Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1911-03-24
FACTS REGARDING DAM.

First stone laid, September 20, 1906.
Last stone laid, February 6, 1O11.
Cost, So, $40, 900.
Capacity, Sc, 628, 900, 600 cubic feet of
water (enough to cover the State of
Delaware foot deep.)
Length of canals, 327 miles.
Length of tunnel, $3.50 feet.
Height of dam proper, 284 feet.
Will irrigate $50, 900 acres of land.
Roadway on top of reservoir is ,OSO
feet long and 20 feet wide.
(From The Washington Post.)
Roosevelt, Ariz., March 19. Stand
ing on top of the great storage dam
which bears his name, former President
Theodore Roosevelt, at 5:48 p. m.
pressed an electric button, which set in
motion mass of grinding machinery,
which in turn raised three of the six
massive iron gates weighing 5000
pounds each. By this act, he officially
opened the Roosevelt storage dam, a
part of the Salt River irrigation pro-
ject.
The motors which raise the gates,
had hardly begun to turn before three
raging torrents of water came rushing
through the three openings at different
levels and ran madly down the valley,
where, after racing fully 60 miles, it
will be used in the irrigation of about
$50, 900 acres of land.
The scene from the dam was a strik-
ing one. The motor cars, in which the
many people, besides the Roosevelt
party made the rs miles journey from
Phoenix, were parked along the road
above the artificial lake, each with its
roll of bedding strapped upon it, as the
guests must spend the night here. On
the hills hundreds of saddle horses
grazed.
Along the top of the tower several
hundred people were crowded, and when
Roosevelt's machine came in sight in
the twisting road a tremendous salute
of dynamite greeted him.
COL. RoOsEvELT's ADDRESS.
Those who spoke beside Mr.. Roose-
welt were Lewis Hill, engineer of the
project; C. J. Blanchard, of the reclaim
alton service who read letter from Di-
rector Newell, and B. A. Fowler, presi-
dent of the National Irrigation Con-
gress. In the course of his address, Mr..
Roosevelt said
cit is year ago, when | first came
out of Africa, that | received your
request to take part in the dedication
exercises of this great project, and
accepted at once.
''This great project, as a part of the
national irrigation policy, was the first
bit of serious work which Undertook as
President. knew the impossibility of
expecting the larger schemes to be de-
veloped by private enterprise unless we
were content to have the larger schemes
become private monopolies, which was
not content to have, and was, therefore,
already anxious to have this piece of
work done by the only individual that
could do it-Uncle Sam.
Western senators and representa-
tives were fully awake to the needs of a
national policy. The difficulty, of
course, lay in the East. Naturally it
was the same difficulty that was en-
countered by those who pressed for
ward the homestead law.
''The reclamation act, like the home
stead law, was law for the small man
"a law for the 20-acre farmer-a law
for the man who farms his own land,
and say that one of the main reasons
why desired to put it through as part
of the national policy was because the
only alternative if these water projects
were to be developed at all, was to have
them developed as private monopolies.
81 want to thank you for having
named the dam after me-"
Along the top of the dam standards
bearing electrical globes had been erect
ed, and Miss Roosevelt set these alight