--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Anderson, Edward H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 12 number: 3 published: 1909-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Anderson, Edward H., "In and Around Salt River Valley," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 3 (January 1909): 201–212.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1203unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1203unse start_page: 201 end_page: 212 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1203unse publication_year: 1909 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # In and Around Salt River Valley IN AND AROUND SALT RIVER VALLEY, BY EDWARD H. ANDERSON. The deserts of the Great Colorado plateau, drained by the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers-and their branches, are a revelation of wonder to a person who casts eyes upon them for the first time. There are wide areas almost entirely destitute of vegetation; and, on the other hand, large tracts of elevated land excel- A Scene on the Desert, Arizona. lently adapted for grazing purposes; in places there is considerable timber, and many districts are suitable for farming operations. Penetrating the central part from east to west through Apache, Navajo, Coconino, and Mohave counties is the great Santa Fe Railway, paralleling at no great distance the Colorado and Little Colorado 202 IMPROVEMENT ERA. rivers; while in the southern part, from west to east, the Southern Pacific traverses the counties of Yuma, Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, and Cochise, much of the way along or in not distant touch of the treacherous Gila river. At no place would the distance between the roads north and south be more than ten or twelve hours ride by rail, provided there were rail communication. But there is only one place where thi? is the case, and that is in about the center of the 'Territory, between Ash Fork, on the Santa Fe, and Maricopa, on the Southern Pacific, through Yavapai county. This road, called the Santa Fe Prescott and Phoenix, penetrates the heart of Residence Street in Phoenix, Arizona. Arizona, passing through Prescott and ending in Phoenix. Of the deserts surrounding Phoenix, Mesa, and Tempe, and their conversion into fields and fruitful gardens, by the grace of Uncle Sam and the power of water, it is here designed to say a few words. But first, a very few remarks about the wonderful Northern Plateau. The writer had an idea always that Arizona was a hot place, but this seemingly applies only to considerably less than the southern half of the territory lying south and southwest of the White and Mogollonnes mountains. He spent nearly a week during 7JV AND AROUND SALT RIVER VALLEY. 203 the latter part of October on the Little Colorado, in Navajo and Apache counties, where Superintendent E. I. Whiting, of the St. Johns Stake Y. M. M. I. A., and Superintendent Joseph W. Smith and sons, of Snowflake, and other kind friends, showed him warmhearted hospitality and gave him a genuine taste of the plains and deserts of that region. It was a cold one, too. The heaviest wraps and overcoats were none too comfortable. What broad, treeless plains and interminable distances, in which there is only the Mexican shepherd and his flock of sheep, the cowboy and an occasional traveler, to break the monotony! How the Mexican, always on foot, having not even dogs for companionship, but only Petrified Forest near Holbrook, Arizona. his burro and his bottle of water, can endure the dryness and the loneliness, is a cause for wonder. In some places the settlers cut hay on the prairie, and the stacks loom up like so many hills on the plain. Here, the petrified forests; there, the Woodruff peak, rising like a silent sentinel lone from the surrounding, treeless areas; yonder the Mogollonnes and the White mountains, hiding in their fortresses the once fierce but now pent up and subdued Apaches. The strong, cold wind gathered up great clouds of white 204 IMPROVEMENT ERA. quicksands from the rivers and cast them in great drifts against surrounding obstacles, or beclouded the sky for great distances. Passing over the Santa Fe from Holbrook, the summits of the San Francisco mountains were decked in their winter garb, and snow at Flagstaff covered the ground. At Ash Fork, one goes to bed in a sleeper with these thoughts, sights and feelings in mind, and in the morning arises in Phoenix, where the roses and the oleanders are in bloom, and the trees are dressed in leaves. It was like a jump in one night from January San Francisco Mountains, Arizona. This Peak can be Seen for 200 Miles, on the Road from Snowflake. to July. Phoenix is in the heart of the Salt River valley, and Mesa lies only about ten or twelve miles away. The Salt river rises in the White mountains in the central eastern part of the Territory and flows a little south of west, past Phoenix into the Gila, of which it is one of the main branches. The valley is perhaps thirty by sixty miles in extent and is level as a floor. Colonists from Utah settled in Mesa, some ten miles east of Phoenix, about thirty years ago; I believe it was in 1876. They found old irrigation systems used by a prehistoric people. These canals were so well chosen and true that the new comers were glad to clear out the sand and make use of them. In fact, the pioneers never could have IN AND AROUND SALT RIVER VALLEY. 205 gotten the water on the desert at all, with the means at their command, except for the waterways of these ancient and forgotten toilers who by some unknown catastrophe, and before the dawn of history, were swept out of existence. These canals the pioneers cleared of sand and made use of them with little expense. It is conceded that the valley was inhabited and highly populated long before Columbus' day, and it is estimated that at least two hundred thousand semi-civilized people, by some called Toltecs, had One of the Aztec Waterways Used by the Modern Settlers, Mesa, Arizona. here their homes and habitations. The ruins of their houses with remnants of their stone tools and pottery lie all about. What toil, and sweat and forgotten effort may be read in these silent mounds and in these furrows of the earth! The pioneers found friendly Indians in the Valley, but these knew little of irrigation and nothing of the former civilization, nor of the people who had trodden the valley before them. The paradise of the Toltecs had gone back to desolation, and only when the "Mormon" pioneer cleared out the old Toltec waterway, and flooded the treeless, hot, and cruel desert, here covered with cactus and chaparral did vegetation again spring forth from the awakened soil. But the process was a difficult task. The treacherous floods per- l'o; IMPROVEMENT ERA. sistently washed away their dams; and the struggle was well nigh too difficult to maintain. Many gave it up, but a few remained, and they are about to reap rich reward for their endurance. Mast of Mesa, twenty miles away, lies a peculiar and splendid mountain, treeless as all others in this vicinity, which the modern Indians in the valley call Superstition Mountain. It was so named because there is a superstition among them that in early times no Indian who went into the little basin beyond, ever returned. The One of the Main Supply Canals. Apache lay lurking behind. Often he made a raid on the herds of his peaceful brother of the plains, drove the animals beyond the mountain, and when the Indian of the valley followed, the Apache, trained in the schemery of the mountains, circled around behind him, closed all avenues of escape, and that was the last of him. A plains Indian scarcely ever passes beyond the desert at the feet of Superstition mountain, and is as rarely seen up the river where rise great successions of wild hills, precipices, peaks and canyons. But there is no longer danger behind the mountain, and the country is neither unknow- .ior inaccessible. The government soldier drove back the A _xhe who is reasonably tamed and subdued, and is even found at work in the settlements of the white IN AND AROUND SALT RIVER VALLEY. 207 man. Then came single adventurers who broke burro trails into the hills in search of gold, and finally the government engineers, who for sixty miles over gorges and jagged ridges built, level as a Scene in the Mountains near Roosevelt Reservoir, Arizona, where Cool Shelter is Found During the Very Hot Season in the Valley. High Water at Roosevelt Dam- site, Arizona. 208 IMPROVEMEN7 ERA. floor, what is regarded as the finest automobile road in America, from Mesa to Roosevelt, in the Tonto basin. This road was necessary to haul supplies into the mountains preparatory to the The Town of Roosevelt, which will be Under Water when the Great Dam is Completed. building of the great Roosevelt reservoir up the Salt river. Mesa is the gateway and distributing station of all supplies for the great dam which is now under construction, and which it is expected will be storing water within a very few months. This project is perhaps the greatest sheme of the Government Reclamation Service, and upwards of five million dollars have been appropriated by Congress to carry it into effect. When the narrow defile through which the river passes is stopped by this dam, an artificial lake one and one-half miles wide and twenty-five miles long will be formed in the basin which will contain more than a million acre feet of water, sufficient for the development of about 200,000 acres of the level mesa in the Salt River valley. Down the river from the reservoir, some fifty miles, and about fifteen miles up the river from Mesa, through a flat desert of sohuaro and chaparral, and resting upon a granite reef, is built the great government cement and stone diversion dam. IN AND AROUND SALT RIVER VALLEY [209 A Glimpse of the Desert, on the Salt River, near Mesa, Arizona. The Country is Covered with Sohuaro 'Cereus Giganteus) and Desert Brush. Waste Gates of the Diversion Dam, Mesa Side. UK) IMPROVEMENT ERA. Through the courtesy of Otley S. Stapley, with Superintendent M. A. Stewart, F. T. Pomeroy, J. W. Lesueur, and James Miller, •lr., the writer was given the auto ride of his life up Salt river to this dam. On the road, Aztec ruins, mere piles of earth, some of greater prominence than others, are a common cause of curiosity. The sohuaro, and other species of cactus, here flourish to perfection, some of the first named reaching fifty feet in height having branches from ten to fifteen feet. The diversion dam was completed last June at a cost to the Diversion Dam on Salt River, from the Mesa Side; Cost $500,000; Completed June, 1908. government of half a million dollars. It is one thousand feet in length, about fifteen feet in height above the bottom of the river, and five to seven feet in width on the top. A large canal on each side of the river, one for the Phoenix side and one for the Mesa side, has its intake by this dam which is built on a granite reef, and will forever settle the trouble heretofore experienced by the settlers in getting water from the river, which so discouraged IN AND AROUND SALT RIVER VALLEY. 211 them in their efforts to settle the country. In connection with the storage of water at Roosevelt, it will develop 200,000 acres of desert land contiguous to Phoenix, Mesa, and surrounding settlements, into fruitful fields of semi-tropical vegetation. Much of this desert, if not all, is already claimed, and land is selling as high as $75 and $ LOO per acre — land too, absolutely worthless before the dam was built and the reservoir designed. Any kind of fruit will thrive in the Valley which has an elevation of from 1,000 to 1,300 feet, and in ten years the whole vast desert under the canal will be transformed into a semi-tropical paradise. This is the home of alfalfa, and five and six cuttings, ntakes of the Great Canal, Mesa side; the Bottom of this Canal is 50 feet wide. The Gates are Opened and Closed by Electric Power. yielding one and one half to two tons to the acre each cutting, are frequently taken from the same piece of land in a year. Grain, cantaloupes, beets, oranges, grapes, peaches, strawberries, watermelons, dates, almonds, and olives, grow in abundance. It is also a good live stock country, so the sectlers say; and the Salt River 212 IMPROVEMENT ERA. valley contains three-fourths of all the domesticated ostriches in the United States. Above the Diversion Dam, Salt River, Arizona. Returning to Mesa, we passed the Papago Indian village; but the story of the Indians is a book in itself. Salt Lake City, Utah.