The Miracle of Water in the West

The land in the valley of the river Salt, an empire built by irrigation. Water from the five storage reservoirs (upper right) is diverted through the system of canals to serve 240,000 acres. The value of crops and livestock produced on the project exceeds $25,000,000 annually.

THE STORY OF THE SALT RIVER VALLEY WATER USERS ASSOCIATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL EMPIRE ALONG THE RIO SALT IN ARIZONA.

Part 1... The Small Dream

The development of vast agricultural enterprises in the Salt River Valley of Arizona through the reclaiming of desert lands by irrigation is one of the great triumphs of man in modern times. Its story is an American epic, a saga of pioneer vision, courage and resolve. This, the first of three articles on "The Miracle of Water in the West," tells of the humble beginnings of the foremost triumph in irrigation recorded in the history of mankind.

A ROTUND LITTLE MAN with a cheerful face and a long handle-bar mustache pushed up to the bar and ordered a drink. He downed his whiskey, wiped his mouth with the back of one stubby fist. "Too bad there ain't som-un in this territory willing to work."

From a seat at the perpetual poker game, a redheaded giant spoke without turning his head, "What's your job, Mister?"

Haulin' hay to Fort McDowell." "What's it pay?"

The fat man said, "Sixty dollars," and added gratuitously, "Apaches got my last three drivers."

The redhead threw in his hand, cashed his chips, and stood up. "I'll just take that job, Mister. My name's Swilling."

"Mine's Smith. J. Y. T. Smith."

The year was 1866. The meeting place, Wickenburg in the three-year-old Territory of Arizona.

There was no witness in that room who suspected this offer and acceptance of employ-ment was actually the beginning of a vast ir-rigation system, a project which would ulti-mately represent an investment of $43,000,000, which would change the economic and political pattern of a state not yet born.

More than any other single factor, the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association has influenced the development of Arizona. It is the first of such projects organized under the Federal Reclamation Act. It is the only successful" large irrigation project in the world. It has served as a pattern for every irrigation and hydro-electric project developed with federal aid and supervision. It was the inspiration for an entirely new interpretation of water laws, which were a radical departure from the old established common-law principles of riparian rights. It has contributed more real wealth to the world than all the fabled treasures sought by the Spanish Conquistadores. Most of the residents in and visitors to the Salt River Valley accept the miracle of irrigation without question. It is an American trait to take for granted an inherited blessing, and to look forward to improving that heritage with little thought of the significance of the inheritance. To know what water means to the Valley it is only necessary to drive beyond the canals. Here the land is just as fertile, the climate as favorable, but denied irrigation only cacti and native desert life can survive. Every tree, every productive acre is dependent upon irrigation. Until congestion made it impractical in some districts, lawns and shrubs and flower gardens were served by project water. Day and night, month in and month out water is diverted from the main canals to the smaller ditches and then spread on the thirsty soil. Even today the menace of drought returns periodically, but thanks to the augmented storage facilities there has never been a time since the completion of Roosevelt Dam when shortage made the rationing of water necessary. Farmers throughout the world are weather conscious. Even in sections where there is a heavy rainfall, men of the soil scan the sky anxiously in an effort to read the future. In the Salt River Valley the farmer is less dependent upon the whims of nature. The average annual rainfall is only 7.78 inches. Thanks to the controlled system of water storage, crops can be irrigated at the proper time. There need be little fear that rain will damage a planting, but under this system the reports of rainfall on the watersheds are as important to the farmers as the stock market records to the investment broker.

Salt River Valley accept the miracle of irrigation without question. It is an American trait to take for granted an inherited blessing, and to look forward to improving that heritage with little thought of the significance of the inheritance. To know what water means to the Valley it is only necessary to drive beyond the canals. Here the land is just as fertile, the climate as favorable, but denied irrigation only cacti and native desert life can survive. Every tree, every productive acre is dependent upon irrigation. Until congestion made it impractical in some districts, lawns and shrubs and flower gardens were served by project water. Day and night, month in and month out water is diverted from the main canals to the smaller ditches and then spread on the thirsty soil. Even today the menace of drought returns periodically, but thanks to the augmented storage facilities there has never been a time since the completion of Roosevelt Dam when shortage made the rationing of water necessary. Farmers throughout the world are weather conscious. Even in sections where there is a heavy rainfall, men of the soil scan the sky anxiously in an effort to read the future. In the Salt River Valley the farmer is less dependent upon the whims of nature. The average annual rainfall is only 7.78 inches. Thanks to the controlled system of water storage, crops can be irrigated at the proper time. There need be little fear that rain will damage a planting, but under this system the reports of rainfall on the watersheds are as important to the farmers as the stock market records to the investment broker.

Figures can never adequately measure the magnitude and importance of the Water Users' Project. They can only indicate the size of this co-operative development. Today there are four storage dams on the Salt River and one on the Verde, trapping a drainage area of over 13,000 square miles. Part of the watershed is at an elevation of over 9,000 feet. Snow fed streams rising in the mountains two hundred miles away roar down-ward through magnificent canyons to serve the land in the Valley. The four storage reservoirs on the Salt River form a continuous chain of man-made lakes nearly sixty miles in length. They create a shore line two hundred and three miles long. Their combined storage capacity of 1,954,000 acre feet is sufficient to cover the irrigated lands of the project to a depth of over eight feet.

Pictures of the water's progress by L. L. Lee, of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association

Besides the five large storage dams, there are three major diversion dams, 1,400 miles of canals and laterals with over 10.000 structures; 1,850 miles of electric power lines with 27 large sub-stations; 550 miles of telephone lines; two large warehouses; three office build ings; over 100 residences, and 200 pumping plants. The normal operating force varies from 700 to 1,000 employees.

As a by-product of this water storage system it was only natural for the Water Users' Asso ciation to enter the power field. The water behind the dams could thus be used to serve a dual purpose, and revenue from the sale of power used to reduce the water costs assessed against the farmer. However, the project is primarily an irrigation system. So far as the Reclamation Bureau is concerned its only pur pose is the delivery of water, and unless water is required in the valley for irrigation, it can not be released from the reservoirs solely to produce power.

Before the construction of additional storage dams below Roosevelt the generation of electri cal power was completely dependent upon the farmer's water orders. The association now has some leeway. Water released to generate power at Roosevelt can be caught and stored in the reservoirs on down the river.

Eight hydro-electric generating plants util ize every foot of drop from Roosevelt Dam to the Valley. This hydro-electric system is sup plemented by one deisel and one steam plant, providing a total combined generating capacity of 157,000 horespower.

The Project supplies power to the copper mines in Miami and Superior, and for the Valley towns of Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Phoe nix, Glendale, Marinette, and Litchfield.

This vast enterprise represents an investment of approximately $43,000,000. It is the foundation of all permanent value in central Arizona.

This fabulous project which unlocked the riches stored in the good dark soil of central Arizona did not spring full-blown upon the world. Each forward step in its development was paid for by the blood and the sweat and the tears of the pioneers.

From 1860 to 1900, the Southwest and particularly Arizona, was the last frontier. For the most part, those pioneer settlers who made the initial play in subduing the land were rest less spirits answering the call of adventure.

In all our western expansion, those who came first profited little in the final analysis. They were the wanderers, dissatisfied with things at home, unable to get along with their neighbors, and they found the elbow room they needed in the desolate plains of Arizona.

On the frontier, farmers and miners were first soldiers, ever on the alert against the Apaches. The most common-place comforts of the day were unknown. The business of getting simple food, clothes, and protecting their lives against the Indians occupied their full attention. Yet for all their crude ways, their coarse talk, their absorption in the ele mentary struggle for life, there was poetry in their existence. They would have denied this. Tomorrow's goal, for the most part, was the limit of their plans. But they forced life to follow their will.

John Smith and Jack Swilling were of this breed. Smith, a farmer from the Midwest, had settled on the bottom lands along the Salt River, fifteen miles below Fort McDowell, there to engage in cutting the wild hay for the cavalry stationed at the Fort. Salt grass grew abundantly along the river, but until the com ing of Swilling, none of Smith's freighters had lasted more than three months.

Jack Swilling had been in the Territory since 1862. He had been a Confederate sol dier, a prospector, Indian fighter, hard-rock

Roosevelt Dam, a monument of stone and mortar to the memory of those men who long ago dreamed their dreams. The completion of this dam signified the end of uncertainity and the beginning of permanent prosperity.

Miner, and freighter. He had a violent temper, unquestioned courage, and a stubborn tenacity of purpose which brought success in each new venture. But success was a bitter pill in his mouth. He was a man to do things; let others manage them when the deed was accomplished. He was inspired by adversity and failure. Success made him quarrelsome.

The man whose vision led him to pioneer water development in this valley was essentially a promoter. The newness of the west appealed to him. He had no patience for humdrum things. Each new day was a challenge. Whenother men said something was impossible, Swilling was ready to try and prove them wrong. This was not mere vanity. His education and experience had convinced him that the natural human tendency to resist change was a stumbling block which hindered progress.

This restless spirit drove Swilling westward. There was nothing stable on the frontier. In Arizona he found men eager and willing to follow his leadership.

For more than a year, Jack Swilling delivered Smith's hay to McDowell. He rode with a rifle in his lap, another in the wagonbox behind him. He fought the Apaches to a stand-still, the job became routine and dull.

The land in the river bottom produced all the hay the soldiers could use. The fields were fed by water from the river seeping under ground. Travelers on the southern overland trail passed through the valley on their westward journey. From them John Smith obtained seed. Corn and grain grew luxuriantlyin his experimental patch.

In his travels through Arizona Swilling had observed that the Indians frequently planted small crops in the river bottom. At Wickenburg he had seen pumpkins and corn growing on the Hassayampa. Below Tucson on the Santa Cruz the Mission Indians had developedproductive farms.

Between trips, Jack Swilling had ample time to explore the Valley. Ignorant of archeology, he nevertheless recognized the remains of an ancient irrigation system for what it was. The idea of bringing water to the rich brown soil fired his imagination. Land was free for the taking. Later there would be a town. He would call it "Stonewall" after thefamous Confederate general. A dozen men could dig the ditch.

The existence of a prehistoric irrigation system has been a source of inspiration to all men who followed Swilling. Those vanished people with their crude instruments, their stone hoes, had been able to divert the water from the river to their farms. What had been done once could be done again. Here was a pattern to follow, and the white men actually followed this pattern. Many of the ditches in use today follow the same grade as the canals of the ancients.

Jack Swilling dreamed a small dream of security and independence. He had no sense of destiny, his vision ended with a few farms.

There is today a popular legend that those men who came first planned an empire, were conscious of their place in history. Romantic writers have contributed to this legend. Actually they were humble men, preoccupied with problems of the present. The accomplishment of each year spurred them on to a greater goal, and their success was an orderly, evolutionary progress such as can be found in the forward development of civilization.

Jack Swilling outlined his plan to Smith. "Who you going to get to dig it?" his employer queried.

"I'm goin' to Wickenburg. There's men up there, farmers, hungry for the land."

"It'll take a heap o' money."

"Some, for tools and food," Swilling admitted. "Each man will have to put up."

"Those fellows'd rather dig for gold than work for it."

"Reckon they'll see things different when I get through with them."

Swilling established headquarters in a small cabin on a knoll three-quarters of a mile south of Wickenburg. He was an ardent evangelist. Men with money, like Darrell Duppa, invested in his project. Other men put up food sup plies, pledged their tools, their wagons, and teams for a share in the Ditch Company.

Most of the men who joined up with Jack Swilling had been farmers in the middle west. In Arizona they had turned to freighting or mining but without exception they were all anxious to get to the soil. Moreover this project appealed to their business instincts. All the food stuffs in Arizona had to be imported. Periodic Indian raids made freighting a hazard-ous business. Most of the roads had been built by private capital and freighters were forced to pay a fee of from four to seven cents per mile for each wagon. The miners at Vulture and at the placer fields of Weaver Gulch and Rich Hill were willing to pay high prices for flour and corn and meat.

In the fall of 1867 the organization was complete, with a theoretical capital of $10,000. Actually, the fifteen or twenty men who came to the Valley with Swilling in December of that year possessed between them less than four hundred dollars, represented by tools and supplies.

Who were these men? Whence did they come? Where are their names recorded? If there was a record of that valiant band, it has disappeared. Only the names of a few of them are known. In all this Valley, there is only one memorial, a bronze tablet on the fountain in front of the court house, dedicated to Jack Swilling and his wife, Trinidad.

Actual digging of the ditch was started immediately. After a month of heart-breaking labor, the party struck bed-rock, well above the normal flow of the river. They lacked tools and powder to blast the rock, their food supply was dwindling. The prospects of a spring crop faded with each day's delay. To secure additional supplies, it would be necessary to send to Wickenburg or Tucson, and that would require money.

But Jack Swilling refused to contemplate failure. A new ditch-site a mile to the west was selected. Here there was no rock. In March of 1868 water from the new ditch was spread on a few acres of freshly cleared land. That spring a crop was harvested.

Swilling's ditch, abandoned many years ago, can still be found. It leaves the river near Pueblo Grande, approximately half a mile west of Jointhead Dam, and swings north and west in a great curve.

Swilling erected an enormous adobe house between his ditch and the river, cleared 160 acres of land and became an energetic farmer. He induced W. B. Hellings to build a flour mill in the Valley. He agitated for a post of-fice, and for a division from Yavapai County, which then embraced all of central Arizona.

This then was the beginning of our vast agricultural empire. Irrigation so far as the American farmer was concerned was a new fangled idea. Some men held that a flow of water running in ditches through the fields would rot the seed. Others predicted the land would become water logged and worthless, but the valley's first crops of corn and grain destroyed forever any doubts about the effectiveness of irrigation.

The labor required to win this first small triumph is almost beyond our understanding. Roots of the Palo Verde and Cactus had to be grubbed from the ground. Swilling and his companions had none of the farming machinery then in use in the middle west. Furrows and feeder ditches had to be built in conformity with the natural grade.

It is doubtful if the farmers would have persisted had there not been a ready cash market for their crops. Army quartermasters at Fort McDowell were eager to buy. Flour sold for a minimum of $8.50 for a hundred pounds.

In 1867 there were only 6,500 white Americans in the territory of Arizona. Accustomed as we are to rapid transportation and communication it is difficult to realize the isolation of those early settlers. Between three and six months were required for mail to arrive from the east. There were no telegraph lines.

Freighters, moving supplies from the Pacific Coast to Arizona, were two months on the road.

By an act of Congress all public lands in the west were open to homesteading. Any citizen who was twenty-one years of age could claim eighty acres of public land within the limits of a railroad grant or 160 acres outside railroad limits. The homesteaders were required to cultivate some portion of the land for five years. then an absolute title was granted upon the payment of costs not to exceed $9 on eighty acres or $18 on one hundred sixty acres.

Veterans of the civil war were granted credit on their residential period for any time spent in the army or the navy.

Most of the men in Swilling's company were veterans and virtually all the land in the valley was acquired by settlers under the terms of the Homestead Act, but in order to file their claims the men had to travel one hundred and twenty-nine miles to Prescott and make their entry in the land office there.

Although there was no one to question their claim, the ditch company was also required to file on the water diverted and in 1867 Frank M. Chapman, as president of the Swilling Ditch Company and Samuel J. Henseley, as secre-tary, entered a claim for 5,000 inches of water.

Emigrant farmers following the trail of the western wagons found the Valley to their liking.

Growing. Some of them settled on the land ad jacent to Swilling's Ditch. They cleared away the mesquite and desert growth, planted hay and grain and corn. They talked of building a townsite. The Valley had growing pains.

By the fall of 1868 there were approximately a hundred permanent residents living in the valley. Among these new arrivals were two men destined to influence the shape and growth of the raw new settlement. John Hancock, lawyer and surveyor, contributed his engi neering skill to the construction of new ditches. He surveyed the townsite, constructed the first building in Phoenix, served as the first sheriff and thirty years later was one of the outspoken en champion of water storage development.

The second newcomer, John T. Alsap, was elected secretary of the Swilling Ditch Com pany. He served as the county's first probate judge and became the guiding legal counsel for each new ditch company as it was born.

The restless spirit of Jack Swilling did not permit him to enjoy for long the success of his small dream. He quarrelled with Darrell Duppa over the naming of the town. He op posed the selection of the townsite. He looked with disfavor upon the construction of addi tional ditches. He sponsored a political party which was defeated in the first election. Less than seven years after the completion of that first canal, Jack Swilling left the farm and the Valley his vision had brought into being. The wind and the rain and the sun tore down the walls of his adobe house. Today there re mains only a low mound of earth to mark the site of Jack Swilling's home.

Newcomers who arrived in the valley in 1870 discovered all the choice land on Swill ing's ditch already occupied. There was plenty of good unclaimed land south of the river, and in that year work was started on the construc tion of the Tempe Canal. The new builders located their intake nine miles up the river from Swilling's. Eventually this new ditch served approximately twenty-five thousand acres. Additional new canals were built in orderly succession; the San Francisco in 1871, the Utah in 1877, the Grand in 1878, the Mesa in 1879, the Arizona in 1883, the Highland in 1888, the Arizona Cross Cut in 1889 and the Consolidated in 1892. As the canals were built and water appropriated to land served by them, there came into existence definite water rights.

Additional new canals were built in orderly succession; the San Francisco in 1871, the Utah in 1877, the Grand in 1878, the Mesa in 1879, the Arizona in 1883, the Highland in 1888, the Arizona Cross Cut in 1889 and the Consolidated in 1892. As the canals were built and water appropriated to land served by them, there came into existence definite water rights.

The importance of the new agricultural de velopment soon made itself felt throughout the territory. The valley farms became the source of supply not only for the army but for the miners, trappers and overland travelers as well.

source of supply not only for the army but for the miners, trappers and overland travelers as well.

In 1871 a new county, Maricopa, was created, and Phoenix was named the county seat.

By the fall of 1872 there were a thousand families settled on farms in the valley. A dozen buildings had been erected on the Phoenix townsite. Open ditches were built to carry the water along the city streets. Colonel John Monihon planted cottonwood trees in the busi ness district. Men boasted that Phoenix would become the capital city.

Between 1870 and 1888 more than 100,000 acres were brought under cultivation.

As early as 1875, there was some talk of water storage, but nothing was done about it. In general, the Indian situation, the maintenance of law and order, establishment of schools, newspapers, mail routes and a stage line were considered more pressing problems.

There was land for all and plenty of water. Each new canal brought new settlers to the Valley.

The basic principle of all western water laws and water rights had been set forth by an Act of Congress known as the Desert Land Law. In brief, the law permitted the appropriation of water from any available source for use in mineral development, farming, or livestock raising. A preference was given to mining, although it was later stipulated by the territorial legislature that mine owners could be held liable for damage by farmers. The haphazard development of these new canals was the normal outgrowth of existing conditions, but later they were to be the basis of conflicting claims which provided an almost insurmountable obstacle to the orderly development of water storage.

The mechanics of irrigation were primitive but effective. Diversion canals followed the gentle westward slope of the Valley. Ditch banks were raised to carry water at as high a level as possible. Usually the bottom of the canal was level with the land to be served.

Every farmer was required to contribute his share toward the maintenance of the ditch regardless of the extent of cultivation on his own land. Each man was liable for the support and maintenance of the water system.

The canal companies were cooperative efforts, controlled directly by the farmers. Officers and managers were elected. Each ditch company was an independent unit, its members bound, together by a powerful community interest.

Water rights were rated on the basis of prior appropriation and each ditch company was jealous of its rival's claims. The flow of water from the ditches to the land was regulated by weir boxes where the water could be measured and apportioned according to the need and the acres cultivated. To divert the water from the river to the canals the developers built crude dams of rock and brush. Each canal had its own diversion point. Naturally the upstream dams had first chance at the water, and there was constant friction, because some of the older ditches had the lowest diversion points.

There was no way to accurately measure the water turned into the ditches from the river, but most of the Valley crops required extensive irrigation only in the spring when there was an ample supply of flood water.

The shifting population, the movement of the farmers to what were considered more desirable locations, soon resulted in crude, corporate set-ups. Canal companies were incorporated to issue stock or water rights. These water rights could be pledged to a bank or money lender and frequently were so pledged. Unredeemed water rights accumulated in the hands of the capitalists, who in turn sold, rented, or loaned them. Some individuals, through this method, acquired seven, or eight, or ten thousand acre farms with valid water rights sufficient to irrigate twice that number of acres.

Unwary purchasers were sold rich land which they were unable to irrigate because the water rights had been lost. There were numerous fights and perhaps three or four killings arising from this confused situation. But in general, these matters were adjusted and there was sufficient water for two crops a year.

Then, in 1897, the drought descended upon the Valley. There was no rain in the mountains, the water in the river grew lower and lower.

The rains did not come in '98 or '99. A heavy cloud of dust hovered over the Valley like a funeral shroud. Families gathered their belongings and moved away. Men abandoned twenty years of effort. The population of Phoenix dropped at an alarming rate. One church lost twenty members in one week of that year.

In the Glendale area, hundreds of acres of deciduous trees died. At least seventy-five thousand acres of land were forced out of cultivation.

Along the river, armed men patrolled the headgates of their ditches. A dozen suits were instituted in the local courts in an attempt to establish prior rights to water. The desert came back to claim the land where wheat and corn had grown.

The valley had growing pains and in the city men planned a magnificent future.

In February of 1900, a flash flood destroyed all the diversion dams on the river. The angry torrent boiled down the channel, carrying with it all hope of a spring crop. Men stood on the river banks and cursed the raging water.

In March, the wind came, whipping the sand to a blinding fury. The wind and the dust combined to find each tiny crack in the settlers homes. Food had a gritty, earthy taste. Men drove their animals to the river bottoms and turned them loose to shift for themselves. Farmers made their way to town to sit in the saloons, to walk the streets, to stand on the corners, and everywhere that men gathered, they talked of water.

The Arizona Republican printed virtriolic editorials castigating the selfish interests which in the past had opposed a community effort to develop water. The merchants, contemplating their unmoved stock of goods, and the unpaid accounts in their ledgers, met and demanded action. The old Maricopa County Board of Trade appointed a committee to explore the possibilities of securing an adequate, permanent storage system.

But the merchants' complaints, the newspaper's demands, the resolutions, the streetcorner talk brought no water to the ditches for spring irrigation. Some men said the Valley was finished. Some men said it had been a foolish venture in the first place. For the first time in thirty years, they remembered Jack Swilling, and condemned him as a rash, improvident dreamer.

Those whose faith could not be shaken waited patiently for the report of the Board of Trade committee. They had recognized the true significance of the spring flood waters. They knew an adequate storage system could spread that water to meet their full-year needs. They were ready for progress. They admitted the old canal system was make-shift. They dared to dream the land in the Valley would grow green once again. They possessed the courage to fight for that dream, not the flashy courage for a swift fight, but the patient for-titude which inspires men to work long hours at back-breaking labor, to count not the cost but the goal which can be reached.

Confronted with drought and disaster, the farmers prepared an audacious plan to challenge nature. The second in this series of stories, relating man's dramatic struggle to bring water to the land in the Valley of the Salt, will appear in the August issue of Arizona Highways.