Arizona republican., 1914-10-11
EARLY PERIOD
 BROUGHT BACK

A deal was consummated in Phoe- |
 nix yesterday which carries one back i
 to the early period in the develop
 ment of this valley. The civil en- gineering office of o. A. Turney, |
 with all the records and a lot of an- Itiquated instruments, the accumula-
 tion of years was transferred to Fred
 A. Holmqnist. This office is the old
 est in the state, it's career reaching
 back in an unbroken succession al-
 most to the beginning of operations by the Arizona Canal company in
 1883. At that time W. J. Murphy
 came into the valley for the purpose
 of establishing an irrigation system He quickly saw that the enterprise
 would be of greater magnitude than
 he supposed and he realized that it
 should have a financial department | That need brought the Valley bank l into existence. 1 Nor were the engineering features 1 of the undertaking quite as simple |
 as they seemed. That statement in
 troduces Sam A. Davidson into the 1
 narrative Mr. Davidson was at that |
 time a civil engineer in Colorado. l Hearing of the irrigation project he 1 wrote to MT Murphy asking for a | | job, without saying what kind of a |
 job he wanted. He was directed to | report and he shortly after appeared | on the scene with his blankets and i | was assigned to the business of driv | 1 ing a scraper One day he observed | oth hipo in bo hat of- | l tended his professional sense and he | dropped his scraper to offer some 1 advice. It was thus made known | that he possessed engineering skill | and he was transferred from the l scraper department to the instantly | created engineering department of l which he was made the head.
 That was really the beginning of |
 the engineering office that changed | hands yesterday MT. Davidson, after i his work with the canal company l was finished, continued the practice of civil engineering. became city en- l gineer and remained in practice until | shortly before his death.
 He was succeeded both in the office 1 and in practice by H. F. Robinson, | who remained until the government l established the United States Indian | irrigation bureau of which he became i one of the department engineers in i charge of the arid states of the l southwest. Mir. Turney succeeded | MT. Robinson in his practice and his l official position For sometime pre- l vious to the retirement of MT. Rob- | inson, Mr Turney was with the | United States Geological survey en- I gagged in work on the Tonto dam | site. It is here related how the pro- | ject got it's name. MT. Turney in | charge of operations felt the need of | postoffice The postal facilities at | that time consisted of a cracker box | into which mail matter was deposit i ed by irregular messengers. Accord | ingly MT. Turney and his force ap- piled for a postoffice with the re- quest that the camp cook be desig- l mated as postmaster. In filling the l
 blank which required, among other | I things, the name of the future post | office, to be written, MT. Turney l wrote in the name, Roosevelt" l Coming into the practice and posi- tion of MT. Robinson, MT. Turney placed the survey monuments and
 grades for eighty per cent of the area
 within the present corporation and since then he has been stalking sub divisions at an average rate of 1200
 city lots a year. He turns over to Holmquist orders for the surveys of
 ten more b-divisions. | Among the appurtenances of the 1
 office which go with it to MT. Holm ouist is sam Davidson's old Gunter's
 chain which is of greater sentimental
 than intrinsic value. Now and then link was broken but it was re-
 placed with a section of baling wire
 somewhat detracting from it's accur-
 acy but it was still serviceable. It has not, however, been used for many
 a long year. | Mr Turney has no plans for the immediate future beyond that of mapping the prehistoric canals of the valley of which he had already map ped more than 300 miles. When he
 has finished he will submit a report
 to the Royal Geographical Society
 when he will be made Fellow of the society, an honor that is enjoyed by less than twelve Americans Pre- vious to the breaking out of the Flu Iropean war MT Turney had arranged
 to join Sir William Ramsay in arch theological work on the sites of An | tioch and Damascus. That plan will
 be carried out after the close of the war
 -O-