Arizona weekly citizen., 1889-08-24
THE BUTTE RESERVOIR,
Mir L[eney Bushman Visits Pinsl C.,saty, and Writes an Interesting Letter Descriptive of What he Saw.

Ep. CITIZEN: The stride towards the
 upbuilding of our Territory, which has
 lately been made. can.hardly be realized
 by enc who is constantly pinned down he is located. The changes which ave
 taken place in and around Florence
 since my last visit there. in 1887. are
 wonderful. The Florence Canal Com pany who have to within few miles of
 Casa Grande completed their grand
 undertaking, have wrought wonders, by
 transforming the heretofore
 DESERT LAND INTO FIELDS OF GRAIN,
 and orchards, and hundreds of families are making comfortable homos and sur rounding u. .iaseives with all those con- Venience3 which are the inevitable re- suits of industry.
 i Our young men or old fellows, either 1 If you please, have an opportunity to settle on these lands and make them selves independent within a few years
 It Is of course necessary that they possess the pluck and energy to settle down to hard work. The government gives every man three years in which to pay for his land at 52.50 an acre of desert land. The Florence Canal Co. charge SS for water rights, but the company is very liberal and holds out all the in ducements possible, and gives the op- portunity of paying on the installment plan of Sl.60 per acre for ) years. Now let us suppose a man having paid for | three years the above ratio, if he has been industrious and spared no elbow grease, he has also cultivated his land, and from the fruits of his labor he has realized more than what he has paid out, and his land is worth here, no less than it is in California, viz S100,00 per acre. THE OLD IDEA that our desert land will not be pro- ductive even if plenty of water is access | ible is now clearly laid the shade, for miles before approaching Florence the 1 land which formerly constituted one of the vast deserts of our sun kissed land, | may now be seen crossed by canal and laterals filled with water from the Gila, and theland in full state of cultivation, producing fully as we'll if not better than the bottom lands. The enterprising citizens of Florence are already reaping the benefit of their | risk and industry. The people are fully | aware that they have the grandest 1 country in the United States backing them, and all they need to do is, to LET THE WORLD KNOW IT, and assure you, MT. Editor, no stone is left unturned by them. There is hard | ly day but what strangers are coming | into the city looking around for oppor- tunities of investments. The day I left | Florence arrangements were made to | put several sections of land, at the end | of the canal. into wheat, barley. alfalfa | and fruits; for some eastern parties.
 The leading citizens of Florence are | willing to give all possible inducements | to North and South railroad, but they | are down with both feet on a branch | road, and right they are.
 My visit to Florence was for the pur | pose of photographing
 THE WATER STORAGE SITES near that city, known as the Buttes. On Saturday morning, August 10th, in company with MT. John Green, an old | u. Jhe Enterprise, we'll known in Tucson as | the ''whole-souled George" we started | for the field of operation. The whole souled George gracefully holding the | ribbons of our plunging team, as we climbed the dizzy heights, showed, by | his masterly skill in driving, that we were perfectly safe while under his | guidance, and making good time, he brought us by evening to the desired point. Following up the Gila river from Florence distance of 15 miles, one is confronted by
 TWO SOLID WALLS, on either side of the river, rising to a | heighth of 200 feet on one side and 160 | feet on the other, forming the grandest | site for almost natural reservoir that | one caa imagine. Here it seems that | nature herself has provided place to store the vast waters of the Gila river for the fertilization of the immense body | of land now lying idle below it. The | cost of the construction of the dam is small compared with the magnificent | size of the reservoir. The width at the bottom of the walls is 19O feet and at the | heights of 160 feet, the walls are about | 225 feet tapart.
 Passing through the rocky gorge, a beautiful valley opens up to view from | to miles in width, with low hills on either side. while through 1t the river | leisurely flows toward the immense | gorge. The fall of the river Is about | 10 fit to the mile, SO that if dam 160 fit. | in hei yht is built, the water would back | 16 miles. THE AMOUNT OF WATER this reservoir would hold is almost in | calculable. MT. w. A. McGinnis, civil | engineer. who has been engaged in sur veying said: Should I make an error in computation of six or ten millions of | cubic feet of water in estimating the capacity of the reservoir, the amount would be insignificant compared with its aggregate capacity" The question would naturally arise in the minds of some how can such reser- voir be filled? When We consider the | country it drains, this question is easily answered, for the country from the White mountains on the north to the | Sierras in Sonora and from the eastern ranges In New Mexico and p; ss $ to the very Buttes near Florence, Jrming a magnificent watershed of almost endless supply.
 This enterprise would not merely ac- complish the cultivation of large body of land, but an opportunity would be open for water power second to none on the Pacific coast. Pinal county stands to-day foremost in his mineral resources. Reduction works could
 be operated by this water power for all kinds of manufacturing purposes without diminishing the quality for ir
 rigation. Respectfully,
 H. BUEHMAN. Letter List.
 List of unclaimed letters remaining in the Tucson P. O. August 12, 1889:
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