The Alaska citizen., 1911-02-27
ARIZONA B|C DAM
 Is READY
IT WILL ADD 3ooooo ACRES OF TIlLAslE AREA OF THE
 UNITED STATES.

PHOE\iN. ATiZ.. Jan. 2S. The T,nton dam is finished job. The great irrigation project in which al mos as man. fortunes have been sunk as have been lost on Wall street. and in which Uncle Sam has just displayed faith enough 10 vote S5o0.Joo on top of the Sl2.000.oo0 al ready expended. adds 3p0.0O0 acres to the tillable area of the United States These acres are not only tillable but arc highly fertile and any ten acres of them will support a family of the average American size.
 The country which is thus de veloped by a wall of masonry flung across a narrow gorge and built to q height of mere than 200 feet. was once part of the great Amer ican desert. Ii is known now as the Salt River valley of Arizona.
 Six years ago the government be- gan work on the project. and in March of this year il will be form ally dedicated. hind the wall of masonry there can he placed water sufficient to cover 1.0OO,000 acres of land to the depth of one foot. This means that the dam filled will hold in storage a supply of water sufficient fir all irrigation needs cf the valley for three years. even though no rain should fall within the valley or upon the 5000 square miles of watershed which drain in to the reservoir The man who conceived the project bears the name of Murphy He is living near Phoenix. on a ranch reclaimed by himself from the desert and made 10 bloom with every species of plant He is not rich, although the quarter section Of land he se- cured by his homestead right is worth about $1.0oo an acre because of the water He was rich when he started to irrigate the Salt River valley, but his fortune vanished in the cloud of dust caused by the ma. So also vanished the for tunes of several of his friends.
 In the meantime Phoenix had grown and private irrigation sys- tens from wells had demonstrated heyound cavil the value of the soil for alfalfa and the value of the eli mate as an agricultural asset. Then the scientific sharps became prom incnt, the economist who declared the population of the world would soon exceed its production of life's ueceSsaries. and the cOnSeryatiOnist who declared that the scientific con- servatiOn and reclamation would solve the problem presented by the econ mists. Between them and the dgmand of the Salt River valley the United States reclamation ser vice was enlisted in the Salt River fight. and To, the work is done
 In the reclamation service mind, the great task was a huge storage dam against the dry years. The first task. however. was diversion dam that would hold, no matter what lhe mountain storms accom- plishcd The result cf this is Gran ite Reef diversion dam, a concrete, steel reinforced structure, built upon a reef stretching clear across the stream and so constructed that only an earthquake which may rend the reef will affect il. This puts the water into canals, as it was Mur- phys idea should be done. Then the big job was tackled, the con- structiOn of a dam that would hold a three years supply of water; hold it, too, against any possibility of the dam breaking.
 Before the engineers had finished the government had bought the homesteads of settlers miles away because it was evident that the dam once constructed, the settlers chim- ney pots would be a score of feet under water.