Bisbee daily review., 1907-01-27

|
 cued his fiancee at the disaster of
 Walnut Grove, recalls the details of
 that terrible night most vividly.
 The Walnut Grove Water Storage
 company had consumed many weary
 months in the construction of the | dam. about two miles below Walnut
 Grove, on the Hassayampa river. The
 most astute geographer never did know just where Walnut Grove was, Some applied the term to the settle
 ment that stretched from the canyon ! where the dam was constructed, to | Orc Fino, twelve miles above, where old Grizzly Callen had a hydraulic
 scheme, but most of the citizens of | the valley really considered that the iiametrical center of Walnut Grove
 was at Tom Carter's, who, along with | his excellent better half and attrac- | tive daughter handled a United States postoffce known as Walnut Grove. Now the dam was 125 feet high, and | just about wide enough on top for a i tom cat, with all of his we'll known in.
 stincts of caution to navigate safely. i The construction company's only con l cern was that they might never get ! water enough to fill that reservoir. l Their solicitude in that direction, at | least, was finally set at rest. The i dam was a piece of lamentable job work, barely capable of resisting the devastating deluge of a garden hose, | but the employees of the company re- posed implicit faith in the local man. agement and slept securely as the angel of death sauntered forth at the | hour of 6. m. on the night of Feb ruary 22nd, 1891.
 | Bob Brow had a safe at the lower l dam, and for years after the popula- 1 tion of the district put in all that 1 time digging for that safe, just as though the foxy RoDert would leave a hundred thousand in it, with a body of water a few miles above him, eighty feet deep, one and one-half miles wide and two and one-haf miles | long. bulkheaded with a barn door. Well, about that time the under signed was prospecting along with Jeff Balldrich, Bert Ford. Sam Powell and other distinguished failures, on the banks of the historic Hassayam- pa. just across the river from Jim i Roark's ranch.
 The only company I had consisted of horde of rats-crade rats. kanga-
 roo rats, lOng-tailed rats, and every species of rat known to the desert. For weeks those rats had made my Gays uneasy and my nights miserable, carrying away everything a rat could move. often leaving Q 'chOlla or some other undesirable article in it's place. About this time word came that the reservoir was filling up and some
 "fools' did not consider the dam safe. Such suggestions met with scOffs and insults at the hands of the freckle- necked rabble, who were grading for
 the Hume at just enough per day to
 gather ia the spiritual lubricant which
 bars care.
 Very well: I had come to be used
 to the presence of the rats. They were growing to be company, in fact,
 when all at once, one murlIy night. as I lay ne down after Q hard days
 drill" over the foothills, with Q slice of bacon. a spoonful Of beans and 1 slug Of baking powder bread back of
 my solar plCEUs, 10 my surprise and
 subsequent alarm, not rat 10 Dc heard Not a squeak. net a rattle
 not Q batter. l am here 10 submit un- der oath that am sUTerailiO1s and became uneasy. Oh, how I wan eI -C dIscovrT iLe slightest suggestion c. tEe approach Of one of those T-le-.1- gasra's, approaching r0 steal lay to- baCc1. which j.oy could never use
 and leaviD~ a mesquite chip in i's place. ] really laGr.e it WIS tae most lg.e5alsc ..rnt il my life. except tG- .~.o =uc~-~oiug. Not sound GU. the -e-t,g mu-Iur Of the river few ..c-
 .-.-E. The next night was a ~e--a
 Ion Cf the sane experience, but s.. -~~vps were gathering a strain. TN- lhlrd night came in the same wake ' never slept aa hour and the next day I gathered my thirty years accu- mutation into 9 gunny sack and moved ID into old JOhDsOn's tunnel. where l knew. a back-actiug Niagara could not reach me. The boys made fun of me. but their jeers sounded good by the side of the Uncomfortable" silence-the absence of my friends. had been sleeping in that tunnel for five nights, when the rats returned and made free and the pinto skunk came to appropriate what very little had left in the way of sustenance.
 Then, away in the wee hours l was awakened. It was not the chat ter of the mischieyous rodent; 1t was not the pat of the piebald intruder feeling his way to a meagcr store of bacon scraps; it was a deep, distant appalling rumble. There could be no mistake Experience Is the master of all teachers. It makes no mistakes, it has no theory; the Walnut Grove dam had gone out. For hours, the little force at the dam realized the danger. There was no telephone. They had hired and dispatched an in- dividual, unworthy of the name of man, to warn the people below. He had sufficient time, but at the dead fall of Boulder Pats" half way, he tarried with the cup. He did not ar rive. It is fourteen miles from the site of the dam to the lower dam. The men at the dam struggled to
 avert the terrible disaster. In vain
 did they blast away at the inadequate
 waste-way. The Walnut Grove Water
 Storage company had '.plenty of wat err" they fought in vain They
 worked like demons, when the big
 round cable that connected the cen
 ter of the dam with a stone anchor age a hundred feet above in the res ervoir parted with a report like the discharge of a canon, the dam went over like a solid wall-the dam was out. Down that tortuous gorge swept the mighty flood. A mile below, three men who had accumulated a few thousand dollars worth of dust" and who calculated to go back to dear, old Missouri. to mother and to sweet heart, were swept away, and never were even the hems of their overalls Identified. Then coming to sudden angle. the onslaught of the flood on