was a monumental task, and first a road had to be built. Apache laborers were eager to tackle the tough road project. The tribe's treacherous footpath, which wound through the Salt River Canyon and had been used for seasonal migration to tribal hunting grounds near Tonto Basin, was the only link from the dam to Phoenix. Between 1904 and 1905, Apache crews turned the footpath into a usable road. They left work camps at 3 A.M. daily and ran to work, sometimes as far as 10 miles. On the job, they amazed engineers

with their ability to lay and fit rocks without mortar. Building materials were slowly transported along this narrow access road, known as the Apache Trail, and the first stone of the dam was laid on September 20, 1906.

The foreman of the Apache road crew was Al Sieber, a Civil War veteran and former Indian scout who spoke fluent Apache. The Apaches called him "Man of Iron" for his courage and cleverness. In February 1907, a crew was using dynamite to build a wagon road north of the dam. One blast left a large boulder precariously balanced on a smaller stone. After Sieber dislodged the stone, he couldn't dodge out of the boulder's path, and it crushed his legs. Sieber lost consciousness and died soon after. Grief-stricken, the Apache road crew left a monument commemorating his death north of Roosevelt Dam.

Work on the dam also proved dangerous and backbreaking, often performed in summer heat topping 100 degrees. Apaches trenched tunnels through sand so fine it ran like water and moved massive boulders - an inch at a time-that were in the way. When the dam was dedicated on March 18, 1911, several Apache workers celebrated their contribution, toting a sign that read simply: "Apaches helped build Roosevelt Dam."

But other groups were also at work: Italians, Chinese and blacks. Together, they stirred up a cosmopolitan mix at the neighboring town of Roosevelt, where they lived.

In many ways, Roosevelt fit the frontier Western town stereotype: Simple board-and-batten, oneand two-story buildings lined a wide dirt street, and a sprinkling wagon kept the dirt down. On the outskirts, Apache laborers and their(Continued from page 27) families lived in traditional wickiups. But it was also a cultured community, a stop for touring theater companies, with an opera house, the Roosevelt Peerless Orchestra and a Chinese restaurant. Other finer things in life included a pool hall, ice cream parlor, hot springs and bowling alley.

Benito Mussolini's bomber seaplane landed on Roosevelt Lake in 1927. It never left. The plane caught fire and sank.

Not only did the town of Roosevelt spring to life from dam construction, so did Roosevelt Lake, then the largest man-made lake in the world. Here a rare bird, a seaplane with an Italian crew dispatched by Il Duce himself, Italian Premier Benito Mussolini, drew crowds - and suspicions of international espionage-in 1927. Mussolini had sent General de Pinedo on an aerial tour of Europe, Africa, South America and the United States, with a stop at Roosevelt Lake. Crowds made the dusty, rough six-hour drive from Phoenix to Roosevelt Lake to see the converted seaplane bomber powered by two Fraschini engines and with twin plywood hulls. The "Santa Maria" gracefully skimmed the lake and stopped at 10:16 A.M.; two motorboats towed her ashore. The festivities were nearly over when the alarming cry, "Fire!" pierced the air. Flames engulfed the seaplane. Ten minutes of frantic efforts to put out the blaze failed. The heavy engines crashed through the charred shell, which floated like a corpse on the glassy lake.

The fire sparked suspicions of sabotage by expatriates. With the mysterious fire threatening to create an international incident, a newspaper reporter finally doused suspicions by revealing the true cause: a young boat dockhand who had assisted in towing the boat ashore. He'd lit a cigarette and thoughtlessly tossed the burning match into the fuel-covered water.

But foreign intrigue on the river system was not a one-time event. In 1944, more than 3,100 German prisoners of war lived at Papago Park Camp in Phoenix. Little did camp guards know, but some clever prisoners, many of them engineers or U-boat crew members, spent three months digging a 178-foot escape tunnel from a coal bin to the Arizona Crosscut Canal, bordering the eastern edge of camp. Twenty-five made a nighttime escape on December 23 that year. A three-man escape team had built a small portable boat to sail down the Gila River to Yuma. But there was a small glitch: no water. The Germans didn't realize that Arizonans calling it a river did not guarantee there would be any water (Text continued on page 34) (Continued from page 30) in it. Their escape was nothing more than an adventure, and many turned themselves in soon afterward. Authori[PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 28 AND 29] The Black and White rivers combine their flows to form the Salt. Here, the East Fork of the Black River flows gracefully past streamside sedges. JACK DYKINGA [RIGHT] Blanketed in snow, Al Fulton Point on the Mogollon Rim towers over Arizona's central highlands and the Salt River watershed. Snowmelt from Arizona's high country charges the river system. JERRY SIEVE

ties rounded up the others by January 28, 1945.

After World War II, businesses and homes rapidly overtook the Salt River Valley's sprawling agricultural fields. Keeping pace with growth in the desert posed a Challenge for SRP, which developed the capacity to store 2.3 million acre-feet of water-enough to last two years without more rain or snow. Rapid growth also sparked environmental concerns about protecting natural habitats.

Today, one of SRP'S environmental efforts is the Arizona Bald Eagle Nest Watch Program run by the ArizonaGame and Fish Department. SRP's helicopter pilots fly biologists to the bald eagles' nests along rivers and tributaries. The biologists note behavior, take a census and shoo away intruders. Amid controversy about haze over the Grand Canyon, SRP transformed the Navajo Generating Station In the perennial struggle between man and nature, tempestuous rivers like the Salt often have the last word, so working with nature is a must. AH