page_title: National Irrigation Congress
section_title: Nineteenth century
hierarchical_section_title: National Irrigation Congress / Nineteenth century
caption_attribution_description: English: William Jennings Bryan Français&#160;: William Jennings Bryan
context_page_description: The National Irrigation Congress was held periodically in the Western United States beginning in 1891 and ending in 1916, by which time the organization had changed its name to International Irrigation Congress. It was a "powerful pressure group."
context_section_description: 1891
  The first congress was organized in Salt Lake City, Utah, by William Ellsworth Smythe, the editor of the publication Irrigation Age, Elwood Mead, a Wyoming irrigation engineer, and Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming. As a result, irrigation became a substantial national issue. The congress passed a resolution urging that public lands controlled by the federal government be turned over to the states and territories "needful of irrigation."
  Between 450 and 600 delegates attended.
  1893
  The panic of 1893 undermined financial backing for the congress; nevertheless, the second conference opened in August 1893 in the Grand Opera House in Los Angeles, California, with an address by John P. Irish of San Francisco and the presence of a number of foreign representatives who had responded to an appeal by the State Department to attend the meeting. They came from France, Russia, Mexico, Ecuador and New South Wales. The body also appointed commissioners in every state and territory to survey arid lands and submit the results to the U.S. Congress.
  C.W. Allingham of Los Angeles introduced his "heliomotor," a sun-powered engine that he said could be used to pump irrigation water. The Los Angeles Times reported: "He said it might be stated that the idea was a cranky one, but it must be remembered that it was the cranks that made things move. (Laughter.)"
  1894 The congress in Omaha, Nebraska, was highlighted by adoption of a plan to settle 250 families in a planned community called New Plymouth in Idaho. "Farmers were ... restricted to living no more than two miles away from their crops, and the sale of alcohol was banned ... to keep the farmers sober and well-mannered at all times."
  John Wesley Powell, director of the United States Geological Survey, "talked of the storm-water storage plan. He thought that this was still an experiment. In Utah and California, where it had been tried, it had been successful."
  1895
  A congress held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1895 adopted a resolution that stated in part:
  We declare that it should be the policy of [the United States] Congress to frame laws which will enable the people to obtain possession of the arid public lands upon terms which bear a fair relation to the cost of reclamation, and that this cost should be regulated by public authority. ... We earnestly ask for the creation of a National Irrigation  Commission ... to be composed of men familiar with the condition of the arid region and including a representative of skilled engineers. We would have this commission empowered to use the facilities of the  Department of the Interior or Agriculture and of War.
  1896
  At the fifth congress in Phoenix, Arizona, A.G. Wolfenbarger of Nebraska described the West as  "a country destined to become at some future time the very Garden of the Gods, the home of intelligence, learning, riches, philanthropy, everything that can measure the power and greatness of a great nation ... millions of people are waiting to be led out into these great plains waiting to welcome them to a home that will make them absolutely independent."
  1897
  The congress of 1897 in Lincoln, Nebraska, which attracted representatives from thirteen states, was opened with an address by E.R. Moses, chairman of the national executive committee, who said:
  We irrigationists are satisfied that [the U.S.] Congress will have to adopt our plan of preventing the overflow of large streams by the storage of waters near the [river] heads in such a manner as to feed the stream at times of low water, and at other times to be used in irrigation, navigation, and manufacturing industries ... and large tracts of arid land can be reclaimed by these waters and opened for settlement.
  Defeated Democratic candidate for the U.S. Presidency William Jennings Bryan told the delegates he was opposed "to turning over large bodies of land to corporations controlling water rights, unless safeguards were thrown around the transaction to protect small holders of irrigable land."
  1898
  The 1898 congress in Cheyenne, Wyoming, called for the federal government to allo
caption: William Jennings Bryan
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