Arizona republican., 1910-05-14

mer months 10 the formation or a col
 onization party which he expects to
 bring to the Salt river valley in the fall
 I. Already he has the assurance from Nebraska of the success of his under taking and it only remains for him to ! go among his people and thereby ascer-
 tain just how many families he can
 bring here. In this respect Mir. Thom- as is board of trade by himself In
 the short time he has been in Phoe- ! nix he has secured grasp upon the
 actual conditions that would do credit ' to an old timer.
 Accompanying the more recent ar- | ticle of MT. Thomas in the Alliance Herald are two three column pictures | showing the Roosevelt dam in the
 course of construction and the Granite 1 Reef diversion dam. Referring to these
 wonderful pieces of engineering and ! to the Salt river valley in general. Mir Thomas says: [ Invites Man to Work. The salt river valley has many na- tural conditions that offer an impera- tive invitation for man to go to work and supply the one condition which Nature did not Here we find thou sands of acres of land which is a bare desert without water but with the ap- plicatiOn of water 1t becomes marvel
 ously productive with an ideal climate aud flowing streams, the largest of which is the Salt river. This river at
 the season of greatest need is but q meager stream; at other seasons, from t.t l.
 which not only could not be utilized.
 but which frequently destroyed the casual and insufficient irrigating works
 first constructed.
 IL was a simple idea to save these flood waters which came down the river when least needed. but to the or dinary person or combination of men this would have appeared impossible because of the large amount of money needed to construct the storage dam to hold this flood water. It is difficult to imagine the immense amount of water to be stored in the reservoir and the magnitude of the undertaking.
 Tn 1909 the reclamation act was passed and soon after the work on the project was begun. Briefly, the scheme was this: Seventy-five miles up the Salt river and just below its junction with Tonto creek. build a masonry dam, arched upstream, 276 feet high above bedrock, 700 feet long on top, and containing 326.00O cubic yards of masonry, thus forming res- ervoir twenty-five miles in area. to contain water sufficient to cover 1.284.- 00o acres. one foot deep. The water SO stored to be released as needed, to flow down the old river channel. and on reaching the irrigable lapd to be turned into the irrigating ditches by low di- version dam. to generate power at the dam and transmit it to the valley for use in pumping water to irrigate more land.
 The site of the reservoir dam was in accessible from Phoenix save over the toughest of trails. so men and material were first brought from Globe. forty miles. over a road none of the hest As electric power was needed a power canal was built nineteen miles above the dam site and it conveys 250 cubic feet of water per second to point just below the dam. where a drop of 220 feet is obtained. On the line of this canal are twenty -one tunnels, two in- verted siphons to carry the canal under cross canyons. many culverts. waste gates and other structure. The tun- nels were lined, and the other struc- lures all built of concrete
 Needed Material at Hand.
 Most of the materials needed in the construction of this immense dam are manufactured on the ground because of the long haul Lime is burned bricks made. a saw mill furnishes lum- Der, and cement mill furnishes cement for the dam. This cement mill l has a capacity of 450 barrels every | twenty four hours. very fine wagon | and automobile road was constructed | from Mesa. not far from Phoenix. to | the dam, at a cost of $300,000.
 The reservoir when completed will | irrigate 250,000 acres in the vicinity i of Phoenix. At the present time only | about 125,O00 acres are under cultiva- | tion. One. of the most valuable assets l of the valley will be the power which | is to be developed on the project inall some 25,000 horsepower. The mining | towns in the nearby mining regions will buy large share of this power and the manufacturing plans which, will start up in the valley will be en- abled to buy cheap power from the government In this way the power plans of this project are made to utilize that by-product of an irrigation system. the excessive fall. usually a cwers to be correct.
 Salt River Valley Facts.
 The following questions are asked many times regarding the Salt river valley by people who are interested [ am sure that you will find the an- syers to be correst.
 I Where is the Salt river valley? Tn Msricopa county, in south central comprising the land lying on both sides of the Salt river. above the of the Salt and Gila.
 2 How large is the Salt river val- ey? The valley proper Is about fifty miles in length b1 fifteen miles in width. containing about 7so square niles. agsresating about half mil-