The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-05-13
Stems Irresistible Waters Of
the Rio Grande.
OPENS VAST DESERT REGION
New Mexican Waste Takes
Place as Productive Area.
Greatest Engineering Job Ever
Handled by Uncle Sam.
BY C. j. BLANCHARD,
IL s. Reclamation Service.

--N~S
Early this afternoon the last bucket
OF concrete dropped swiftly from the
aerial galloway and dumped its
splashing load into a niche in the
parapet wall, and the Elephant Butte
dam, Uncle Sans greatest civil en-
cheering job, was completed.
There was no such ceremony as one
might expect considering the fact that
it was the completion not only of the
greatest public work in the United
States, but exceeding any government
construction in the entire world with
the single exception of the Panama
canal, which was built by army en-
eineers. Yet the moment was i'm
pressive.
1t was the moment for which the
reclamation service has been striving
for nearly five years. 1t marked the
climax of the endeavors of a corps of
engineers and veritable army or
laborers, enough to make a good-sized
town with stores, schools and
churches. Secretary Of the Interior
FsrankIin K Lane sent a telegram of
congratulations to the engineer in
reclamation service, but this was all
that marked the day from any of the
others since the work started.
The mighty dam is now ready to
and store them in it's reservoir. Those
Who have seen the Rio Grande in
food might have thought its turgid
waters irresistible, yet the Elephant
Butte dam is capable of storing three
Of these annual yellow floods without
spilling a drop.
Assouan Dam Small in Comparison.
Great Britain advertised for years
the work of her engineers at the As
sonan dam on the Upper Nile, and
F4E7d a PaIahra when that
work was completed; yet, with no fuss
at all, and almost without advertising,
Uncle Sam engineers have completed
dam which will hold half again as
much water as the Assouan dam will
uapound. The Elephant Butte reser-
K0ir is exceeded in capacity by only
one other artificial lake, the Gatun
lake at Panama. Elephant Butte lake
viii have a length of forty-five miles,
an average depth of sixty-five feet,
shore line of 200 miles, and sur
face of $4,000 acres 1t will contain
856 billion gallons of water.
Figures like that mean nothing.
Take four-foot water main, coil it
seventy times around the earth at the
equator, and you will have a pipe long
enough to hold this quantity of water.
All the great waterwOrks reservoirs of
New York city added together, includ-
ing the Schoharie reservoir yet to be
built, will hold less than one-third of
tie water to be impounded behind
Elephant Butte dam
The dam is nearly one-third of a
mile long on top, with a maximum
height of 31S feet. 1t is sixteen feet
thick on top, 236 feet thick at the bot
tom, mass of 606,O0O cubic yards of
concrete
The dam takes it's name from the
great black mountain of basalt around
the base of which the Rio Grande
flows swiftly into a steep-waIled can
yon- The dam is located one-half
nue. down this canyon from Elephant
BUTTE. 1t is about 100 times north
of Ell Paso, Texas.
construction "A Huge Problem,
me construction has been a ire
menoous engineering problem. The
question of getting supplies to fro
scene was solved by building n rail-
road thirteen miles long. In addition
70 connecting up parts of the work
Mltr twenty-three miles of telephone
INES, building storehouses ware
houses, machine shops, offices. two
noteis, a hospital and cottages for
the engineers, it was necessary to
build town for the 5000 laborers.
When this was done the engineers
turned the great river aside into an
artificial flume and commenced work
IN the dry bed.
It is romantic country. this
desert here which is so soon to be
touched by the magic wand of irriga-
ton. Elephant Butte has been a
desert signpost from the days of the
Spanish conquest. 1t gets its name
from its resemblance to an elephants
head The early Spanish padres who
travelled up this river Christianizing
the Indians, called the desert the
Jourado del Muerto, the Journey of
the Dead"
Coronado passed by here on his
fruitless search for the mythical
seven cities of CiboIa. He saw the
peaceful Pueblo Indians using the
silt-laden Rio Grande waters for ir-
rigation. Coronado led the conquest
for gold and territory. Then came
the Padres upon their conquest of
religion. And now comes the third
conquest, the conquest of the desert
BY irrigation, the conquest of aridity.
The Spanish 6onquistadores never
Found the gold they sought, but this
valley will yield wealth that will
surpass in value all that was ever
taken to Spain in the early galleons
Good Farmers Needed Now.
Favored with excellent climate
fertile land and an admirable loca-
ton, the Rio Grande project will
want only practical and industrious
farmers to take it's place among the
great producing areas of the world
It is close to FL Paso. which, with its
radiattng lines of railway, is fast
+ becoming the most important market
and distributing center in the south
west.
The reclamation service urges
farmers who are looking for new To-
cations to consider the advantages OF
+ this project. The land is yet largely
undeveloped. as more than two
thirds of the irrigable lands are as
yet desert and untitled. Little OF
this is public land, but the. unde-
veIoped land is held by private own
ers under contracts of such fairness