Theodore Roosevelt Dam, Across the Salt River at the junction of State Highway 88 and State Highway 188, Roosevelt

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER AZ-6. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Across the Salt River approximately 60 miles east of Phoenix, at the junction of State Highway 88 and State Highway near the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River, Roosevelt vicinity, Gila County, Arizona Construction Date: Engineer: U.S. Reclamation Service Builder: O Rourke and Company, Galveston TX (primary contractor)

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER AZ-6. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Roosevelt Dam comprises the key structure in one of the first major federally sponsored reclamation projects in the West. Authorized as one of the Reclamation Service s first projects in it continues to store water for agricultural lands, home-owners and industrial concerns in the Phoenix region that are served by the Salt River Project. Used to impound the floodwaters of the Salt River, the 280'-high Roosevelt Dam was distinguished as the tallest and last major stone masonry gravity dam at the time of its completion. It was intended to be the flagship of the Reclamation Service, a symbol of government permanency, stability and power. Report Assembled By: Donald C. Jackson, with research assistance by Richard in association with FRASERdesign, Loveland, Colorado June

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER AZ-6. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The final documentation, consisting of this historical report and historic and contemporary large-format photographs, was never formally transferred to the Historic American Engineering Record for transmittal to the Library of Congress. In the original historical report was prepared for transmittal. The only substantive changes have been in formatting and to the historic images in the appendices. The historic and contemporary large-format photographs as well as the original report have been digitized and are available online through Google Books [as of May THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 2) Introduction Located approximately 60 miles east of Phoenix in the Mazatzal Mountains, the Theodore Roosevelt Dam is a 280'-high, 1,000'-long curved stone masonry structure, built by the United States Reclamation Service between and It rises above the natural riverbed, with the remainder of the massive structure extending downward 40' to bedrock. The dam is designed as a gravity structure with a maximum thickness of at its base and a minimum thickness of 16' at the crest. Although Roosevelt Dam is curved in plan along a circular arc with a radius, its cross section is theoretically thick enough to stand safely even if the dam were built in a straight line across the canyon. Spillways located at both ends of the dam have crests 15' below the dam s crest.

In the steel Tainter gates were placed at the mouths of these spillways to increase the reservoir capacity to more than 1.6 million acre-feet [Note: an acre foot of water is equal to an area of 1 acre covered by water 1' deep; this is equivalent to cubic feet or about gallons].2 The addition of the spillway gates represents the only substantive alterations to the Roosevelt Dam proper since its original construction. In contrast, ancillary structures such as the powerhouse, transformer house and spillways have undergone major changes since When full, the reservoir covers an area of more than acres. Impounded water is released through tunnels and allowed to flow directly down the riverbed to Phoenix.

As part of the plant used to construct the dam, a hydroelectric generating station was built to provide power. This plant was subsequently adapted as a permanent feature, and large quantities of water being released pass through the turbines of the powerhouse before exiting into the river. Between Roosevelt Dam and Phoenix, three other hydroelectric power dams (Mormon Flat, Horse Mesa and Stewart Mountain) span the Salt River. Built in the these facilities also use Roosevelt Dam as a regulating reservoir for their power production. Named for the brackish taste of its waters, the Salt River is one of Arizona s most important streams. In conjunction with its tributary, the Verde River, it drains over square miles in the central and eastern parts of the state.

The Salt River rises in the headwaters of the Black River at an altitude of over and flows southwesterly for some 200 miles before joining with the Gila River a short distance west of Phoenix. In its easternmost reaches the Salt drains a rugged mountain region that is covered by substantial snowpack during the winter months. Streams such as White Mountain Creek, Box Canyon Creek and Cherry Creek carry runoff from the melting snowpack and from intermittent rainstorms into the river, causing it to swell on occasion into a raging waterway. Because of variations in precipitation in the Salt River 1 Physical data on the Roosevelt Dam as originally completed is provided in Arthur Powell Davis, Irrigation Works Constructed by the United States Government (New York: John Wiley and Sons, pp.

The height of the dam has been reported as being anywhere from to a confusion resulting from both the fact that the structure was enlarged during the design process and that a parapet wall serving as a guard rail rests on top. It should be noted that dam heights are traditionally measured from the lowest foundations (an elevation that is not known precisely until all excavation is completed) to the topmost part of the dam where water can be impounded. 2 Excellent descriptions of water measurement terms are given in David S. Gray, How to Measure Running Water (Grand Junction, Colorado: by the author, THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 3) watershed, the natural flow of the river can vary from less than 200 cubic feet of water per second in times of drought to more than cfs during periods of intense flooding.3 This extreme variation between low and high water flow marks the Salt River as an excellent stream to regulate using a large storage dam. Floodwaters can be impounded by the reservoir behind the dam, and during dry periods, the natural flow of the river can be supplemented by release of some of the accumulated storage waters.

Ideally, a dam site along a major river should be at an elevation sufficiently low to capture most of the runoff within the watershed, yet high enough to prevent excessive evaporation from the reservoir and provide service to large tracts of irrigable lands at lower elevations through gravity canals. Along the Salt River an ideal site exists at an elevation of about above sea level. Called The Crossing by early valley settlers because of its use as a ford by American Indians, farmers and ranchers, this site is situated in a narrow gorge a short distance below the confluence of the Salt River and a tributary from the north known as Tonto Creek.

Below this site the Salt River courses through a narrow canyon for several miles; above it is a relatively large, flat expanse of land known as the Tonto Basin. Originally known as the Tonto site, this natural dam location attracted the interest of farmers in Arizona s central valley in the late nineteenth century as they sought the means to increase their supply of water. It eventually became the site of Roosevelt Dam. Irrigated agriculture by Anglo settlers in the Salt River Valley had started shortly after the Civil War and initially used the remains of ancient canals and ditches built by the long-vanished Hohokam Indians.

Early irrigation depended upon low diversion dams to direct the flow of the Salt River into canals, which then carried water to the fertile lands surrounding the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers. The application of this water on otherwise arid land allowed for the nourishment of crops and, in a phrase popular among late nineteenth-century irrigation enthusiasts, it let the desert bloom. By the Phoenix residents were actively seeking ways to increase their water supply by impounded floodwaters behind a large storage dam. With the formation of the U.S. Reclamation Service [later renamed the Bureau of Reclamation] in Phoenix found a source of federal funding for building such a structure across the upper Salt River.

Although formal ownership of the resulting Roosevelt Dam remains in federal hands, its operation has been controlled since by the locally based Salt River Valley Water Users Association (SRVWUA). This report examines the origins and construction of the first major project to increase the Salt River Valley s water supply beyond that available from the normal flow of the Salt River.

Sponsored by the Arizona Projects Office of the Bureau of Reclamation, this Historic American Engineering (HAER) documentation has been undertaken because the Roosevelt Dam will be dramatically altered in the early increasing its height by approximately This will be accomplished by adding a reinforced-concrete extension that will completely encase the original 3 For a good description of the Salt River watershed and its hydrological character, see A.P. Davis, Water Storage on the Salt River, USGS Water Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 73 (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 4) masonry structure.

Because the concrete extension will dramatically alter the appearance and historical integrity of the original design, the Bureau of Reclamation has funded a documentation project to record the history of this National Historic Landmark before it is altered.

In concert with contemporary and historic photographic coverage, the report in hand constitutes HAER documentation of the site, and it will become part of the HAER collection in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, In outline, this report discusses: 1) the development of irrigation in Western America through the late nineteenth century; 2) water resources development activity in the Phoenix area leading up to the selection of the Roosevelt Dam as one of the Reclamation Service s first major projects; 3) dam technology development through the early twentieth century, with special attention focusing on gravity dam design; 4) the design of the Roosevelt Dam; 5) preliminary site work necessary before construction of the dam proper could begin; 6) the actual dam construction process, outlining the numerous setbacks and delays, and the role of labor at the dam site; and 7) a conclusion, analyzing the success of the dam in the context of original prognostications and actual performance.

The focus of this HAER report is on the technological nature and significance of the Roosevelt Dam. It does not comprise an encyclopedic study of the structure within social, economic and political contexts. Several books and articles discussing the history of Roosevelt Dam are already available, the most notable being Karen Smith s The Magnificent Experiment: Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, and Earl Zarbin s Roosevelt Dam: A History to This report is not intended to duplicate or repeat the material in these works.4 Of course, some overlap is necessary in order to provide a cogent, comprehensive discussion of the dam within a technological context.

However, readers interested in the political battles and maneuvering that surrounded the operation and repayment of the completed Salt River Project irrigation system are urged to consult Smith s The Magnificent Experiment.

Of the variety of sources consulted in preparing this history, the most important repository of material related to construction of the Roosevelt Dam is Record Group 115 in the National Archives, Washington, This record group contains official correspondence, reports, notes, etc., concerning the planning, construction and operation of the Salt River Project and its main storage dam.5 Beginning in the Salt River Valley Water Users Association (known today as the Salt River Project, a quasi-public administrative organization formed by private land 4 The two books mentioned, Karen Smith, The Magnificent Experiment: Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, and Earl Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to (Phoenix: Salt River Project, are widely available in Arizona and elsewhere.

The former book is based upon a doctoral dissertation written for the University of California at Santa Barbara and the latter is written by a newspaper reporter who spent several years combing old newspaper articles for material on the dam and the irrigation systems it served in Phoenix. Both include large amounts of data on political activity in the Salt River Valley during the early twentieth century. 5 A complete listing of National Archives records in Record Group 115 that related directly to the Salt River Project and construction of the Roosevelt Dam is given in the bibliography.

Practically all of these records are in Entry 3: General and Administrative Records, and stored in boxes 479 through References to material in these boxes will be given: NA, RG Entry 3, Box _; see below for example. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 5) owners in the Salt River Valley) assumed operational control of the Roosevelt Dam and allied works built by the Reclamation Service. Prior to that time the design and construction of the project was exclusively in the hands of the federal government, and there was essentially no local involvement in the construction of the system.

This lack of direct local involvement was the source of some discontent, especially when project costs greatly exceeded the original estimates, but in an historiographical context it explains why practically all of the important primary sources related to building the Roosevelt Dam are located in the National Archives. One final introductory note: in the early planning stages, the structure was usually referred to as the Tonto Dam (or the Salt River Dam), and the reservoir site was known as the Tonto Basin. By the dam had come to be known as the Roosevelt Dam, in honor of the President who signed the federal legislation facilitating its construction. The origin of this name change is somewhat obscure but apparently can be credited to Charles R. Olberg, an engineer with the U.S.

Department of the Interior who worked in the Tonto Basin from through and who undertook preliminary work for the dam project. Olberg, who later achieved prominence in the U.S. Indian Irrigation Service, claimed in a letter written at the time of the dam s completion to have named the structure the Roosevelt Dam . 6 No challenge to this claim has been discovered, and, in the light of Olberg s early association with the project, he is most likely the source of the name Roosevelt Dam. For people reading about the history of the dam, the exact source of the name is not particularly significant. But it is important to understand that within the context of source documents used for this report, the terms Tonto Dam, Salt River Dam and Roosevelt Dam are synonymous.

Chapter One: The Reclamation Movement and the Origins of the Salt River Project In the arid American West, water is a scarce commodity that has long occupied a pivotal position in regional development and culture.7 With most surface water originating from mountain snowmelt rather than rainstorms, the ability to support widespread agriculture has by necessity become dependent upon artificial means of applying water to the land. Before the development of ground-water pumping, irrigated agriculture used water diverted from rivers or streams, carrying it in canals and then releasing it in the fields in order to sustain crop development.

As a logical extension of this, many water users not only drew flow from the streams but impounded spring runoff in reservoirs by building variously scaled storage dams. The implementation of irrigated agriculture in the West predate the arrival of both Spanish and Anglo settlers, and was most notably undertaken by the Hohokam Indians in the Salt River Valley of Arizona in the period A.D. The canals of the Hohokam were later used as the basis of Phoenix s earliest irrigation systems, although by the time Europeans entered the 6 Olberg to A.P. Davis, March 6, NA, RG Entry 3, Box In Congress officially named the structure the Theodore Roosevelt Dam, apparently to ensure that visitors would not become confused and believe that the dam was named after Franklin D. Roosevelt.

7 One of the first and best discussions of water and its place in Western development is Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Boston: Ginn and Company, THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 6) region, the Hohokam irrigation system had long since been abandoned.

In the Old World farmers had diverted water from rivers to nourish crops since the time of the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures; the practice was flourishing in the Mediterranean region during the initial period of American settlement.8 Spanish occupation of the land that later became the Southwestern portion of the United States involved some development of irrigation, perhaps most notably in the area surrounding San Antonio in present-day Texas, but on the whole this activity was rather limited in scope.9 It was not until the immigration of pioneers from the eastern United States in the mid-nineteenth century that irrigation in the West began to be practiced on a broad scale.

The first Americans to embrace irrigation technology on a large-scale basis were Mormon refugees who emigrated to Utah s Salt Lake Valley in the late To survive in the wilderness, the Mormons quickly began diverting creeks that flowed from the Wasatch Mountains and using the water for crops. They concentrated on small streams with limited amount of water flow and were thus able to erect myriad irrigation systems without constructing large dams or lengthy canals. Extending less than 5 miles, Mormon canals typically supported small enclaves of 25- to 30-acre farms.

Early irrigation systems in Utah comprised a relatively rudimentary technological achievement, but they proved successful in supplying the religious community with food, and the communal settlements that they engendered eventually became prototypes for western agrarian development. The basis of Mormon irrigation systems centered around a social/religious structure in which individuals shared responsibility for the long-term success and stability of the community. This communal spirit (often reinforced by strong church leadership) fostered the growth of numerous Mormon settlements in central Utah in the Pursuing an aggressive program of expansion virtually from initial occupation in Utah, church leaders directed formation of satellite colonies throughout the western region.

Latter Day Saints followed a trail blazed in by pioneer Mormon Jacob Hamlin and crossed the Colorado River aboard a ferry operated in the Grand Canyon by fellow church member John D. Lee to develop communities across northern Arizona in the In the Central Valley, they formed the agricultural settlement of Mesa in which would eventually become the nexus of Mormon life in Arizona.10 8 A good description of Old World irrigation in the nineteenth century is given in Scott Moncrieff, Irrigation in Southern Europe (London: E. & Spon, see also William H. Hall, Irrigation Development: Italy, France and Spain (Sacramento: State Printers, 9 The irrigation systems of early San Antonio are described in T.

Lindsay Baker, Building the Lone Star: An Illustrated Guide to Historic Engineering Sites in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M Press, For more on Spanish irrigation in the Southwest, see Michael C. Meyer, Water in the Hispanic Southwest: A Social and Legal History, (Tucson: University of Arizona, 10 Mormon irrigation is discussed in detail in Charles H. Brough, Irrigation in Utah (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, and George Thomas, The Development of Institutions under Irrigation with Special Reference to Early Utah Conditions (New York: MacMillan Company, See Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, for a complete overview of Mormon economic development in the nineteenth century.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 7) Although they formed a somewhat insular group, the Mormons success in developing permanent settlements did not escape the notice of others interested in the growth of Western America. Mormon efforts set an important precedent for later pioneers seeking to colonize the West by building irrigation-based communities.

The most famous of these were the Anaheim Colony in Southern California, founded by German farmers in and the Greeley Colony in Northern Colorado, established in The origins of the present-day irrigation system and agricultural settlement in Arizona s Central Valley date from That year William John Jack Swilling, flamboyant Confederate army officer, prospector, Indian fighter and entrepreneur, opened an irrigation ditch with John Yours Truly Smith, the post sutler at Fort McDowell. They formed the Swilling Irrigation Canal Company, and with some contributed by local investors, opened the Swilling Ditch by clearing an ancient Hohokam canal.

Eventually called the Town Ditch, Swilling s canal extended from the north bank of the Salt River, northwest a mile-and-a-half across the desert, and then curved back toward the river. In a man named Frenchy Sawyer started the first permanent Anglo farm in the valley, irrigated by the Swilling Ditch.

Sawyer was soon joined by others, and two years later the townsite of Phoenix was platted.12 The Mormon successes in Utah and nascent irrigation activity in other parts of the West were slowly attracting the attention of American society during the But the status of irrigation development in the eyes of American culture underwent a major transformation with the publication of John Wesley Powell s Report on the Lands of the Arid Region in 11 References to the early history of the Anaheim Colony can be found in Donald J. Pisani, From the Family Farm to Agribusiness: The Irrigation Crusade in California and the West, (Berkeley: University of California Press, pp.

an early history of Greeley is in David Boyd, Greeley and the Union Colony (Greeley: Tribune Press, 12 See Karen Smith, The Magnificent Experiment: Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, pp. for more on Swilling s early activities. 13 Born in New York in Powell moved west to Illinois as a young man and, after intermittently attending schools such as Illinois College, Oberlin and Wheaton, he began an informal exploration of the Mississippi River and its tributaries in the During these excursions, carried out primarily in the summers between and Powell developed a self-sufficiency and a facility for self-education that were to mark his widely diverse occupations later in life.

Powell served with the Union Army during the Civil War, losing his lower right arm in the battle of Shiloh. He earned a commission as a major before mustering out in Powell s attention soon focused on the Far West, and in he undertook voyages along the Grand and Green rivers, two major tributaries of the Colorado River. In he made his first trip down the Colorado River itself with nine men in four small boats. This expedition marked the first time that Anglos had ever successfully traversed the Grand Canyon. The success of this journey gave him considerable status as a folk hero and prompted Congress to support a second expedition through the Grand Canyon two years later.

Powell subsequently published and lectured on a variety of Western scientific topics centered around the geology of the Colorado River watershed, substantially boosting his stature within the scientific community. His landmark Report on the Lands of the Arid Region, published called for creation of a government agency to explore and classify Western lands geologically and prompted the formation of the U.S. Geological Survey. In Powell was appointed director of the USGS, a position that provided him with a national forum for his ideas on Western reclamation. Extensive biographical information on Powell can be found in Arthur B. Darrah s Powell of the Colorado (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Wallace Stegner s Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (Boston: Ginn and Company, and Richard A.

Bartlett, Great Surveys of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 8) Previously known for his successful navigation of the Colorado River from its headwaters in Wyoming through the Grand Canyon, Powell had become very knowledgeable about conditions in western America, and he quickly developed into a major advocate for the economic development of its water resources. Because of his scientific status and his association with the Smithsonian Institution, Powell s claim that vast areas of desert land could be reclaimed for agricultural development by impounding seasonal floodwaters for use throughout the year caught the imagination of Congress and the American people.

With Powell s charismatic lecturing and writing attracting widespread attention, the notion of opening the West to expansive agricultural development through irrigation began to attain the status of a crusade by the Despite the sale of considerable Western land holdings by the government to private interests (including massive railroad land grants), social activists intent on finding a way to counteract the baneful effects of industrial development in Eastern cities saw irrigation as a way to allow population growth to continue in rural agricultural settlements.

Adhering to a form of Jeffersonian Agrarianism, advocates of the so-called irrigation crusade considered Western reclamation projects as an ideal means of allowing small family farms to foster ideals representing the best attributes of American society. The notion that life closely rooted to the soil was somehow intrinsically better than one despoiled by the evil influences of the city appealed to many Americans. A vocal advocate of this sentiment, Powell continued to espouse the virtues of Western irrigation throughout the as Director of the Interior Department s U.S. Geological Survey. In he received authorization from Congress to create an agency to explore the potential for development of the region s water resources.

Known as the Irrigation Survey, this formative effort to locate and survey reservoir sites functioned from late through Undertaken in conjunction with hydrographic work that measured water flow in major rivers and streams, the surveying of reservoir sites was designed to demonstrate the capacity of the West to support increased agricultural development.

Although it was officially denied that the survey was intended as the forerunner of federally sponsored irrigation projects, the law establishing the Irrigation Survey provided that reservoir sites identified by Powell s staff could be withdrawn from entry (i.e., obtaining title to the land) by the government on behalf of people wishing to obtain federally-owned public lands.16 The intent of this withdrawal provision was apparently to prevent speculators from using 14 An excellent historiographical study of the irrigation movement in this era can be found in Lawrence B. Lee, Reclaiming the American West: An Historiography and Guide (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, pp. For two early scholarly treatments see John T.

Ganoe, The Beginnings of Irrigation in the United States, Mississippi Valley Historical Review 25 pp. and John T. Ganoe, The Origins of a National Reclamation Policy, Mississippi Valley Historical Review 18 (June pp. 15 The activities of the Irrigation Survey are documented in the Annual Reports of the U.S. Geological Survey from through Irrigation work is discussed in separate volumes. For example, see Powell, Tenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, Part II Irrigation (Washington, Government Printing Office, See also Everett Sterling, The Powell Irrigation Survey, Mississippi Valley Historical Review pp. 16 Ibid., p. herein Powell describes the process of withdrawing lands from sale, entry, settlement or occupation. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 9) information developed by survey personnel to file upon choice lands and then reap large profits by later resale. Such speculative exploitation was, of course, anathema to the concept of Western agricultural development by small, independent farmers. But without any specifically stated goal of the Irrigation Survey concerning the ultimate use of the data it generated, the notion that reservoir sites could be closed indefinitely to development aroused consternation among numerous settlers who already inhabited the arid region.

In response, Congress enacted a law in [Act of March 3, 26 Stat., that allowed individuals and private irrigation companies to file claims to reservoir sites on public lands with the provision that they proceed with work within five years or face forfeiture.17 During the early the Irrigation Survey conducted field work across the West, employing engineers such as Frederick Haynes Newell and Arthur Powell Davis, both of whom later would serve prominently in the U.S. Reclamation Service. The main stumbling block to the irrigation crusade, as perceived by Powell, was that most of the best irrigable land in the West had already been removed from the public domain and was in the hands of private landowners.

As Stanley Davison has described at length in his book, The Leadership of the Reclamation Movement, this eventually led to an embarrassing confrontation of the National Irrigation Congress in Los Angeles.18 Speaking to an audience of enthusiasts led by William Smythe, editor of Irrigation Age, Powell informed them that many of the objectives of the populist-based irrigation crusade were pass , given that the best irrigable lands were already outside the public domain. His message was not well received, and he aroused a vehement reaction from the crowd. By the next year, Powell had resigned from the Interior Department, and, in the words of Davison, he had been overtaken by the triumph of sentimentalism championed by Smythe.

Smythe s followers continued to advocate the social primacy of the small family farm and the ability of existing public domain to support future large-scale irrigation development. Arguments that the water rights of existing irrigation enterprises would almost certainly preclude the separate development of any new major reclamation projects fell largely on deaf ears. The notion of opening the West to a new generation of independent small farmers held enormous popular appeal. Eventually this sentiment would find political expression in a national reclamation program that espoused the ideals of the irrigation crusade while providing benefits to land long removed from the public domain.

By the mid-1890s it was still politically implausible to advocate a federally sponsored system of reclamation projects. Instead, in Congress approved a program proposed by Wyoming Senator Joseph Carey. The Carey Act authorized the government to cede up to a million acres of public land to individual states on their assurance that the acreage would be developed through 17 The requirements of the Act of March 3, are described in detail in S. T. Harding, Water Rights for Irrigations: Principles and Procedures for Engineers (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, pp. 18 See Stanley Davison, The Leadership of the Reclamation Movement, (New York: Arno Press, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 10) viable irrigation projects.

Eventually Carey Act projects proved to be important in some northern states such as Idaho, where the act helped fund the construction of the Milner Dam and the Twin Falls Canal that irrigated more than acres of land in the Snake River Valley. The Carey Act failed to foster much short-term activity, however, and it proved generally unsuccessful in opening up the public domain to irrigation projects.19 While Congress attempted to integrate federal policy with state-controlled reclamation initiatives, privately financed projects continued to open land for settlement.

Some of these efforts proved profitable, but there were also several financial failures, notably the Bear Valley Irrigation Company in Southern California.20 In basic terms, it was economically feasible to build diversion dams and distribution canals. But the costs and physical risks associated with building large storage reservoirs in remote mountain locations and the problems involved in erecting lengthy feeder canals through rough terrain could not provide a sufficient payoff to warrant investment by outside financiers. By the turn of the century, irrigation activity in the West had yet to achieve the success its promoters had earlier envisaged. At the same time, huge quantities of floodwater continued to flow into the ocean or dissipate in dry desert lakes.

As it happened, Phoenix played an essential role in events that soon drew the government directly into the irrigation business. In the twenty years since Jack Swilling had built his ditch, several additional canals had been built in the valley that diverted water from the Salt River. The Tempe Canal San Francisco Canal Utah Canal and Mesa City Canal all branched from the river s south bank; the Maricopa Canal and Grand Canal extended north of the river. A controversy over water rights flared in when a drought precipitated angry confrontations over which canal companies had priority to use the Salt River s reduced flow.

In large measure the shortage occurred because the Grand Canal and the Mormons Utah and Mesa City canals had come into operation within the previous two years and had begun diverting water several miles upstream from the headgates of the existing Salt River Valley, Tempe and San Francisco canals.21 The controversy erupted in violence in June when Phoenix farmer John Ellis shot another farmer named Michael Huff in a dispute over ditch water rights.22 Despite reported instances of physical intimidation and violence, the more typical response to perceived misappropriation of water was to threaten legal action, and, failing in this, to initiate litigation.

During the drought, owners of a few small, private ditches in the Phoenix area sought to enjoin the Grand, Tempe 19 A good discussion of the Carey Act can be found in Lee, Reclaiming the American West: An Historiography and Guide, pp. A brief description of the Milner Dam and Twin Falls Canal project is provided and a description of the Milner Dam and Twin Falls Canal project is in Donald C. Jackson, Great American Bridges and Dams (Washington, Preservation Press, pp. 20 Collapse of the Bear Valley Irrigation Company is noted in Davison, Leadership of the Reclamation Movement, pp. 21 See A.P. Davis, Irrigation Works Constructed by the United States Government (New York: John Wiley and Sons, p. 6, for a listing of all the major canals that diverted water from the Salt River.

22 Salt River Herald, 14 June THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 11) and Mesa canals from diverting water from the Salt. The return of heavy river flow late in the year rendered the point moot, however.23 The issue of water supply took on a new urgency in the mid-1880s when the recently formed Arizona Canal Company began planning a large-scale diversion system that threatened to diminish the flow into virtually all of the existing canals in the valley. The headgate for the Arizona Canal would be situated at a diversion dam on the Salt River, some 25 miles upriver from Phoenix. The 40-mile canal would carry water to farmlands in the north side of the valley.

Construction on the canal started in September and in December work on the large timber crib diversion dam commenced.24 Completed the following year, the Arizona Canal Company s dam and canal experienced almost continuous maintenance problems, eventually driving the firm into bankruptcy in the early But this did not occur until large areas of the Salt River Valley had been opened for irrigation. The company s water delivery system proved technologically successful, and the canal became a key component in the burgeoning agricultural economy of the valley.

In fact, by the turn of the century over acres were under irrigation in Maricopa County, the site of Phoenix and other agricultural towns such as Tempe and Mesa, and the county was home to more than settlers.25 These included many farmers who had come from the Eastern and Midwestern United States, but, beginning with an initial influx in a sizable portion of the valley s population consisted of Mormons sent from Utah to colonize Arizona. The Mormons concentrated their irrigation-based settlements in the Central Valley around Mesa, founded as a town named Hayden in May where the church subsequently built one of its architecturally imposing temples. Clearly, farmers had long been attracted to Phoenix.

The Central Valley s warm climate, long growing season, and the fertile soil of the Salt River s alluvial plain combined to make irrigated agriculture a profitable venture. With the connection of the region to the Southern Pacific Railroad system in a greatly increased market for these farmers crops became available. This market was further expanded eight years later, when a branch was extended to Phoenix from the main line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway that crossed northern Arizona. With these rail connections completed, the major problem then facing the community concerned fears that the free-flowing Salt River might run dry during drought periods and wreak 23 See Zabin, Roosevelt Dam, pp.

for more on water problems in and See also Salt River Herald, 10 September and 15 December and Territorial Exposition, 7 November and 20 August The small ditch owners that initiated litigation were the Farmers Canal Company, the Griffin Ditch Company and the Monterey Ditch Company. 24 A brief history of the early canals appears in Arizona-Salt River Project Preliminary History, pp. National Archives, Record Group Project Histories-Entry 10, Book See also Earl Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to (Phoenix: Salt River Project, pp. for data on Phoenix s early canals. The Arizona Canal is described in Herbert M.

Wilson, American Irrigation Engineering, published in the Thirteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Society, Part III Irrigation (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp. The Arizona Canal Company began work on its canal on May 7, and the excavation was complete by the end of September Shortly afterward work began on the Arizona Dam; the originally 1000'-long stone and timber structure across the Salt River was completed by the end of January 25 Smith, Magnificent Experiment, p. 6. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 12) widespread economic havoc among the farmers. As in other parts of the arid West, the way to avoid such an occurrence was to impound seasonal floodwaters.

Arizona Territory received little attention from Powell s Irrigation Survey initially after its formation in In fact, aside from some hydrographic work involved in measuring stream flow, Arizona was largely ignored.26 To compensate, local interests financed surveys to inform federal legislators of the water storage needs in the Salt River Valley. In the Senate Select Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Land toured extensively through the West to investigate local conditions firsthand.27 In anticipation of the subcommittee s stop in Phoenix, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors appropriated funds that summer to field a three-man survey team that would investigate potential reservoir sites in the Salt River and Verde River watersheds.

The best site discovered by County Surveyor William M. Breakenridge and his companions, John R. Norton and James H. McClintock, was at the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River, about 60 miles east of Phoenix.28 A quick reconnaissance indicated that a relatively short dam in the rocky gorge could easily impound upwards of 1 million acre-feet of water at an elevation of almost above sea level. Although its discovery did not involve the federal Irrigation Survey, the Tonto Creek site was exactly the type Powell had espoused as ideal for maximizing Western water resources. The county-sponsored survey did not prompt action by the federal government that would support Arizona irrigation directly. But the Tonto reservoir site was now public knowledge.

It would not take long for private interests to initiate plans for its development. In February articles of incorporation were filed in Phoenix for the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company.29 The intentions of the new company became clear two months later when it filed notice to appropriate all of the surplus and floodwater of the Salt River and its tributaries above the mouth of the intersection of the Salt River with the Verde River not heretofore legally appropriated; and that it intends to build and maintain three dams on the Salt River. Two of these dams, located between 10 to 20 miles above the confluence with the Verde River, were primarily intended to divert water into canals for use in the Salt River Valley.

The third was for the purpose of the storage of water in the basin called the Tonto Basin. This proposed dam would be a masonry gravity structure with an elliptically curved plan. [See Appendix A, Figure 1.] 26 W.A. Farish was charged with establishing water flow measurement studies on the Gila, Salt and Verde Rivers in See Tenth Annual Report of the USGS, p. 87. 27 This trip and subsequent report are described in detail in Davison, Leadership of the Reclamation Movement, pp. 28 The Breakenridge expedition is discussed in Geoffrey P. Mawn, Phoenix, Arizona: Central City of the Southwest, dissertation: Arizona State University, pp. see also Smith, Magnificent Experience, p. 7; and James H. McClintock, Arizona: Vol. II (Phoenix: The Clarke Publishing Company, pp.

29 See Phoenix Herald, 18 February for notice of these articles of incorporation. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 13) Foreseeing development of large tracts of land not previously susceptible to irrigation under the Valley s existing canal systems, the company announced its intention to build in connection with said canals and reservoirs for the distribution of water for all legal purpose such flumes, dams, ditches, laterals and other means of conveyance and distribution to the end [of] reclaim[ing] all of the reclaimable lands not heretofore reclaimed by any [existing] system of canals in the greater Salt River Valley.30 Although the Hudson Company s proposed project was technically and legally feasible, its directors could never generate enough capital to build the $2-million system.

Any chance of attracting investors to such an elaborate scheme was temporarily suspended by the nationwide financial panic of Under the direction of Phoenix entrepreneur Wells Hendershott, however, the company remained active in promoting itself as a viable enterprise. In early New York lawyer and financiers A.P. and Edward Man gained control of the firm.31 By the end of the year the Hudson outfit had filed a map with the General Land Office delineating the land required for the Tonto Dam and Reservoir.32 Submitted in accord with the previously noted Act of March 31, this gave the company exclusive rights to develop the site for five years. Hudson received an amended and updated approval for developing the site in October allowing it to control the site for five additional years.

Because the company s business records have not been preserved, it is difficult to ascertain exactly how close the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company ever came to funding construction of the enormous dam and distribution system its directors promoted. Certainly the firm kept up a public image of serious implementation of this project, both through the activities of Sims Ely, the company s secretary in Phoenix, and the Man brothers in New York. In February A.P. Man corresponded with Frederick H. Newell, chief hydrographer of the U.S. Geological Survey concerning the amount of water required for successful irrigation development.33 That same year basic plans for the proposed Tonto Dam appeared in James D.

Schuyler s report, Water Storage and Construction of Dams published in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the U.S. Geological Survey.34 This design will be discussed at length in the next chapter, but in basic terms the company was planning an initial structure high that would later be raised to above the 30 See notice dated 15 April (and posted 20 April in records of Secretary of State, Appropriation of Water, Dam and Reservoir Sites, Arizona Department of Library, Archives, and Public Records, Phoenix, Arizona. 31 This is described briefly in A.P. Man to Morris Bien, 25 January National Archives, Record Group Entry 3, Box 32 The filing on the Tonto dam site is acknowledged in Frank L. Campbell to E.A. Hitchcock, 7 June NA, RG Entry 3, Box 33 See A.P.

Man to Newell, 24 February and Charles Walcott to Sims Ely, 13 May both in NA, RG Entry 3, Box Newell graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in mining engineering in and became a member of Powell s Irrigation Survey in the late He then took over the U.S. Geological Survey s stream measuring work and remained deeply involved in issues related to Western irrigation development. It would have been because of Newell s knowledge of irrigation techniques that the Hudson Company sought his advice. 34 James Schuyler, Water Storage and Construction Dams, Eighteenth Annual Report of the USGS (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 14) bedrock.

[See Appendix A, Figure 2.] Schuyler, who was among the most prominent turn-of-the- century dam builders in the West, also visited the Tonto dam site in with California engineer Joseph B. Lippincott (later the assistant chief engineer for the Los Angeles Aqueduct).35 Despite such activities, little actual progress appears to have occurred in raising the more than $2 million estimated for construction of the proposed Hudson system. By Ely was publicly discussing the possibility of a Maricopa County bond issue for a half million dollars to support the project, reflecting a gradual shift away from private to public financing.36 It is likely that the company s directors had gradually realized the enormous financial risk entailed in building a dam at Tonto Basin.

Rather than abandon the scheme altogether, they simply chose to keep a low profile while maintaining their legal option to the site s development. In retrospect, the Man brothers appear quite sagacious in their actions, because the huge cost overruns experienced by the government in building the Roosevelt Dam would unquestionably have bankrupted the Hudson interests before its completion. The shift to non-private sources of funding to build the Tonto Dam soon involved others from outside the Hudson Company. Most important of these were Benjamin A.

Fowler, later the first president of the SRVWUA, and George Maxwell, a California lawyer and prominent publicist and lobbyist who had established the National Irrigation Association in the late Neither Fowler nor Maxwell were typical small-scale farmers of the late nineteenth century, as idealized by the irrigation crusaders. Both were relatively well-to-do businessmen with influential friends in governmental circles. The two men personified the values of a patrician class that often migrated to the southwest United States for reasons of health. By late Fowler was head of a public interest group formed by the Phoenix and Maricopa County Board of Trade and generally known as the Water Storage Committee.38 Acting through Fowler, the committee approached the U.S.

Geological Survey for assistance in studying the Phoenix region s physical conditions of topography, water flow, depth of bedrock, amount of sediment carried by water and other facts. To Fowler, these fundamental facts, and with estimates of the capacity and cost of construction [will] lay before the people the data by which they can be guided in future action. 39 The intent of the Water Storage Committee at this time was to convince Congress to allow Maricopa County to issue bonds supporting the construction 35 A few photos taken during his visit in June appear in Still Pictures Branch, National Archives in RG Salt River Archives. 36 Arizona Republican, 20 July 37 For background on Fowler, see Mawn, Central City of the Southwest, pp.

Maxwell is discussed at length in George Hebard Maxwell: Reclamation s Militant Evangelist, Journal of the West 14 pp. Maxwell s close relationship with Reclamation is underscored by the fact that many files from the National Irrigation Association that he founded are retained in Record Group 115 in the National Archives. See Edward E. Hill (compiler), Records of the Bureau of Reclamation (Washington, The National Archives, pp. [Note: this latter reference is National Archives Preliminary Inventory Number 38 See Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam, pp. for a discussion of Fowler s work in the period. 39 B.A. Fowler to E.A. Hitchcock, November as quoted in Arthur Powell Davis, Water Storage on Salt River Arizona (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp.

[Note: this report was published as Water Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 73 by the USGS.] THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 15) of storage reservoirs. Such approval was necessary because Arizona was a territory, still under Congressional jurisdiction. Any hope of getting the federal government to finance such construction directly appeared too remote to warrant serious attention. The county offered to pay the cost for a proposed government study. With this carrot of inducement, Fowler and Maxwell traveled to Washington in January to lobby the Geological Survey and interest congressmen in the project. On January 7 they met with Newell, and the next day it appears they attended a lecture given by Newell at the home of Nevada Congressman (later Senator) Francis G.

Newlands.40 A conservationist and a major Congressional advocate of irrigation, Newlands would eventually co-sponsor the landmark legislation establishing the Reclamation Service. Maxwell and Fowler s lobbying proved successful. Within a week the Geological Survey had accepted the requested assignment; work on the study began a few days later in order to complete as much as possible while the climatic conditions are favorable. 41 Responsibility for the project fell to Arthur Powell Davis, a nephew of John Wesley Powell.

After graduating with a degree in engineering from George Washington University in Washington, Davis went directly to work for his uncle s Irrigation Survey in In the mid-1890s, he undertook a study of irrigation works in the Phoenix area that appeared as Water Supply Paper No. 2, published by the Geological Survey in With this background, Davis was the logical candidate to lead the new investigation into the Central Arizona water situation. Developed over a period of almost eighteen months, Davis report was issued in under the title, Water Storage on Salt River, Arizona.

44 Although it examined sites other than the one at the Tonto Basin most notably the McDowell site on the lower Verde River the bulk of the report focused on the location discovered by the Breakenridge Party in Davis discussion of the Tonto site began with an extensive analysis of stream flow records for the Salt River to determine if sufficient water would exist to fill the proposed reservoir. Although everyone knew that large quantities of spring floodwaters usually flowed through Phoenix without diversion into irrigation canals, it was important to document that the reservoir would provide the service promised. Clearly, no one wanted to spend millions of dollars to build a dam only to have it impound a marginal quantity of water much less than the potential capacity of the reservoir.

After examining the accumulated stream flow data for the years Davis concluded that at least acre-feet could have been stored at the site for every year other 40 Newell Pocket Diary entries dated 7 January and 8 January Frederick Haynes Newell Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, 41 Charles Walcott to E.A. Hitchcock, 14 January as quoted in Davis, Water Storage on Salt River, Arizona, p. 10. 42 For biographical data, see Arthur Powell Davis, Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 100 pp. 43 Arthur Powell Davis, Irrigation near Phoenix, Arizona (Washington, Government Printing Office, [Note: this study was published as Water Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 2 by the USGS.] 44 Davis, Water Storage on Salt River, p.

7; the formal transmittal of the report is dated 12 June in a letter from Newell to the Director of the USGS, Charles Walcott. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 16) than (a year that still could have stored more than acre-feet). With this, the functional viability of the reservoir to increase Phoenix s water supply appeared assured. Additional analysis of water quality determined that the effect of sediment build-up in the reservoir would be relatively minor and that any major provision for removing silt would be unnecessary for more than a century.45 Test borings were made at various locations in the canyon to gauge the depth to bedrock.

This was important, because excavation to bedrock for the entire base of the dam was necessary to ensure structural stability and removal of excessive overburden would greatly increase construction costs. Under Davis direction, four different lines of borings were made across the canyon. The first was at the site of the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company filing; the other three were clustered together about further downstream. At the Hudson site there existed a deep gap in the center of the canyon where bedrock lay more than 64' below the surface. At the other borings, all bedrock (which consisted of either red sandstone or black shale) was found no more than 40' from the surface.

Because of the considerable amount of overburden at the Hudson site, Davis rejected it in favor of a location centered in the other group of borings.

Ultimately the latter site was chosen for Roosevelt Dam.46 In sum, Davis laid out a schematic, yet relatively complete, building plan for a structure with a total height of above bedrock and a storage capacity of acre-feet.47 His report outlined a preliminary structural design and specifications for the dam (including analysis of the necessary spillway capacity to prevent overtopping), design for outlet works to release water from the reservoir, design for a power canal and powerhouse to provide hydroelectric power to equipment during the construction, and design of a cement mill to be built adjacent to the dam site.48 Taking into account other expenses such as road building, construction of concrete bridges over the spillways and the purchase of cultivated lands in the reservoir area, Davis estimated the overall construction cost of the dam at By the time the Davis report was formally submitted in June to Charles Wolcott, Director of the Geological Survey, the political climate in Washington had changed dramatically concerning Western reclamation.

Early in a joint proposal by Congressman Newlands and Senator Henry Hansbrough of North Dakota to fund federally built irrigation projects through proceeds derived from the sale of public lands had been defeated, because it contained too many novel features for Congress to accept. But Newlands was determined. He continued in his efforts to pass the bill, working closely with Frederick Newell of the Geological Survey and Gifford Pinchot, United States Forester, in Congressional hearings and interviews with the President. He was assisted greatly by the skillful lobbying of George Maxwell, who through his National Irrigation Association mounted an extensive advertising campaign in the East on behalf of a national reclamation policy. 45 Ibid., pp. 32, 42. 46 Ibid., pp. 47 Ibid., p. 36.

48 Ibid, pp. 49 Ibid., p. 52. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 17) The single most important source of this political change lay in the succession of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency after William McKinley was assassinated in September Roosevelt, the popular rough rider of the Spanish-American War, was an irrepressible outdoorsman and an ardent conservationist who shared with Newlands an attachment for the American agrarian ideal. In Roosevelt s first formal message to Congress that December, he unequivocally endorsed the concept of federal support for irrigation development.

Stating that the construction of great storage works [had] been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for private effort, he further proclaimed that it is as right for the national government to make the streams and rivers of the arid region useful by engineering works for water storage as to make useful the rivers and harbors of the humid region by engineering works of a different kind. 50 With the new President s vigorous support, passage of legislation for federal reclamation initiatives proved much more viable. Roosevelt pressured Newlands bill through Congress and signed it into law on June 17, [32 Stat.

Incorporating elements of executive independence from the legislative branch, nationalization and a scientific approach to natural resource management, the Newlands, or National Reclamation, Act was the first truly Progressive measure of the Roosevelt administration.

The law provided that: All moneys received from the sale of public lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming are hereby reserved, set aside, and appropriated as a special fund in the Treasury to be known as the reclamation fund to be used in the examination and survey for and the construction and maintenance of irrigation works for the storage, diversion and development of waters for the reclamation of arid and semiarid lands in the said states and territories.51 As originally enacted, the Newlands Act directed the Secretary of the Interior to select irrigation projects in the arid Western states that would most benefit from federal funding, using proceeds from public land sales in the eleven named states and territories.

Construction would be undertaken directly by the Department of the Interior, acting through the newly formed U.S. Reclamation Service. Upon completion of each project, the farmers benefitting from the irrigation would be required to repay all construction costs in ten annual installments. Theoretically, the repaid money would then be available to fund other projects by the federal government in a kind of revolving fund. Unlike the Carey Act, state governments would play no role in the program s implementation. The Newlands Act contained provisions for reserving 50 The complete text of Roosevelt s first annual message to Congress sent on December 3, can be found in The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: State Papers as Governor and President, Vol. 15 (New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, pp.

51 The full text and all amendments to the National Reclamation Act prior to are given in Institute for Government Research, The U.S. Reclamation Service: Its History, Activities and Organization (New York: D. Appleton and Company, pp. The placement of the federal reclamation program in the Department of the Interior represented a major victory for Newell, et al., over the bureaucratic forces of Elwood Mead and others involved in irrigation investigations for the Department of Agriculture. For reference to the work of the Agricultural Department in this field, see Lee, Reclaiming the American West, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 18) public lands served by irrigation projects to ensure that speculators would not take advantage of planned improvements, and it stipulated that farms benefited by the irrigation be 160 acres or smaller in size. In tacit recognition of John Wesley Powell s observation nine years earlier, the act also allowed land already in private ownership to receive water from the federal projects without prejudice. This latter provision was of great import to the numerous farmers in the Salt River Valley, who already owned tens of thousands of acres of irrigable land. Presumably their holdings would be subject to the 160-acre limitation, but nothing prevented them from legally using any water stored in a federal reservoir.

Recognition of the Newlands Act s significance apparently eluded some central valley farmers at first.52 But by the end of summer efforts were well underway to ensure that the Salt River Valley benefitted directly from the new legislation. The fears of Salt River Valley residents extended beyond the suitability of the Tonto Basin as a dam site.

Rather, many believed that interest in building a dam on the Gila River near San Carlos designed to provide water for the Pima Indian Reservation would eclipse support for the Tonto project.53 The Gila River project alternately called the San Carlos project had attracted the attention of Geological Survey engineers such as Frederick Newell in the and national sympathy for the plight of the beleaguered Pima Indians continued to fuel interest in construction of a large storage dam to benefit the Pima. As chief engineer of the newly formed Reclamation Service, however, Newell s interest in the Gila project began to wane dramatically.

This disinterest was actively encouraged by Phoenix lobbyists such as Fowler and was prompted by Davis promising study of the Tonto site.54 Additionally, the farmers of Phoenix were beginning to organize into a relatively cohesive group intent on supporting a federal dam project at the Tonto site. This union became manifest in February when private landowners established the SRVWUA to handle their relationship with the Reclamation Service. Internal conflicts continued to wrack farming interests in the central valley for years to come, but the bureaucratic mechanism for integration within a federal project was now in place. As it turned out, essentially all of the land included within the purview of the SRVWUA was in private hands when the organization first formed.

Historian Karen Smith has determined that 48 percent of the lands subscribed to the Water Users Association by June were in tracts larger than 160 acres (this also does not include most of the large Bartlett-Heard Ranch or lands served by the Tempe Canal that did not join the SRVWUA until after World War I). Although largely owned by individuals, the land that would benefit from the 52 Initial fears that the Newlands Act would not benefit farmers of the Salt River Valley are noted in the Phoenix Republican, 26 June see Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam, p. 39. 53 Analysis of the battle between the Salt River and Gila River irrigation interests is provided in Karen Smith, The Campaign for Water in Central Arizona, Arizona and the West 23 (Summer pp. 54 See David M.

Introcaso, Coolidge Dam, HAER AZ-7, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 19) Roosevelt Dam was clearly not land from the public domain whose sale would be used to finance construction of early Reclamation Service projects.55 The Geological Survey soon thereafter made recommendations to Interior Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock concerning the first five projects to be undertaken by the Reclamation Service. These recommendations, accepted by Hitchcock that month, advocated the building of a Salt River Project in Arizona s Salt River Valley, which would include a storage dam at the Tonto site.

Noting that this project was superior to the proposed endeavor on the Gila River, the director of the Geological Survey described the Tonto Dam initiative as one of the most important and urgent in the United States, as the population needing the water is on the ground and there is actual suffering and loss of property to the community for want of an adequate supply of water. In addition, the conditions associated with the Salt River Project were considered typical and, in confronting them, the Service would create such precedents as will be desirable for other parts of the United States.

56 Although some chance still existed that further investigation of the Salt River Project would demonstrate its impracticability, from March onward, Newell and the Reclamation Service pursued it as an active, on-going project.57 Within a bureaucratic and legalistic context, only two major issues remained unresolved: 1) determining the priority of competing water rights claims in the Salt River Valley; and 2) reconciling the rights of the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company to the Tonto dam site with the Reclamation Service project. The first of these was of vital importance to the ultimate success of the project, but its resolution lay outside of the control of the Reclamation Service, the Department of Interior or the executive branch of the federal government.

Although Arizona was still a territory of the United States, a far-reaching federal law enacted in placed statutes covering issues of water rights in the domain of state and territorial governments and excluded the federal government from controlling such matters, even in the use of waters located on public lands. Disputes between rival claimants were thus to be resolved in the courts, not by executive fiat from government officials.58 In the Salt River Valley, a bitter water dispute between rival canal companies had been temporarily resolved by an judicial decree in the case of Wormser v. Salt River Valley 55 For detailed discussion of water rights activity before see Earl Zabin, The Committee of Sixteen, The Journal of Arizona History (Summer pp.

See also Smith, Magnificent Experiment, pp. for more on the politics surrounding the SRVWUA and the objections raised by Dwight B. Heard to the federally sponsored Salt River Project. Data on the size of land subscriptions and the demographic makeup of initial subscribers to the SRVWUA are given by Smith, pp. 56 Walcott to E.A. Hitchcock, 14 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box Hitchcock approved the letter s recommendations the same day they were sent by Walcott. This letter marked the beginning of the Reclamation Service s official activity on construction of Roosevelt Dam. 57 See Smith, The Campaign for Water, pp. for a discussion of activities in the summer and fall of that insured selection of the Salt River Project.

The proposed San Carlos Project represented the only substantial competition to the Salt River Project for initial funding by the Reclamation Service. 58 The significance of the Act of [43 USCA, Sec. in terms of local (i.e., non-federal) control of water rights is discussed in Hardin, Water Rights for Irrigation, pp. This law was strongly advocated by California mining interests after the Civil War. In water history literature this law is simply referred to as the Act of THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 20) Canal Company.59 The case revolved around concerns of many of the original canal companies that the construction of the new Arizona Canal and its associated dam in the mid-1880s was reducing the amount of water available to other canals with headgates on the Salt River.

The conflict focused on the classic issue of a new water appropriator diverting water upstream from the diversion works of earlier irrigation developers. In weighing the merits of the case, Judge Joseph H. Kibbey had to determine the amount of water needed by the earliest appropriators to irrigate their fields successfully and the equitable apportionment of rights to the natural stream flow of the river among the canal operators. In his ruling, known as the Kibbey Degree, the judge determined how much land could be irrigated by the various canal companies, and he appointed a commissioner to oversee the fair distribution of Salt River water.60 Kibbey also ruled that water rights in the valley were appurtenant (or permanently attached) to the land and could not be separately sold or traded.

The result of this latter ruling was that water used for irrigation in the Salt River Valley could never be sold or transferred outside of the valley. The truce forged by the Kibbey Decree was uneasy at best, and disputes over rights to the natural flow of the Salt River flared throughout the as more acreage in the valley was turned to irrigation. The prospect of an immense storage dam upriver only complicated matters.

Once federal planning commenced for the construction of a large storage dam in the Tonto Basin, both Reclamation Service officials and leaders of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association recognized the need for legal measures to insure equitable distribution of the additional water available from the proposed reservoir.61 Dealing only with distribution of the natural flow of the Salt, the Kibbey Decree was inadequate to handle the problem. In addition, the Association felt it important to establish water rights of individual landowners rather than simply to apportion amounts to the canal companies.

Because water rights constituted a property right that could not be altered or diminished without due process of law, the leaders of the Water Users Association understood that any method of determining water rights for land service by the new dam needed to be established by judicial ruling. To accomplish this, a friendly lawsuit was initiated to bring the matter before the courts. Known formally as Patrick T. Hurley v. Charles F. Abbott and Four Thousand Eight Hundred Others or, more commonly, Hurley v. Abbott, the case involved virtually every landowner in the Central Valley.

Although some landowners who held rights associated with the earliest canal companies (primarily the Tempe and San Francisco canals) objected to the broad sweep of the case, the judicial proceedings were generally recognized as necessary to establish the validity of all future water rights in the valley.62 59 The ruling on the case is formally registered as M. Wormser, et al. v. The Salt River Valley Canal Company, et al., Case No. Second Judicial District, Territory of Arizona, Maricopa County, 31 March 60 A good discussion of the Kibbey Decree is provided in Zarbin, The Committee of Sixteen, pp. the Kibbey Decree is also described in Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam, p. 26.

61 Extensive documentation of negotiations and correspondence between the Reclamation Service and the SRVWUA can be found in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 62 Opposition to using Hurley v. Abbott as a means of adjudicating water rights in the Salt River Valley is described in Smith, Magnificent Experiment, pp. and Zarbin, The Committee of Sixteen, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 21) The trial opened on May 31, and Judge Edward Kent heard testimony over the next two- and-a-half years.

Finally, as construction on the dam itself was well underway in March Kent ruled on the case in what has come to be known as the Kent Decree.63 After affirming Kent s decision that water rights were permanently attached to the land, he divided all of the lands in the Salt River Valley that could logically be served by the Roosevelt Dam into three classes. Class A lands constituted those areas under continuous irrigation prior to and originally watered using the natural flow of the Salt. Class B lands were those that had been regularly irrigated after and Class C lands were those that had not been irrigated by the time the case was brought to trial.

In upholding the principle of prior rights, the Kent Decree ruled that Class A lands had primary rights to the first acre-feet of water available from the Salt River each year.64 Any water exceeding this amount was to be considered floodwater stored in the Roosevelt Dam reservoir; it would be available to lands in all three classes, but priority would be given to using it on Class A and Class B lands. Only after the needs of these first two classes were met would water be available for Class C lands. However, to use water stored in the reservoir at all, a landowner must have joined the Water Users Association.

With the water rights for all of the land in the valley established by the Kent Decree, the Reclamation Service could proceed with the dam without fear of injunction from obstinate landowners. The resolution of the water rights issue took several years, but once done, the framework was established for integrating use of the Roosevelt Dam water storage into already existing irrigation systems in the valley. The issue of the Hudson Company s relation to the federally funded Tonto dam project was more immediately relevant to the Reclamation Service in planning the dam. Based upon the company s updated filing in its five-year rights to the site were not due to expire for another two years.

The service was concerned that the Hudson interests could conceivably disrupt or delay completion of the dam if they attempted to exercise their rights or sought legal protection. In June A.P. Davis observed that the proper method was to ignore [the Hudson Company] as long as possible. Our canal line, mill site, and damsite are all outside of their survey, so that they would have no damage to complain of until the storage of water begins, when their filing will have expired. 65 Davis immediately conceded that this might seem a little too cavalier and raised the possibility of having the company submit an offer for its rights, which if reasonable might be accepted.

After the Service rejected an initial request for by Hudson, the two parties eventually agreed to arbitration.66 In January the arbitration board recommended a 63 The ruling is formally registered as Patrick T. Hurley v. Charles F. Abbott, et al., Case No. Third Judicial District, Territory of Arizona, 1 March 64 In ruling on the quantity of water to be made available for Class A lands, Kent expressed the water flow required to irrigate these lands as being miner s inches. Because in Arizona 40 miner s inches equals the flow of one cubic foot of water per second and one cubic foot of water per second is equivalent to an annual quantity of 720 acre-feet, miner s inches is equal to acre-feet of water per year. 65 A.P.

Davis to Newell, 2 July NA, RG Entry 3, Box 66 The dispute between the Hudson interests and the Reclamation Service is documented in Newell to A.P. Davis, 9 July Henry Man to Newell, 11 November Newell to Henry Man, 20 November Henry Man to E.A. Hitchcock, 10 December Charles Walcott to Man, 23 December Henry THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 22) payment of for all of the company s rights to the Tonto reservoir site.

It appears that this valuation was determined in light of the company s perceived rights to use of the Tonto Basin and not on any physical records or design data related to the use of the site.67 After the Hudson negotiators countered with a request for the Reclamation Service quickly agreed and settled the issue of rights to the Tonto site.68 The next step was to design the project. Chapter 2: Gravity Dam Technology and the Design of Roosevelt Dam In designing Roosevelt Dam, Reclamation Service engineers did not invent a wholly new form of technology. Instead, their work resulted from a long history of dam construction and can perhaps best be thought of as a single albeit important step along a long path of technological development.

Thus, in order to understand the nature of the design used for the Roosevelt Dam, it is necessary to place it in a historical context. This chapter will succinctly trace the evolution of dam technology in the early twentieth century and will then describe the design process used for Roosevelt Dam. Dams comprise an ancient technology that dates at least to the third millennium BCE. The ability to divert or store water was particularly important in arid regions, and dam building flourished in many areas around the Mediterranean Sea from the Roman Era through the Middle Ages.

Water storage played a vital role in the irrigation civilizations that blossomed along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia.69 Virtually all of the early dams were gravity structures that depended upon their mass or bulk to hold back the hydrostatic pressure of the stored water. Early gravity dam builders lacked the mathematical skill to calculate the best theoretical shape for their structures.

Rather, basing their designs on known precedents, or perhaps only intuition, builders Man to Charles Walcott, 29 December Newell to Man, 4 January all letters cited above are in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 67 The question of what was actually obtained by the Reclamation Service from the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company later became a matter of internal controversy within the Department of Interior. This occurred when the department s assistant attorney general ruled that the Hudson company possessed no right to land in the reservoir area that could be transferred to the Reclamation Service in return for monetary payment.

Newell subsequently objected to this legal opinion and claimed that this right was one of the important elements in fixing the price paid to the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company. However, the assistant attorney general did not alter his opinion in response to Newell s objection and the Service was required to expend additional money to condemn land in the Tonto Basin. See Frank L. Campbell to E.A. Hitchcock, 17 June Newell to E.H. Hitchcock, 28 October and Frank L. Campbell to E.A.

Hitchcock, 25 January all letters are in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 68 The initial valuation of the Hudson interests rights to the Tonto site as recommended by the board of engineers serving as arbitrators is given in Morris Bien, Quinton and Lippincott to Newell, 25 January Henry Man s counter offer of and its acceptance by the board of engineers are documented in Henry Man to Newell, 4 February and Morris Bien, Quinton and Lippincott to Newell, 6 February all letters cited above are in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 69 For excellent background on the origins of dam building technology, see Norman Smith, A History of Dams (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, The world s oldest known dam (located in modern day Jordan) is described in Helm, Jawa: Lost City of the Black Desert (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, For more on European dam construction in the period A.D., see Terry Reynolds, Stronger Than A Hundred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 23) would pile sufficient quantities of earth, rock, timber or brush so that the structures weights (or mass) could successfully resist the water pressure. Gradually, a massive tradition of dam design developed that was based upon the concept of building up large, massive quantities of material to form a water impoundment structure. In contrast to the more recent and much less common structural tradition, exemplified by thin arch and buttress dams, the massive tradition of gravity dams was easy to comprehend. Under this custom a structure s safety was perceived as roughly proportional to the amount of material used to build it. The more material used, the less likely that the dam could wash out, slide or tip over during periods of high water.

Although many early dams were comprised of earth and timber, rock and stone were generally recognized as the best materials for permanent structures. Loose rock (or rock-fill) was frequently used in dam construction, often placed within latticed timber cribs. Although masonry in such structures was resistant to erosion and weathering, a loose matrix of stone did not necessarily provide a tight barrier to water flow. To stop percolation of water through a dam, builders placed the masonry with tightly fitted joints such as that commonly used for building walls and foundations. And by adding mortar or cement in the cracks and interstices between stones, they could erect a substantial barrier with a relatively waterproof upstream face.

Dam building was for centuries an empirical process; no reliance was placed on mathematics to determine the dimensions of a structure. By the eighteenth century, however, this began to change as builders and engineers in the Age of Reason began applying the type of logic exemplified by Isaac Newton s landmark treatise De Principia. Even before Newton, it was understood by some natural philosophers that the pressure of water could be conceptualized as a single force acting at a point one third the distance up the total height of stored water.70 The key advancement in the development of the rationally designed gravity dam built of masonry occurred in the At that time French engineer and theoretician M. de Sazilly postulated what came to be known as the profile of equal resistance.

Knowing that water weighed approximately pounds per cubic foot and hypothesizing the weight of stone at 125 pounds per cubic foot, de Sazilly set out to determine a dam cross-section mathematically that would contain enough masonry to prevent sliding along its foundation. As part of his analysis, he also stipulated that the stress on the masonry could not exceed an empirical limit calculated by studying the pressures that earlier stone dams were known to have withstood.71 Using basic formulas of statics, de Sazilly sought to develop a dam profile in which the pressure on the masonry at the upstream face of the dam when the reservoir was empty would be equal to the pressure on the masonry at the downstream face when the reservoir was filled.

By considering these two extreme conditions (i.e., reservoir filled and reservoir empty) and 70 See Smith, History of Dams, pp. for discussion and references concerning Simon Stevins early theoretical work on hydraulics, including his conceptualization of hydrostatic pressure. 71 The best treatment of de Sazilly s accomplishments is given in Smith, History of Dams, pp. This includes references to the technical paper in which de Sazilly first presented the profile of equal resistance to the engineering community. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 24) determining that the stresses on the masonry were equalized, de Sazilly could hypothesize an ideal design for a masonry dam that would, at least in cross-section, minimize the amount of construction material required for a safe, stable structure. [See Appendix A, Figure 3.] De Sazilly himself never built a dam based upon his profile of equal resistance, but within a decade another French engineer employed the theory on an actual structure. Although M. Delocre modified de Sazilly s profile to make it more practical to build, he clearly based his work on ideas of the earlier engineer.

Basing his calculation on an allowable masonry stress of tons per square foot (a little less than 100 pounds per square inch), Delocre created the high Furens Dam across the Loire River in central France, completed in [See Appendix A, Figure 4.] The immense structure contained over cubic yards of masonry and towered over other European dams.72 Within a few years it was characterized in engineering textbooks as the first masonry dam built in accordance with correct scientific principles. 73 Shortly after the completion of the Furens Dam, the famous British engineer/scholar W. J. M.

Rankine examined the problem of designing rational masonry gravity dams and confirmed the validity of de Sazilly s and Delocre s work.74 In addition Rankine noted that for stability a gravity dam must have sufficient cross-section so that the combined vector force (or resultant ) of the horizontal hydrostatic pressure and the vertical weight of the masonry fall within the middle third of the structure s base. Otherwise, the dam would develop tension (instead of compression) along the downstream edge and would thus become susceptible to dangerous cracking or outright failure.

This criterion had been met empirically by the de Sazilly/Delocre designs, but Rankine was the first engineer to formulate it explicitly and is credited with establishing the middle third as a basic principle of gravity dam design.75 The combined work of de Sazilly, Delocre and Rankine founded masonry gravity dam design on a sound mathematical basis that could be accommodated to a given allowable stress on the masonry. The principle could also be adapted for stone of different densities ranging from approximately 125 pounds per cubic foot (i.e., a specific gravity of two) to more than 160 pounds per cubic foot. With lighter density stone, the dam would necessarily be thicker, while heavier stone could allow for a dimensionally thinner structure.

The individual designer was to 72 Delocre s success in designing the Furens Dam is documented in Smith, History of Dams, pp. A good description of the dam is included in Edward Wegmann, The Design and Construction of Dams, 6th edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, pp. It is important to note that M. Graeff served as engineer in charge. 73 Quote taken from Wegmann, Design and Construction, pp. 69. 74 The British engineer s work on dam design is nicely summarized in W. J. M. Rankine, Report on the Design and Construction of Dams, The Engineer, 33 (5 January pp.

75 In terms of large-scale gravity dam design, Rankine is almost universally credited with introducing the concept of keeping the resultant force within the middle third of the base as a means of eliminating the formation of tensile stresses within the structure. However, as Peter Malloy pointed out in his article, Nineteenth Century Hydropower: Design and Construction of Lawrence Dam, Winterthur Portfolio (Winter pp. the American engineer Henry Moseley had mentioned the notion of a middle third theory as early as the when discussing construction of relatively small-scale mill dams. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 25) ascertain the weight of stone most economically available and then develop a profile depending upon the allowable stress.76 In the and several prominent dams were built in Europe based upon application of the profile of equal resistance, setting a standard soon followed by American engineers.77 During the late nineteenth century, American agricultural and domestic water needs developed to the point that construction of large storage dams had become economically defensible. Before then, population concentrations, power requirements and irrigation projects were not sufficient to require impoundment of substantial quantities of water.

Whereas earlier, dams taller than 40' or 50' had not been necessary to meet the needs of American society, the situation was now changing rapidly. The most pressing need for large storage dams first developed out of demands associated with the growth of burgeoning metropolitan areas. As the economic and business capital of the United States, New York led the way in establishing a national standard for modern municipal water supply systems. In the New York completed an extensive aqueduct system that connected the city with a modestly sized reservoir on the Croton River about 40 miles north of Manhattan.78 The Croton Aqueduct proved extremely successful, and its bountiful supply of fresh, uncontaminated water allowed New York to expand into a world-class city.

By the however, the system s original earthen dam and aqueduct could no longer meet projected demands. A second aqueduct was built alongside the original conduit, and planning began for a much taller storage structure on the Croton River capable of retaining floodwaters that heretofore had escaped over the old Croton Dam s spillway. Using a theoretical method developed and described by Edward Wegmann in the first edition of his book, The Design and Construction of Dams, engineer Alphonse Fteley based his design for the new dam directly upon the work of de Sazilly, Delocre and Rankine.79 Wegmann had established four underlying conditions for his theoretical work: 1) The lines of pressure must lie within the center third of the profile, whether the reservoir be full or empty.

2) The maximum pressures on the masonry or on the foundation must not exceed certain safe limits. 76 For example, Wegmann developed a series of practical profiles, which differed in terms of the density of the masonry used in construction. Density of a material is often related to the weight of water and given in terms of a specific gravity. Fresh water, which is generally considered to weigh pounds per cubic foot (give or take a few ounces), is stipulated to have a specific gravity of 1.

If a substance weighs twice as much as water (i.e., 125 pounds per square foot), it is labeled as having a specific gravity of 2; similarly, a substance weighing pounds per cubic foot has a specific gravity of The sandstone used for the Roosevelt Dam weighs 146 pounds per cubic foot, thus it has a specific gravity of approximately 77 These structures included the Ternay Dam (completed Ban Dam Gileppe Dam and Dam They are described in Wegmann, Design and Construction, pp. 78 See HAER for information about the construction of the original Croton Aqueduct. 79 This design methodology is described in Wegmann, Design and Construction, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 26) 3) The friction between the dam and its foundation, or between any two parts into which the wall may be divided by a horizontal plane, must be sufficient to prevent sliding. 4) The dam must be sufficiently thick in all parts to resist the action of waves and shocks from floating bodies. The first three of these conditions, which considered only the hydrostatic pressure of the water, largely determined the shape of Wegmann s profile; the fourth condition was weighed only in terms of modifying the resulting profile by increasing the width of the dam s crest. Earlier gravity dams had often featured upstream faces that splayed out at the bottom. Wegmann s profiles, on the other hand, used upstream faces that were almost vertically straight.

These vertically faced designs were characterized by cross-sections that adhered to a minimum height-to-width ratio of Generally speaking, a masonry dam developed using Wegmann s formula would require a base thickness of 20' for every 30' of height. Any additional thickness would be theoretically unnecessary, only increasing the structure s factor of safety. The New Croton Dam was first major structure designed using Wegmann s principles.81 Work on the 297'-high masonry structure began in the and continued until the dam s completion in Because of the structure s prominence, the basic 3:2 profile developed by Wegmann became popularly known as the Croton profile (see Appendix A, Figure 5); it achieved acclaim among engineers as the epitome of safe, secure and rational dam design.

The most obvious drawback of the Croton profile and other gravity designs concerned the enormous amount of material and capital outlay it required. Although rationally designed, large Croton profile structures were neither efficient in their use of materials nor cheap to build. But for major metropolitan water supply authorities, the high cost of masonry gravity dams was more than offset by the value of increased water storage. Many engineers held that the use of masonry in a gravity structure represented the most conservative, and hence most appropriate, method of dam building.

The Metropolitan Water District serving Boston selected a masonry gravity structure for its 228'-high, 187'-wide Wachusett Dam in the And in the the Spring Valley Water Company, a private firm that controlled San Francisco s water supply franchise, selected a massive gravity design for its 190'-high San Mateo (or Crystal Springs) Dam built on the peninsula south of the city. The engineers responsible for the San Mateo Dam did not have the benefit of Wegmann s work in 80 The character of the 3:2 profile for the vertically-faced gravity dam is perhaps best elucidated in George Holmes Moore, Neglected First Principles of Masonry Dam Design, Engineering News 70 (4 September pp.

81 A lengthy illustrated description of the New Croton Dam (which was also briefly called the Cornell Dam) is given in Wegmann, Design and Construction, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 27) preparing their design, and they opted for an incredibly conservative profile in which the maximum width actually exceeded the maximum height Although based upon a standard rational profile in the de Sazilly tradition, the San Mateo Dam differed from the Croton and Wachusett dams in two important respects: 1) instead of extending straight across the valley, it was built with a pronounced upstream curve; and 2) it was built entirely of concrete. The use of concrete proved practical because cement could be transported cheaply to the site.

As it turned out, this particular design feature became a harbinger of standard practice in the twentieth century. In contrast, the curving of the gravity design was not undertaken for economic reasons. In fact, it actually increased the amount of material needed for the dam and hence raised construction costs. Despite the greater expense, the engineers for the San Mateo Dam built it with an upstream curve because they believed this would further increase the structure s strength in resisting rupture.

Within the structural tradition of dam design, thin arch dams using cross-sections too narrow to stand as gravity structures had been built on several occasions prior to the late nineteenth century.83 Of necessity, thin arch dams (sometimes called true arch dams) required upstream curvature for stability. Many engineers assumed that curving a gravity design, such as had been done on the massive Gileppe Dam, built in the in Belgium, would inevitably add to its resistance.84 In terms of absolute strength, the validity of this assumption was questionable, but it apparently did help prevent temperature stress cracks from appearing in gravity dams.85 In terms of public perception, however, curving a dam appeared to make the structure stronger as it bowed toward the weight of the water.

Water development interests began building masonry dams in the West in the and Earlier in the century, California mining companies had erected the region s earliest storage structures using wood and loose rock-fill as primary structural materials. While unique conditions prompted the use of concrete for the San Mateo Dam, other western dam builders typically turned either to earth fill design or to carefully fitted masonry construction using locally available stone. Two of the most famous western dams of the era were the thin arch Bear Valley 82 The San Mateo Dam is described in James D. Schuyler, Reservoirs for Irrigation, Waterpower, and Domestic Water Supply, 2nd edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, pp.

Schuyler refers to the dam as doubtless the most enormous mass of masonry of any sort in the West, if not in the entire United States. 83 The best analysis of the history of thin arch dams is Schnitter s Evolution of the Arch Dam, Water Power and Dam Construction 28 (October and November, pp. 84 Many early masonry gravity dams were built along a curvilinear alignment, including the slightly arched Furens Dam. See Wegmann, Design and Construction, pp. for several examples. 85 Schuyler, Reservoirs, pp. reports in that while there is essential general agreement among engineers as to the theoretical profile best adapted for gravity dams, there is a wide difference of opinion as to the effect of the value of the arch in adding stability to the dam.

He went on to explain, however, that the curving of all dams of whatever length or height for the purpose of enabling them to better resist the tendency to [form] vertical cracks due to variations in temperature is coming to be recognized as of sufficient importance to lead to its general adoption. Straight-crested gravity dams such as the Olive Bridge Dam, completed by New York City in were built with expansion joints to take the place of natural cracks as a means of relieving temperature stresses. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 28) and Sweetwater dams built in southern California.86 Designed with profiles much too narrow for gravity dams, these thin arch structures helped demonstrate the possibilities inherent in developing western storage reservoirs.

However, their daring cross-sections drew criticism from gravity dam engineers schooled in the tradition of de Sazilly and recently provided with Wegmann s design treatise. Consequently, in the large-scale irrigation structures such as the La Grange Dam in central California and the Hemet Dam in the southern part of the state utilized curved gravity designs.87 The investors responsible for these dams apparently chose conservative gravity designs to ensure that their investments would not, quite literally, wash downstream. It was within this context that the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company planned the Tonto Dam at the turn of the century.

The collapse of the Walnut Grove Dam, a mining structure on the Hassayampa River, was still within recent memory in Arizona.88 It mattered little that the dam was itself a rock-fill gravity structure. The well-publicized disaster underscored the need for dam safety throughout the region and pushed engineers and investors two traditionally conservative groups under any circumstances toward empirically proven dam designs.89 The Hudson Company clearly wanted to dispel local fears about the structural adequacy of its proposed storage dam. The firm also needed to assure potential investors in the East and in Europe that its plans comprised a solid, permanent project.

Thus, it is not surprising that the Hudson Company designed a curved masonry gravity dam to impound the floodwaters of the Salt River. Detailed specifications for this design do not survive, but general schematic drawings for the proposed structure were published in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey The drawings show a gravity dam that adhered to Wegmann s basic height-to-width ratio of 3:2 and exhibited an almost completely vertical upstream face. The dam would be built with an initial height of above foundation and later extended to a maximum height of approximately as needs and finances warranted.91 Two overflow spillways were 86 Detailed descriptions of these two thin arch dams are provided in Schuyler, Reservoirs, pp.

87 The La Grange and Hemet Dams are described in Schuyler, Reservoirs, pp. 88 The Walnut Grove disaster is described in Earl Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to (Phoenix: Salt River Project, pp. The rockfill Walnut Grove Dam is illustrated in Schuyler, Reservoirs, pp. and proclaimed by the author to be the slenderest and most flimsily constructed of all rock fill dams that have ever been built or projected in the West. Some people were killed in the ensuing flood.

89 The San Francisco Chronicle echoed popular sentiment in admonishing the company to construct a safe structure: Before the first step is taken toward the construction of the dam across this box creek the resources of modern engineering skill should be taxed to their utmost to provide plans for the building of a dam which shall be as safe as human skill can make it. The sad experiences of the past few years in a number of places have shown the terrific weight and dynamic force of water sought to be held under restraint, and the dam must be so built as to be absolutely safe. In cases of this kind cheapness must cut no figure.

If the dam can be built securely for so much the better for the company, but if it takes to build it so that it shall hold water the money must be expended, for Arizona will not tamely submit to another Walnut Grove disaster. San Francisco Chronicle, 13 May 90 James D. Schuyler, Water Storage and Construction of Dams, Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp. 91 It was common practice to design dams for construction to an initial height with the intent of later raising the structure to its final height. To accomplish this, it was necessary to build the initial structure with ample dimensions to accommodate the additional pressures that would develop when the dam was increased in height. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 29) planned one at each end of the structure that were to be wide enough to ensure that floods could not overtop the completed structure. No design criteria or calculations accompany the brief description of the dam in the USGS report, but the plan is so derivative of Wegmann s work that such information would not have been necessary to present. If one accepted the validity and conservative nature of the Croton profile, then few technical objections could be raised against the Hudson Company s basic design proposal. The USGS report described the Hudson Company s design as a gravity profile of the modern type, and this theme was continued by A.P.

Davis when he developed the design submitted as part of his Water Storage on Salt River, Arizona report in Davis claimed that the gorge on Salt River is an especially favorable site for a masonry dam, and the most permanent, conservative, and secure form of high dam that can be constructed [there]. He paraphrased Wegmann s principles for designing masonry gravity dams that could not slide, overturn or fail because of crushing. To meet the first two of these conditions, Davis prescribed that under all conditions the resultant of all the forces acting will fall within the middle third of any horizontal joint [something that would also] eliminate the possibility of any tensile stresses [occurring] in the masonry.

Davis further explained that the dam was to be built in the form of a circular arch, greatly increasing its safety against sliding and overturning [although] neither can occur without overcoming the gravity and cohesion of the masonry and also crushing the masonry or abutments. 92 [See Appendix A, Figure 6.] Davis thus delineated the dam as a curved masonry gravity structure with class 3:2 proportions. [See Appendix A, Figure 7.] The major design variable left to be analyzed concerned the structural quality of the local stone and cement to be used in the structure.93 If these materials proved to be weak, then the dam could fail by crushing, despite its rational design.

Consequently, Davis tested both the tough, close-grained sandstone found at the site and the cement produced from natural materials quarried nearby. He shipped two sandstone cubes and two specially produced cement briquettes to the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington, for compression testing. The cement crushed at an average pressure of 500 tons per square foot, the sandstone at more than tons per square foot.94 The former results were well within the range for high quality cement.

Given that the Roosevelt Dam, even after later being raised beyond its original planned height, only experienced compression stresses on the order of 20 tons per square foot (a bit less than 300 psi), the quality of local building materials was, according to Davis, so high that the strength of the rock is entirely eliminated from the discussion. 95 92 Arthur Powell Davis, Water Storage on Salt River, Arizona (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp. hereafter this source is cited as Davis, Water Storage. 93 Problems with the cement supply are discussed in Chapter 3. 94 The results obtained from testing the specimens of stone and cement are given in Davis, Water Storage, p. 36. 95 In the maximum compressive stresses in the dam were calculated to be tons per square foot.

Later the design was significantly expanded in height and the maximum compressive stress increased to tons per square foot, as calculated by A.P. Davis and noted in his book Irrigation Works Constructed by the United States Government (New York: John Wiley and Sons, [Note: a pressure of 100 pounds per square inch is equal to 7.2 tons per square foot.] THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 30) With the dam s design established, Davis then turned to the construction specifications and techniques to be used in the erection process. These were divided into four general categories: 1) diversion of the Salt River; 2) preparation of the foundations; 3) the stone masonry; and 4) cement and mortar.

Davis predicted confidently that a dam constructed according to his plans and specifications would be absolutely permanent, safe, solid and secure for all ages to come as truly as the everlasting hills of which it will become an integral part. 96 Diversion of the Salt River during construction was necessary to allow excavation of the dam s foundation. To accomplish this, Davis planned to erect a sheet pile coffer dam a few hundred feet upstream from the site of the masonry dam. This temporary structure would then divert water either into a large flume passing through the site or into a diversion tunnel cut through the south side canyon wall.

Both the tunnel and the flume would carry river water beyond the area of the foundation and supposedly allow excavation to take place under dry conditions. In fact, flooding of the dam site proved to be a major problem, as the original flume was quickly washed out in a flood and was never replaced. The diversion tunnel handled a substantial flow of river water, but it was far too small to carry major floods successfully. Eventually, the tunnel was fitted with outlet gates adapted for use in regulating water release from the reservoir, in accordance with Davis original plan. For the foundations, Davis stipulated that all earth, sand, and seamed rock be excavated and removed from the entire area of the base of the dam in order to secure a firm foundation on solid rock.

He forbade the use of explosives, except in small quantities and in small holes, to avoid creating fractures in the bedrock that would permit excessive seepage and could undermine the structure. To key the base of the dam to the bedrock, Davis specified the excavation of a trench, 6' wide and 6' deep, along the length of the foundation at a distance 15' from the upstream face. He devoted considerable attention to the masonry in the specifications. Declaring that the main body of the dam shall be constructed of broken range cyclopean rubble, he indicated that the masonry would be quarried from the walls of each side of the canyon, in the areas scheduled to become the spillways.

Masonry for the rubble interior of the dam was to consist of large stones as far as practicable, and facilities were to be provided for handling stones weighing up to 12 tons. Stones for the upstream face were to be roughly pointed (i.e. squared off with chisels) and placed in an arrangement of 75 percent stretchers (stones placed parallel to the face of the dam and measuring at least 3' x 2' x 2') and 25 percent headers (stones placed perpendicular to the face of the dam and measuring 6' x 2' x To make the dam s upstream surface as watertight as possible, Davis further specified that no mortar joint in the face shall exceed 1 inch in thickness. It was impractical to assemble the rubble masonry of the dam s interior within such tight tolerances.

Consequently, the specifications called for vertical joints between stones in the body of the dam [to] be nowhere less than 4 inches and must be carefully and thoroughly filled with Portland cement concrete [by hand ramming]. Davis considered it vital that no air pockets or voids be left in the dam and required that all space in the dam not occupied by stone shall be absolutely filled with mortar 96 Davis, Water Storage, p. 41. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 31) [or concrete] so as to make a watertight construction. To help facilitate this requirement he urged the use of the largest proportion of stone and the smallest proportion of concrete that can be practically secured. Finally, Davis specified the types of concrete and mortar to be used in various parts of the dam.

Although in casual conversation, the terms concrete and mortar are frequently used synonymously, they are not identical structural materials. Both consist of cement and sand, but concrete contains stone aggregate that gives it additional strength but reduces its ease of handling (or workability ). In general, Davis called for all cement to meet accepted commercial standards and for it to age at least sixty days after manufacture and before being used.97 In addition, in his words, sharp (i.e., clean and devoid of foreign materials) sand was to be used and the stone aggregate needed to be able to pass through a 2" mesh screen. Davis stipulated two different grades of concrete and mortar, depending upon the location of use.

For those parts of the dam within either 20' from the upstream face or 30' from the foundation, the mortar was to consist of one part cement and two parts sand while concrete was to contain one part cement, two parts sand and three parts stone. In all other sections of the dam, the mortar and concrete did not require such a large proportion of cement in the mix. For these areas the mortar would have a cement : sand ratio of 1:3 and the concrete would have a cement : sand : aggregate ratio of Davis explained the logic behind this variation, saying: The reason for using a large percentage of cement in the base is that here will be the greatest pressures, and the higher percentage of cement will give a greater power of resistance to crushing.

The high percentage of cement is maintained on the water face of the dam in order to render it as nearly impervious as possible.98 Davis estimated that the completed dam would consist of 70 percent sandstone masonry, 15 percent mortar and 15 percent concrete, and he calculated the overall density of the mass of masonry. This was necessary to ascertain the dimensions of the gravity profile that would be called upon to resist the hydrostatic pressure. Based on sample testing of the various materials, he determined that the masonry would have a density of 146 pounds per cubic foot, a figure closely in line with that used for many other gravity dams.

Final specifications for construction of the dam, published in the Third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service closely followed those in Davis report. The differences were 97 Davis, Water Storage, p. 41. Davis stipulated that cement was not to used until it shall show satisfactory tests according to the chemical and physical requirements adopted by the American Society of Civil Engineers. For good contemporary references to cement manufacture and analysis in the early twentieth century, see William A. Brown, The Portland Cement Industry (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, and Richard K.

Meade, Portland Cement (Easton, Pennsylvania: The Chemical Publishing Co., Portland Cement refers to cement that is manufactured by mixing together limestone and clay products taken from different sources for firing in the kiln. It is distinct from natural cement in which the limestone and clay are found naturally mixed with one another in the ground. The properties of Portland cement can be much better determined than those of natural cement, and its material was much preferred by engineers in the early twentieth century. 98 Davis, Water Storage, p. 41. This use of richer cement and concrete for those parts of structures directly subject to hydrostatic pressure was a common engineering practice. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 32) relatively minor: the joints between blocks in the upstream face could be 2" wide instead of 1"; vertical joints in the interior masonry could be 6" instead of only 4" wide; the key trench (also called the cutoff trench) was to be 10' (not 6') wide; and the hoisting facilities were to be capable of handling 10-ton, rather than 12-ton, stones. In addition, mortar with a cement : sand ratio of 1:2 was only required for the upstream face without stipulation about its extent into the dam s interior. The richness of all other mortar in the structure was to be raised from a 1:3 mixture to as a means of increasing overall watertightness. This was done presumably to simplify the mixing process at the site.

Similarly, the Service s new specifications consolidated Davis original two grades of concrete into a single mix with a cement : sand : aggregate ratio of After developing the dam s structural dimensions and outlining the construction specifications, the final design task for Davis involved sizing the spillways.100 Given the large scale of the structure, it was considered inadvisable to allow water ever to overtop the crest and cascade down the dam s back side. Gravity dams can be built as overflow structures, but in the early twentieth century it was unthinkable to allow this with a structure over in height. Davis designed two large spillways one at each end of the dam to carry away excess floodwaters and prevent overtopping of the structure.

The plans for the Hudson Company s Tonto Dam also included twin spillways, so Davis could claim no great originality with this scheme. Estimating a maximum flow of cfs and using standard methods of calculating water discharge, Davis ascertained that spillways aggregating in length with lips 27' below the top of the dam could discharge the floodwaters and keep the reservoir level at least 7' from the structure s crest.101 The location of overflow spillways at both ends of the dam necessitated building bridges to carry vehicular traffic over the discharge channels. As a substitute for the existing Salt River crossing of the Globe-Payson wagon road which would be flooded by the Tonto Reservoir, the Reclamation Service proposed to carry the route across the dam crest.

Stating that the structures would involve no new or untried features, Davis bridged each spillway with a two-span reinforced-concrete arch. [See Appendix A, Figure 8.] Featuring a and a 75' span, the bridge 99 Third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp. 100 The process used to determine the dimensions of the Roosevelt Dam spillway is described in Davis, Water Storage, pp. 101 Davis indicated that he calculated the discharge capacity Q of the spillways using the formula Q = 3.5 x L x where H = The maximum height of water passing over the spillways and L = The length of the spillways. The flow of water over a given weir (or spillway) can only be exactly determined by empirical measurement.

By the mid- nineteenth century, however, good formulas for approximating the flow of water over barriers had been developed. For example, in Lowell, Massachusetts, James B. Francis developed the formula Q = x L x (H) as a means of calculating discharge qualities. Apparently Davis slightly altered this formula for his own use in deference to the large size of the Roosevelt Dam spillways. For more on discharge formulas, including the one developed by Francis, see Mansfield Merriman, Treatise on Hydraulics (New York: John Wiley and Sons, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 33) design, according to Davis, will be about as cheap and far more substantial and permanent than a steel bridge, and more in keeping with the massive and permanent character of the dam.

102 Beyond the design of the dam s permanent features, Davis addressed two issues critical in the construction process. The first of these involved a source of power to carry materials around the dam site and operate equipment and machinery. The resulting hydroelectric power system and the power canal built as part of it are described in the HAER report on the Roosevelt Power Canal & Diversion Dam (HAER AZ-4).103 In general terms a small diversion dam would be constructed on the Salt River upstream from the Tonto Dam site. Water would be diverted into a concrete canal approximately 19 miles long that would skirt the southwestern shore of the proposed reservoir. Originally, the plan called for a temporary power plant to be built about upstream from the dam site.

Water from the power canal was to flow through penstocks under a head of and generate 900 kilowatts of electric power for the cement mill and construction equipment at the site. A permanent powerhouse adjoining the southern toe of the dam was to come online after construction had proceeded beyond the initial stages. This permanent facility would provide power to complete the dam and would then supply electric current to nearby lines or to the valley below for irrigation pumping purposes. After construction of the project began, plans for the original temporary powerhouse were replaced by a plant built into the canyon walls immediately adjacent to the permanent powerhouse.

When the permanent facility was ready to house the necessary turbines, generators, and equipment, the Reclamation Service merely extended the penstock and continued power generation with the new system. The second critical construction issue that Davis discussed concerned the source of cement for the mortar and concrete. Acknowledging that construction costs at the Tonto site would be rendered very expensive by the remoteness and difficulty of access to the site, Davis estimated that cement would cost $9 per barrel if hauled by wagon from the railhead at Globe 40 miles away.104 To reduce costs for the over barrels of cement required on the dam, he proposed building a cement mill at the site that would use locally available limestone and clay to stoke the rotary kiln.

Energy for grinding the cement clinker was to come from the power canal system. This meant that only fuel oil for heating the rotary cement kilns would need to be hauled in from Globe or the lower Salt River Valley. Estimating the erection cost of a 300-barrel-per- day cement plant at Davis calculated that cement could be produced for a barrel: a fraction of the cost for imported material. In concluding his report, Davis estimated the cost to build a 247'-high dam at the Tonto site at slightly more than million.105 This figure included all of the ancillary structures but not the 102 Davis, Water Storage, p. 51. By the early twentieth century, reinforced-concrete bridges comprised a technology that was well beyond the experimental stage of development.

A good contemporary account of the technology can be found in Tyrrell, Concrete Bridges and Culverts (Chicago: The Myron C. Clark Publishing Co., 103 See David M. Introcaso, Roosevelt Power Canal & Diversion Dam, HAER AZ-4, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Also see Davis, Water Storage, pp. 45- 48. 104 Plans for the cement mill, including the results of a chemical analysis of the clay and limestone available in the Tonto Basin are given in Davis, Water Storage, pp. 105 Davis, Water Storage, p. 52. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 34) expense of any work on the distribution system in the lower Salt River Valley.

By far the largest cost components concerned placing the cubic yards of masonry (at per cubic yard, this came to slightly more than and producing worth of cement. Interestingly, Davis calculated that dropping the dam s height by 20' would reduce costs by little more than Clearly, fixed costs comprised much of the expense of building a dam in the remote reaches of the Tonto Basin. Consideration of this fact would prompt the only significant later alteration of the design promulgated in the Davis report. After passage of the Newlands Act in and selection of the Phoenix area for one of the Reclamation Service s first large reservoir projects the following year, Davis report assumed increased importance.

In fact, other than a few minor alterations of the construction specifications and an increase in overall height, the masonry gravity dam conceived by Davis is what came to be built. The First Annual Report of the Reclamation Service largely reiterated Davis plans. [See Appendix A, figures 10 and It did indicate that the prospect of paying $9 per barrel for commercially manufactured cement presents a strong temptation to adopt a rock-fill type of structure. 106 This seeming interest in building a rock-fill structure was largely rhetorical, however, and apparently received mention only as part of justification for building a government-operated cement mill at the project site.

There is no substantive evidence to indicate that the Reclamation Service ever seriously considered constructing anything other than a curved masonry gravity dam to impound the Salt River.107 When the Service began actively planning its initial construction projects in Chief Engineer Newell formed several boards of consulting engineers to provide advice.108 This was done, ostensibly, to help government engineers handle the myriad design and logistical problems that confronted them; it also helped Newell to divert any criticism that might be raised concerning his limited experience in engineering work. Regardless of Newell s motives, the use of outside engineers provided a basic check on the suitability and safety of designs prepared by the Service.

Curiously, Newell selected George Wisner, a hydraulic engineer from Detroit, to 106 First Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (Washington, Government Printing Office, p. 52. 107 In a report on arch dam design (entitled Stability of High Dams ) that accompanied a letter sent from George Y. Wisner to Newell on June 27, brief mention is made of a proposed thin arch design for the Salt River Dam. This passing consideration of a non-gravity design for the Tonto site is never discussed anywhere else in Reclamation Service records; it evidently reflects the theoretical musings of Wisner and was never meant to be a serious alternative to Davis curved gravity design.

It is important to note that the Reclamation Service did seriously explore the technology of thin arch dams, and this led to the arch designs used for the Shoshone (later called Buffalo Bill) and Pathfinder Dams in Wyoming. At that time, the service generally used the term reinforced concrete dams to refer to thin arch designs because both of these dams were built using this material. For more on the Reclamation Service s analysis of thin arch designs, see: George Y. Wisner to Newell, 13 July George Y. Wisner, Quinton, Sanders and A.P. Davis to Newell, 5 October Quinton and George Wisner to Newell, 24 November Edgar T. Wheeler to George Wisner, 5 March George Y. Wisner to Newell, 16 May Also see: Wisner and E.T.

Wheeler, Investigation of Stresses in High Masonry Dams of Short Span, Engineering News 54 (10 August All letters referred to in this endnote are in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 108 The organization of the Reclamation Service and its relation to engineering boards is described in the Third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (Washington, Government Printing Office), p. 41. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 35) handle questions related to large-scale dam design and construction.109 Wisner had no previous involvement with storage dam construction or with Western water resources development.

Rather, his experience largely involved harbors and issues related to use of the Great Lakes.110 Wisner studied conditions for many of the Reclamation Service s early projects and traveled to examine conditions at various sites. This brought him, among other places, to the Tonto Basin.111 With Sanders, a southern California engineer with experience in operating water supply systems who also served on most of the Salt River consulting boards, Wisner acted as the primary source of outside expertise for the Tonto Project.112 Their view of the basic dam plans developed by Davis are best characterized in a December letter from Sanders to Newell which reported that an examination of section, plans and details of [the] dam makes me feel that Mr.

Davis and his assistants have been busy men & are a credit to the corps. In particular, the letter describes the gravity cross-section as all that could be desired no waste material but practically the pressure line empty and full at the line of the middle third. 113 The only major alteration of Davis design proposed by the consulting engineers concerned means of helping the structure cope with temperature stresses. The extreme heat experienced in the Tonto Basin, especially during the summer months, prompted Wisner to recommend placing steel in the top part of the dam. Citing the wide range of temperature [that] exists in most of the Western States, Wisner declared that the use of steel in the upper portion of [a dam] is a precaution worthy of careful consideration.

He recommended that the upper 100 feet of the dam will be reinforced with steel, a precaution that was to be supplemented by having masonry placed in this part of the structure, only when the temperature is below average for the year, thereby insuring either of normal or of compressive stresses for most of the time. 114 As it turned out, the Reclamation Service ignored Wisner s only substantive recommendation and never placed steel in the Roosevelt Dam. Instead, a system of pipes on the downstream side of the dam was eventually installed that allows water to trickle down the dam face and cool the structure by evaporation, thus helping counteract potential temperature stresses.

109 Wisner s deep involvement in research dam design issues for the Reclamation Service is well documented in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 110 No obituary of Wisner appeared in the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers after his death in However, his professional interests are evident in the contributions he made to ASCE publications during his lifetime and listed in Index to the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, (New York: American Society of Civil Engineers, p. His major articles concerned The Brazos River Harbor Development (in Texas) and The Economic Dimensions for a Waterway from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. A brief review of Wisner s career appears in an obituary in the July 4, Detroit Journal.

He reportedly died of stomach problems a few days short of his birthday. 111 His trip to damsites and irrigation projects in the West is described in George Y. Wisner to Newell, 4 May 112 Biographical data on Sanders is provided in his obituary William Horatio Sanders, Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 88 For thirteen years Sanders served as Chief Engineer for the Pomona Land and Water Company in Southern California. 113 Sanders to F. Newell, 14 December NA, RG Entry 3, Box 114 George Y. Wisner, discussion accompanying Lake Cheesman Dam and Reservoir, Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 53 THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 36) The only real change to Davis original design involved an increase in size.

In his report, he reported that the proposed dam would store water at a maximum depth of 190 feet with the total height of the dam above lowest foundation being about 247 feet. 115 In the First Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, it was declared that preliminary plans made for the Salt River reservoir contemplated that the construction work would be paid for by the county, which was to assume a very heavy interest-bearing bonded debt. Because of this, the report explained that estimates were made for as small and cheap a project as could be adapted to its object. But once the project became federally funded under the National Reclamation Act, the Service sought to provide works as substantial as considerations of true economy [would] justify.

116 With a professed eye on a true economy, the Service proposed raising the dam so that it would store water to a height of thus making the total height about A structure of this size was approved by the board of consulting engineers, which included A.P. Davis, in July In early the construction contract let to John M. O Rourke and Company specified a dam with a height of above mean low water and from deepest foundation to top of the parapet. After letting the contract, the Reclamation Service decided to extend the dam s height even further in light of the heavy floods along the Salt River during the first half of These floods gave the Service confidence that additional storage capacity could be utilized profitably.

The maximum height of the final dam design is described in the Fourth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service as about almost half again as tall as Davis had originally delineated.119 As such the design process concluded with the massive final structure containing approximately cubic yards of masonry. A number of people have been described as the designer of the Roosevelt Dam, including A.P. Davis, Louis C. Hill, and Fred Teichman.120 In deference to the fact that the overall project design process extended over a period of several years and involved extensive review, this confusion is understandable. However, the primary credit for the design of Roosevelt Dam should go to A.P. Davis, because it was his report that spelled out in basic terms the structure that eventually came to be built.

Davis certainly owed a major debt to the de Sazilly/Delocre/Wegmann tradition of rational dam design, and his work bore a strong 115 Davis, Water Storage, p. 37. 116 Second Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (Washington, Government Printing Office, pp. 117 Documentation of this approval, dated 28 July is given in Salt River Project History pp. NA, RG Entry 10. 118 The rationale behind the enlarging of the design at this late date is provided in Hill to A.P. Davis, 11 July NA, RG Entry 3, Box 119 Fourth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (Washington, Government Printing Office, p. 68. 120 Smith, Magnificent Experiment, p. 80, credits the design of Roosevelt Dam to Davis, Hill and Teichman but provides no source for this information. In The Salt River Project, U.S.

Reclamation Service, The Engineering Record 52 (14 October it is reported that Hill designed the dam under the direction of a consulting board of engineers consisting of Wisner, Sanders and Davis. In Olberg strenuously objected to information being disseminated that credited the dam design to Teichman and stated that Davis was the true designer of the dam; see Olberg to A.P. Davis, 6 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 37) resemblance to the preliminary design prepared by the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company. But it would be inappropriate to credit the design of the Roosevelt Dam to anyone other than A.P. Davis.

Finally, it should be noted that the selection of a curved, gravity masonry dam for the Tonto site fit within a larger pattern of image, perhaps even symbolism, that the Reclamation Service sought to promote. In the letter that first formally recommended construction of Roosevelt Dam by the Service, explicit reference was made to the recent dam building activities of Boston s Metropolitan Water Board and of New York City.121 By comparing the work of the Service to these major municipal endeavors, the stage was set for constructing dams that adhered to similar design principles.

With the Salt River Project being the only initial Reclamation Service project that would supply water to the region of a burgeoning city (i.e., Phoenix), it was perhaps inevitable that a masonry gravity design similar to those used for prominent East Coast dams would be selected for the Tonto site.

As Newell later wrote: We [the Reclamation Service] have been inclined to adhere to the older, more conservative type of solid dam, largely perhaps because of the design not only to have the works substantial but to have them appear so and recognized by the public as in accordance with established practice.122 The design of Roosevelt Dam clearly fits within the approach to dam building described by Newell; it was to be a flagship of the Reclamation Service and needed to exude permanence and stability to all who viewed the structure.123 Perhaps better than anything else, this explains why nothing other than a massive gravity design was ever considered for the Tonto site.

With the design settled, however, the question shifted to whether or not the huge structure could be constructed economically in the remote reaches of the Tonto Basin. Chapter 3: Construction of Roosevelt Dam Construction of the Roosevelt Dam comprised the single most important component of the Reclamation Service s Salt River Project. But the process of laying the sandstone, concrete and mortar that constituted the dam proper took place within a much larger engineering context. Road building, contracting for equipment and supplies, diverting the river from the construction site, conveying building material, erecting and operating electric power facilities, etc., were all necessary activities that supported the Service s effort to build the Roosevelt Dam.

In addition 121 Charles Walcott to E.A. Hitchcock, 7 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box 122 Newell to A.H. Dimock, 16 April NA, RG Entry 3, Box 123 Roosevelt Dam was perceived as the most important of the Reclamation Service s early dams both because of its size and because it was to provide water for a large, agriculturally productive region associated with, at least by western standards, a large city. The Buffalo Bill [HAER and Pathfinder dams that were also being built by the Service in the first decade of the twentieth century were also very large structures and represented major engineering accomplishments. However, they differed from the Roosevelt Dam in that they served remote agricultural areas in northern and eastern Wyoming.

The sites of these latter dams were also incredibly narrow, hard rock canyons that were ideally suited to structural arch designs. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 38) the agency carried on a complex political relationship with landowners and businessmen in the Salt River Valley who would ultimately be called upon to reimburse the federal government for project expenditures. For these reasons, it is not always easy to separate the process of building the Roosevelt Dam from other aspects of the Salt River Project, especially after the Arizona Dam failed in and the government became involved in purchasing and operating much of the valley s water distribution system.

As part of this work, the Reclamation Service took responsibility for replacing the damaged Arizona Dam in with another diversion structure, a 1000'-long concrete structure named the Granite Reef Dam, below the confluence of the Salt and Verde Rivers. Despite the myriad interrelationships that characterized the activities of the Reclamation Service in completing the initial Salt River Project, it is possible to divide the construction of Roosevelt Dam into a few broad topics. Rather than follow a strict chronological account similar to that used by Earl Zarbin in his book, Building the Roosevelt Dam: A History to this chapter will analyze the construction of the dam in a more interpretive manner.

The first section describes early preliminary work in the Tonto Basin, the organization of the Reclamation Service staff responsible for the Salt River Project, the use of contracts by the Reclamation Service, and the letting of the primary dam construction contract to O Rourke and Company. The next section describes the environmental, technical and logistical problems that plagued construction efforts at the dam site, as well as other difficulties that occupied the attention of Reclamation Service personnel. The third section discusses the ethnic composition of the dam s work force and then examines in detail the actual process of erecting the dam from clearing the foundations, quarrying stone, moving material around the dam site and, finally, placing masonry in the monolithic structure.

This section also includes a discussion of the relationship between labor, technology and overall construction costs. The chapter concludes with a description of the technical features associated with the Roosevelt Dam. Part of the initial work undertaken by the Reclamation Service on the Salt River Project involved surveying and building roads to connect the Tonto Basin with the outside world. By early Charles R.

Olberg was plotting possible routes between Roosevelt Dam and Mesa in the Salt River Valley.124 Although a railhead of the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railway existed at the mining community of Globe, about 40 miles southeast of the dam site, the Service rejected the Globe-to-Roosevelt road in favor of a route from the Central Valley for its supply line to the 124 For discussion of the earliest planning for a wagon road to provide access to the Roosevelt Dam site, see Olberg to Newell, 26 May H.A. Storrs to Newell, 27 June and A.P.

Davis to Newell, 26 September all in NA, RG Entry 3, Box Initially it appears that the Reclamation Service seriously contemplated building the road along a right-of-way located north of the Salt River for a distance of over 40 miles before crossing the river a few miles east of the Verde River at a location known as Monroy s Ranch. Because this route passed through the Coffin Ranch about 10 miles below the Tonto Basin, Olberg referred to it as the Coffin Trail. Serious consideration was also given to a route extending south of the dam site and passing into the Queen Creek Watershed (near Frazer s Ranch) and then along the southern edge of the Superstition Mountains while heading west to Mesa.

However, by September Davis considered the town of Goldfield, about 20 miles due east of Mesa and at a similar elevation, to be the best starting place for the road to Roosevelt. Davis hoped to get the Santa Fe Railway to extend its track to Goldfield, and he used this hope in partial justification for advocating the right-of-way that was eventually selected for the government-built road. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 39) construction site.125 Secondary roads such as those connecting Roosevelt with a saw mill in the mountains to the east and with clay deposits nearby in the Tonto Basin were constructed by the end of However, these were of relatively minor importance compared with the main road to Mesa.126 The terrain traversed by the Mesa-Roosevelt road is extremely rugged, particularly in its mountainous eastern section near the dam site. Generally following an ancient American Indian route known locally as the Apache Trail, the road closely parallels the southern edge of the Salt River Canyon for approximately 2 miles below the dam site.

For the next 30 miles or so, it runs about 4 miles south of the canyon, along which section the road climbs Fish Creek Hill along a steep grade.127 Near Mormon Flat (site of the Mormon Flat Dam, built in the the Apache Trail extends south to Goldfield and thence east across the flat valley land into Mesa. Construction of this wagon road began in November near both Goldfield and the dam site. By year s end, however, the Reclamation Service suspended road building activity and sought support from municipalities in the Salt River Valley to help finance construction of a first-class freight road. Soon after, Congress passed special legislation allowing Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa to bond themselves and borrow money to support the road s completion.

With a bonding authority of Phoenix provided the majority of local funds for the road; Mesa and Tempe contributed an additional Although Reclamation Service engineers planned to use the route to deliver supplies to the dam site, merchants recognized that they could also reach markets in east-central Arizona using the new transportation corridor. The commercial interests in the Salt River Valley apparently considered it important to ensure that the main transportation route to the Tonto Basin extended from the Phoenix region rather than from the railhead at Globe. Construction resumed early in under the supervision of Reclamation Service construction engineer Louis C. Hill. By mid-June the road had been extended from Mesa, across the desert to a point 6 miles beyond Goldfield.

From there the route became more tortured and the roadwork 125 In his September letter, Davis made a point of belittling the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railway line that served Globe and came within about 45 miles of the dam site. He referred to the line s service as exceedingly poor, and the right-of-way as being in a wretched condition. With this he dismissed any serious consideration of using Globe rather than Phoenix and its neighboring sites as the preferred starting point for the wagon road to Roosevelt. See A.P. Davis to Newell, 26 September NA, RG Entry 3, Box Also see Third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, p.

The Globe-to-Roosevelt Road was completed in February 126 For discussion of early roads in the Tonto Basin see Second Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, p. 40. 127 James McClintock, a member of Breakenridge s exploratory party, described the group s arduous trek down the Fish Creek Hill section of the trail on horseback: The way [from Phoenix] was not so rough until was reached the great cliff of Fish Creek canyon. There had to be a jumping of the horses and pack mules down a precipitous staircase formation that lies to the left of the road of today, and then along the rocky slope to the top of debris, down which we slid to the little creek to the bottom and to camp under the willows.

This journey from the top to the bottom had consumed half a day and the aneroid (barometer) told us we had lost a thousand feet of elevation. The Apache Trail, undated, typed manuscript by James H. McClintock, located at Arizona State Library, Phoenix, Arizona. Later in Jack Frazer built a ranch house on Pranty Creek at the bottom of the grade. With the development of the Apache Trail road, this became the Fish Creek Inn, a popular stopping place between Mesa and the dam site. Gusse Thomas Smith, The New-Old Apache Trail, The Critic, pp 128 The role of local municipalities in funding construction of the Mesa-Roosevelt Road is discussed in Third Annual Report, p. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 40) far more difficult, slowed both by the rugged terrain and by the murderous summer heat. The Anglo crews refused to work on some sections, where water could be hauled no closer than 4 miles away. For these Hill enlisted Apache Indian laborers.129 Housed in six camps along the route, almost 400 force account laborers worked on the road that spring and summer.130 The men blasted and filled the earthwork to create a rough roadbed with a typical maximum gradient of 6 percent. On the infamous Fish Creek Hill section, the grade approached a backbreaking 10 percent.

In some of the most rugged sections (particularly in the last 2 miles below the dam site), the workers built stone retaining walls to hold the road on the sheer hillsides; in others they blasted extensively through the solid rock buttes and fins.131 (The ruin of a small stone powder house used to store explosives for blasting still exists in Alchesay Canyon about a half mile below the dam site). [Note: see HAER AZ-6-B for photographs of the powder house and other features on the Apache Trail in the vicinity of the dam.] Near the dam site the road traversed Alchesay Canyon, a narrow defile that required construction of a tight switchback curve known as the Horseshoe Curve.

At the apex of the curve, the men built an 18'-span concrete arch bridge to carry the road over the intermittent runoff through the canyon. The bridge little more than a culvert, actually featured simple concrete detailing, crude form work and extended wingwalls on the downstream side to accommodate the tight curve.132 Upon reaching the dam site along the southern side of the Tonto Basin, the Mesa- Roosevelt Road connected with the wagon road that extended southeastward to Globe. A right- of-way for the Globe-Roosevelt Road was built at an elevation above the height of the planned reservoir s high-water mark, prompting its name, the High Line Road.

Called by one source almost as great a monument to [Hill s] engineering ability as the Roosevelt Dam itself, the Mesa-Roosevelt Road was completed in March Consuming upwards of per mile in the Fish Creek Hill and upper sections, the serpentine 62-mile route cost over to build.134 Thousands of tons of materials and equipment began rumbling over the road to the dam site immediately after its completion. In fact, the Apache Trail had already carried over pounds of freight before all sections were entirely complete in 129 Arizona Republican, 12 June Arizona Gazette, 14 June and Arizona Republican, 24 August 130 Work on the Mesa-Roosevelt Road is described in Louis C. Hill, Arizona Salt River Project Preliminary History, 28 April NA, RG Entry 10 Project Histories, Book pp.

131 The heavy cuts necessary in building the road are described in Arizona Salt River Project Preliminary History, NA, RG Entry 10, Book p. 62. These rock cuts at times reached depths of 60' to Some of the rock fill embankments also reached heights of 132 The Alchesay Canyon Bridge is the only original span left from the road s initial construction. It is distinguished as the oldest datable vehicular bridge in Arizona. Clayton B. Fraser, Arizona Bridge Inventory, November 133 Earnest Douglas, A Dream That Has Come True, Arizona, Vol. 1, No. 5, March p. 4. 134 Arizona Salt River Project Preliminary History, NA, RG Entry 10, Book pp. by the Reclamation service had spent an additional repairing and upgrading the road, increasing its total cost to by the time of the dam s completion.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 41) early more than a million and a half pounds of freightage crossed the road before the end of the first year.135 In addition to roads, the Reclamation Service s early surveying work concentrated on laying out the power canal for the project s hydroelectric power plant. Construction of this facility is described in the report for the Roosevelt Power Canal (see HAER AZ-4), and it will not be extensively discussed in this study.136 The power canal and associated powerhouse figured prominently in early construction work, because they were needed to come on-line before any heavy work could begin on the dam itself. In concept, the power canal was simple.

Water diverted from the Salt River about 20 miles upstream from the dam site would be carried in a concrete channel at a gradient slightly less than the bed of the Salt River to develop a head (or vertical drop) of about at the dam site. Water from the canal would enter penstocks connected with turbines in the temporary powerhouse (to be replaced later by the permanent powerhouse), generating electricity to power the construction. Success of the project required that electricity be available early in the construction process to power heavy equipment. In late even before preliminary selection of the Salt River Project was made by the Secretary of the Interior, Olberg began surveying a final right-of-way for the power canal.

Work on the power system pushed ahead through the following year, however, it was apparent that the canal could not be completed on schedule nor within initial budget estimates. In fact, problems with canal construction precipitated the first major crisis for the project and prompted a personnel realignment that significantly influenced the dam s construction. The legislation establishing the Reclamation Service placed the agency under control of the Secretary of the Interior, a position filled at the time by E.A. Hitchcock. Hitchcock involved himself in high level, politically sensitive issues related to the Reclamation Service but otherwise delegated almost all authority for running the new agency to the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Charles Wolcott.

Wolcott in turn designated Frederick H. Newell as Chief Engineer of the Reclamation Service and granted him tremendous leeway in administering the federal reclamation program. Newell is often listed as the director in but, in truth, he did not become Director of the Reclamation Service until March A politically adept bureaucrat, he lacked the practical experience of a construction engineer. For technical expertise, Newell 135 Third Annual Report, p. for documentation of how much traffic passed over the newly completed Mesa- Roosevelt Road, see Hill to A.P.

Davis, 3 September NA, RG Entry 3, Box In this letter Hill states, The amount of freight hauled daily and delivered to the United States, O Rourke [the dam contractor], to the people living in Roosevelt, those up the Salt River Valley, up the Tonto Valley and further on toward Holbrook demands a daily payment to the freighters of at least A low estimated of the value of this freight is a month. 136 See Introcaso, Roosevelt Power Canal, HAER AZ-4. 137 For a concise overview the Reclamation Service s administrative history, see Edward E. Hill (compiler), Records of the Bureau of Reclamation (Washington, The National Archives, pp. This includes the dates of service for all the directors of the Reclamation Service and the Bureau of Reclamation from through the THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 42) largely depended upon his Assistant Chief Engineer Arthur Powell Davis, whom he entrusted with many engineering responsibilities. Davis had been with the Geological Survey for many years when he was appointed Assistant Chief Engineer of the Reclamation Service soon after its establishment. He prepared an extensive report on the Salt River Project, and no one should have been surprised when Newell directed him to take charge of all planning, design and construction involved with the federally funded project. In June Newell wrote to Davis, urging him to concentrate your energies as far as practicable on the pushing forward of the Salt River project to a point when contracts can be let [and to] give the Salt River project your first attention.

138 As part of this assignment Newell directed Davis to develop a consistent plan for future operation that would cover such aspects as land acquisition, action regarding the Arizona Canal and, most importantly, construction of the great dam itself. For whatever reason, Newell was removing himself from any direct involvement in the engineering of the project and transferring such responsibility to Davis. Newell remained interested in project operations, to be sure, but his activities were primarily bureaucratic and political in nature. Within a few months of Newell delegating responsibility for the project to Davis, Louis C.

Hill was appointed to supervise field operations in the Tonto Basin.139 Hill was a former professor of engineering at the Colorado School of Mines and, although he apparently lacked an enormous amount of practical experience, he was selected to administer the project in the field so that Davis could attend to his Reclamation Service duties in other parts of the West and in Washington, The status of Hill within the Reclamation Service hierarchy is best described as a district engineer, with the assigned responsibility to work in a particular drainage basin or portion of a state. 140 Hill would eventually oversee all of the Reclamation Service work in Arizona, including the Yuma Project along the Colorado River.

His initial work, though, concentrated almost exclusively on the Salt River Project. As noted in the Third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, Hill s duties as a district engineer gave him control of the engineers and assistants detailed for work in his particular district. 141 He supervised the work of survey engineers such as Olberg as well as the men charged with overseeing the work of various contractors. The power canal represented the most important component of the project s initial phase. In early construction of the canal began under the supervision of O.T. Reedy (for the upper part) and A.M.

Sprigg (for the lower part).142 The actual work was to be handled by two contractors, Robert Sherer & Company and John Tuttle, who would build the open canal sections and siphon/tunnels respectively. 138 Newell to A.P. Davis, 23 June NA, RG Entry 3, Box 139 In the Second Annual Report, p. 72, Hill is listed as being appointed in charge of the Salt River Project on August 24, 140 Third Annual Report, p. 40. 141 Third Annual Report, p. 40. 142 Third Annual Report, p. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 43) Work proceeded slowly on these two contracts. By November George Wisner and W.A. Sanders, acting as official consulting engineers, reported to Newell that the work on each of these contracts is in an unsatisfactory condition.

Going so far as to say that the concrete lining on parts of some of the tunnels is, without exception, the worst concrete construction we have ever inspected, the two engineers observed that the Salt River project is of such magnitude and spread over such a great distance that no one engineer can properly supervise it. They concluded with a recommendation that Mr. Hill should be furnished with an assistant capable of supervising the concrete, tunnel and canal construction, at the earliest possible date.

143 Although it turned out that the reference to the worst concrete was directed primarily to the material s surface roughness rather than its structural quality, Wisner and Sander s letter had an impact on Newell and Davis.144 By November 22, they had decided to supply Hill with a primary assistant to leave in charge when [he was] at Phoenix or elsewhere. 145 Their selection for this job was Chester W. Smith, an engineer who had spent most of the previous decade working on the Wachusett Dam, Boston s large masonry gravity structure. Davis reported to Hill that Smith had served as engineer in charge of the Wachusett Dam, but this was an exaggeration of the latter s position.

Smith had retained an important long-term relationship with the Wachusett project, though, dating back to the early when he made a sanitary examination of the Nashua River watershed.146 With his background in planning and building a large scale, masonry gravity dam, Smith would appear to be a logical choice to oversee construction of the Roosevelt Dam. But despite his engineering experience, he had spent the bulk of his career in New England and possessed no background working in the remote reaches of the Southwest, scores of miles from the nearest railroad and far removed from any civilization resembling that found on the East Coast.

Although a newcomer to Arizona when he arrived in Smith stayed on with the Roosevelt Dam project until late in and he became closely associated with its construction. With the selection of Smith as Hill s primary field assistant, the Salt River Project was prepared to tackle its most important construction tasks. Work had been underway since early but once Smith arrived, the supervisory hierarchy of the Reclamation Service was in place to oversee the contractors for large-scale construction.147 Contractors played a crucial role in the 143 Wisner and W.A. Sanders to Newell, 15 November NA, RG Entry 3, Box 144 For more on the reaction to Wisner and Sanders criticism of work on the power canal, see A.P. Davis to Newell, 22 November and Hill to A.P. Davis; both in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 145 A.P.

Davis to Hill, 29 November NA, RG Entry 3, Box 146 NA, RG Entry 3, Box In Edward Wegmann, Design and Construction of Dams, p. Thomas Richardson is listed as the resident engineer for the Wachusett Dam. Smith served as a division engineer involved with the laying of the masonry, thus Davis hyperbole in promoting the extent of his background and experience was not particularly grievous or significant. In his article The Construction of the Roosevelt Dam, Engineering Record (December 31, p. Smith described himself as division engineer for the Wachusett Dam, see Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health Upon a Metropolitan Water Supply (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Company, pp.

147 In addition to Chester Smith, there were a few other important Reclamation Service engineers who supervised specific activities on the Salt River Project and were under the authority of Hill. These included Edward THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 44) Reclamation Service s implementation of various aspects of the project, and it is important to understand the Service s philosophy that fostered use of the contract system. In a letter to Hill, Davis admitted frankly that the Department of the Director [is] strongly in favor of doing work by contract wherever this is practicable, even if in advance it may not seem the most economical method.

He explained: Where work is advertised and universal competition invited, no criticism can be made against the award of a contract although the prices may be higher than it was expected the work could cost. If an equal amount were expended in the construction by force account [i.e., the use of labor directly hired and supervised by the Reclamation Service], this would lead to criticism and it is not easy to answer such criticism.148 Although the Service used force account labor for some phases of the project (most notably, construction of the Granite Reef Diversion Dam and the Apache Trail access road), for the most part the agency adhered to the use of construction contracts.

Even with the decision to reject offers by major cement manufacturers and instead build a government-owned cement mill in the Tonto Basin, the Service still used contractors exclusively to erect the mill.149 Beginning in October contracts were let for several projects, including: 1) erection of a building for cement manufacture [let to the firm Wilcox & Rose]; 2) machinery for cement manufacture [Allis-Chalmers]; 3) electric motors for the cement mill [Hendrie & Bolthoff]; 4) generators for the temporary electric power plant [Babcock Electric Manufacturing Company]; 5) turbines for the temporary electric power plant [Stilwell-Bierce and Smith-Vaile Company]; and 6) a telephone line from the Salt River Valley Dam to the head of the power canal [James R.

Thorpe].150 Because of concerns about getting machinery manufacturers to fill orders on a timely basis, many of these early contracts were for essential pieces of mechanical and electrical equipment. Shortly after letting these initial contracts, the Service engaged two contractors to build the power canal.151 Handled by Robert Scherer & Company and John Tuttle, the work of building a 19-mile-long canal with two lengthy sections of tunnel/siphons was a demanding task, especially in the remote wilderness setting. In fact Reclamation Service personnel acknowledged the power Duryee (cement plant), Fred Teichman (hydraulic gates in sluicing tunnel), and O.H. Ensign (electrical plant and equipment). 148 A.P.

Davis to Hill, NA, RG Entry 3, Box This frank explanation of the Reclamation Service s reluctance to embrace force account work even when it appeared that use of contractors would increase expenditures was prompted by consideration of how the Service was to arrange for construction of the Granite Reef Diversion Dam to replace the recently washed out Arizona Dam on the lower Salt River. As it turned out, Hill was eventually authorized to use force account methods to build the diversion dam, but only after the Service was convinced that it represented the only practical means of construction. 149 See file labeled Contract Of Cement All Bids Rejected, NA, RG Entry 3, Box 150 See Second Annual Report, p. 7, and Third Annual Report, pp. for discussion and description of these early contracts.

151 Various bids for the power canal construction that came from a total of fourteen different contractors are listed in the Third Annual Report, pp. Both Robert Scherer & Company and John Tuttle were the low bidders, respectively, for the canal and tunnel/siphon portions of the contract. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 45) canal right-of-way to be about as good as the roughness of the country will admit, a very rough line, but feasible and costly. 152 Interestingly, although the Service had problems with the work of these two contractors, it was soon forced to engage John Tuttle again because of difficulties in obtaining sufficiently low bids for other work. In particular, the Service attempted to find a new contractor to build the sluicing tunnel around the Roosevelt dam site.

The initial purpose of the sluicing tunnel was to provide a means of draining the reservoir so that accumulated silt could be flushed out (or sluiced) before it began to reduce the dam s storage capacity. Measuring 13' x 11' in cross-section, this tunnel extended for a distance of through the southern canyon wall around the dam site.153 During construction, the sluicing tunnel was utilized to divert water around the site (for this reason it was sometimes called the diversion tunnel). And eventually this tunnel was adapted for use in delivering water to turbines in the permanent powerhouse.

Because bids invited for this work [were] too high and because of the absolute necessity of having the work entered on and completed at the earliest day possible, the Service contracted with Tuttle to handle the tunneling work on a quantity basis (i.e., $24 per foot of tunnel, $2 per cubic yard of solid rock excavation and 40 cents per cubic yard of loose material approach excavation).154 Along with the power canal, the most important component of the Roosevelt construction plant was the cement mill. (See Appendix A, Figure 11 for layout of dam site facilities). Planning for this facility began with Davis initial report in which he foresaw that the expense of hauling cement to the Tonto Basin might be too great to allow for economical construction of a large masonry dam.

As a result, Davis tested the adequacy of raw materials in close proximity to the dam site for use in making cement locally. The success of these tests eventually led Reclamation Service engineers to conclude that construction of a cement mill at Roosevelt represented an appropriate solution to the problem of cement supply. They awarded the initial contracts for the cement mill late in But the need to assuage the American cement manufacturing industry, which had protested the construction of a government mill, soon forced the Service to consider buying commercial cement for the Salt River Project. Early in the Reclamation Service received bids to supply at least barrels of cement to the dam site.

Three unit proposals were received from large cement manufacturers with offers substantially below Davis $9 per barrel estimate. All were less than per barrel, with the low bid from the Portland Cement Company of Denver coming in at per barrel.155 Newell acknowledged that there had been great objections raised by the industry to the terms stipulated for the bids, including both the fineness of the cement and the financial conditions which demanded a 50 percent performance bond and a 20 percent holdback of payments until 152 W.A. Sanders to Newell, 14 December NA, RG Entry 3, Box 153 Construction of the sluicing tunnel is described in the Fourth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, p. 74. 154 E.A. Hitchcock to Charles Wolcott, 16 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box 155 Newell to A.P.

Davis, 2 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 46) the contract was completed.156 In fact the Denver firm even offered to reduce its bid to per barrel if the financial holdback conditions were dropped entirely. As it turned out, the Interior Department apparently considered the call for bids largely a formality, because Secretary Hitchcock immediately rejected them without further negotiation. He defended his decision by asserting that the prices covered by the bids are too high and that the best interests of the government will be subserved by such rejections. 157 A day later, on March 5, Hitchcock gave final authorization for the cement mill contracts.158 This decision proved a mixed success for the Reclamation Service.

Although it is impossible to know what would have happened had commercial interests supplied cement for the Salt River Project, we do know that the government s operation of the cement mill was fraught with delay and disappointment. As the Reclamation Service later acknowledged, the inaccessibility of the damsite caused long delay in securing the necessary equipment for economical and rapid work [on the cement mill]. 159 In July an important member of the Wilcox & Rose staff at the site was injured in a railroad accident, and this, along with delayed freight shipments, kept the mill from even being half complete by the beginning of August.

Heavy rains in subsequent weeks further delayed both work and freight shipments, to the point that consulting engineers Wisner and Sanders referred to the status of the cement mill as being in a backward condition in mid-November Despite continued rains, the cement mill was finally completed early in March At that time the Service reported optimistically that everything seems to be in working order. The [limestone] quarry is opened up, clay beds and clay bins ready, and track in shape. Everything is waiting for the oil. 161 This final comment unknowingly foretold problems that would haunt operation of the mill almost continuously. The process of cement manufacturing requires high, steady temperatures, obtainable only using good quality fuel.

No such fuel was naturally available in the Tonto Basin region, and the Reclamation Service had no choice but to freight in fuel oil delivered to Mesa by railroad. In January the Service solicited bids for hauling fuel oil to the Tonto Basin and awarded the contract to Eager and Company of Los Angeles, low bidder at per barrel.162 At the same time that Eager received the fuel oil contract, the Tempe-based firm of Wolf Sachs also received a contract for hauling freight from Mesa to Roosevelt at a rate of per ton. For the rest of the year, in fact for almost the entire dam construction, these firms labored under extreme financial distress as they attempted to fulfill their contracts. By July Eager s inability to deliver enough fuel oil to the cement mill had become painfully apparent.

At that 156 Newell to A.P. Davis, 2 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box 157 E.A. Hitchcock to Charles Wolcott, 4 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box 158 Memo entitled Cement Salt River Project (no author), 3 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box This memo was written to justify why the Service had experienced so many delays in building the cement mill. 159 Ibid. 160 Wisner and W.A. Sanders to Newell, 3 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box 161 Cement Salt River Project, NA, RG Entry 3, Box 162 Charles Wolcott to E.A. Hitchcock, 23 January NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 47) time Hill reported to Newell that the initial difficulties arose because the tanks [that Eager] ordered were too large to be handled as single units, and the wagons were not strong enough to handle them.

Amazingly, delays in getting new, smaller tanks suitable for hauling over the Mesa-Roosevelt Road were further exacerbated by a telegraph snafu in which the world not was dropped out of the intended message: large tanks have not proved to be satisfactory. 163 In August delays in fuel oil delivery were still impeding cement mill operations, and Hill again wrote to Newell, detailing Eager s inability to supply any more than 30 barrels per day.

Referring to equipment deficiencies, poor road conditions and the great difficulty in getting good drivers, Hill urged that no attempt be made to cancel Eager s contract for a variety of reasons, perhaps the most compelling being that this contract could not be re-let for twenty-five percent more money and no new company [or] the United States [under force account] could possibly get a better equipment [sic] ready earlier than October first. Hill further stated, It is quite probable that Wolf Sachs will go broke over his contract. 164 Fuel oil eventually did reach Roosevelt to operate the cement mill, if only at partial capacity. The fuel supply problem plagued the project for years, however.

For example, in July the Reclamation Service complained directly to the Southern Pacific Railroad that the Eager Company could not fulfill its contract because insufficient railroad tank cars were available to deliver oil to Mesa.165 Although construction of a government-owned cement mill in the Tonto Basin freed the Reclamation Service from a reliance on private cement manufacturers, it did not free the agency from the railroad industry. As the experience at Roosevelt demonstrated, the Service found it politically advantageous to eschew force account work in favor of letting contracts to low bidders. This reliance on low bids often resulted in hiring contractors who operated on the brink of bankruptcy as they struggled to meet the requirements of their contract.

Although the Service could technically cancel a contract that fell into arrears, the agency rarely did this, because it would then need to start all over again with either a new, more expensive contractor or with force account labor. In addition, contract cancellations could call public attention to problems afflicting the project and result in bad publicity. Thus, although the Service and its contractors often quarreled about contract performance, the government maintained a substantial financial interest in keeping contract and contractor alive, despite delays.

In Reclamation Service engineers prepared final contract drawings and specifications for the dam construction and distributed them to potential bidders throughout the United States.166 (See Appendix B for reproductions of construction drawings.) These specifications closely followed those outlined in Davis report. Beyond discussing technical matters such as the quality of concrete and masonry work, size of cofferdams and the wooden diversion flume, and 163 Hill to Newell, 5 July NA, RG Entry 3, Box 164 Hill to Newell, 8 August NA, RG Entry 3, Box 165 A.P. Davis to James Kruttsschnitt, 17 July NA, RG Entry 3, Box Kruttsschnitt was a vice president for the Santa Fe Railway who presumably retained some control over the railway s shipping policy. 166 Third Annual Report, pp.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 48) varieties of excavation work (e.g., loose rock, solid rock, large boulders), the specifications set forth performance requirements such as commencing work at the site within thirty days after contractor s receipt of the notice to proceed. Within ninety days the contractor was to have on site as large a force as can be economically employed, and a plant adequate the prosecute the work in the most rapid and efficient manner. Intent on completing the project as quickly as possible, the Service stipulated that the successful contractor employ three daily shifts of eight hours each on masonry construction and provide an ample number of electric lights to efficiently illuminate all work in progress at night.

Electrical power for the lights and contractors equipment would be supplied by the government s power canal system.167 The contract set forth the method of payment to the contractor (i.e. on a monthly basis according to work completed, with a 20 percent holdback payable upon conclusion of the contract), a penalty of for each day the contractor worked beyond the contract deadline, and the authority of the government to terminate the contract if terms were not met successfully.168 Because of concern about the effect of temperature stresses on the relatively thin masonry section of the upper dam, contractors were to state in their proposals the time in which they proposed to complete the dam to a height above the datum (i.e., low water mark).

Work above the level was to proceed at the discretion of the Reclamation Service during the extremely hot summer months. However, it was expected that work during the remaining months would proceed at a rate per month of not less than two-thirds of that achieved during the construction of the lower part of the dam. One of the most important aspects of the Reclamation Service s solicitation reflected the agency s desire to complete the project as rapidly as possible. The Service advised that time is an element in the construction of this work, and will be considered in the examination and comparison of bids and the award of the contract. Bidders were put on notice to anticipate quick completion times in order to receive favorable consideration for the contract.

When specifications for the dam were being disseminated in late the Service was well aware of problems encountered by the contractors on the power canal. Despite an appreciation of the difficulties involved in transporting men and materials to the Tonto Basin, Reclamation Service engineers could not alert prospective bidders for the dam construction about difficulties of local climate and topography. Instead, the economic interest of the Reclamation Service demanded that contractors be encouraged to develop proposals based on accelerated schedules.

In February proposals for the dam s construction were received in Phoenix from contractors across the country.169 Interestingly, not one of the nineteen respondents was based in Arizona, but firms such as the Mosier DeGraff Contracting Company of Buffalo, New York; 167 Third Annual Report, p. Electrical power was to be supplied to the contractor by the Reclamation Service at a rate of 0.5 cents per horsepower per hour for the first 400 horsepower and 1 cent per horsepower per hour for any power in excess of 400 horsepower. 168 Third Annual Report, p. The 20 percent holdback was only to continue for the first half of the contract. Once the contract was 50 percent complete, no further holdback was to be retained from the monthly payments. 169 Third Annual Report, p.

Bid opening was original scheduled to be held in Phoenix on February 8, However, bureaucratic problems delayed the opening until later in the month. See NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 49) MacArthur Brothers Company of Chicago; Winters Parsons & Boomer of Spokane, Washington; and Deeks and Deeks of St. Paul, Minnesota, were attracted to the work from thousands of miles away.170 Formal bids were segregated into a series of categories that included: 1) unit costs for foundation excavation; 2) unit costs for placing masonry in the dam and associated works; and 3) total cost for the concrete bridges and piers. In addition, each of the bidders submitted a schedule to complete the structure to the level.

Based upon this rather simple data, the Reclamation Service selected a contractor. John M. O Rourke and Company of Galveston, Texas, submitted the lowest bid at a price of with an anticipated completion time of two years. The two next lowest bids were Broderick & Ward of St. Louis at (17 months) and Geddes & Seerie Stone Company of Denver at (33 months). The remainder of the proposals ranged from to million, with most under million; the proposed time ranged from twenty-three months to three years, with the average about thirty months. Only Broderick & Ward offered to complete the contract in substantially less time than two years.

In evaluating the proposals, the Reclamation Service assessed: 1) the overall construction price; 2) the proposed time of completion; and 3) the professional competence of the bidders to complete the project successfully. Given public concerns regarding the expenditure of government funds, it would have been difficult for the Reclamation Service not to accept one of the lowest bids. Thus, they were compelled to accept one of the three bids under million. Of these, the Geddes & Seerie Stone offer was for thirty-three months, a time frame much longer than the other two. Consequently the decision focused largely on whether O Rourke s low bid at twenty-four months was more desirable than Broderick & Ward s slightly higher bid at seventeen months.

The Reclamation Service s dilemma was eased by a slight irregularity in the Broderick & Ward offer to excavate cubic yards of loose material (i.e., sand, gravel, and small boulders) at 96 cents per cubic yard a price almost half that of the other bidders. Service engineers were skeptical of this offer and in contract review documents officially referred to it as informal. Because of this irregularity, the Reclamation Service could more readily discount the acceptability of the Broderick & Ward bid.171 Faced with the prospect of accepting O Rourke s offer, the leadership of the Interior Department understood that selecting the low bid would forestall any immediate criticism that they were needlessly wasting government funds.

The only significant question that remained was whether O Rourke could reasonably be expected to complete the project. The firm had recently completed construction of the Galveston Seawall, a 3.5-mile-long concrete barrier built to protect the coastline of Galveston, Texas, from erosion.172 This seawall consisted of a massive concrete barrier capable of withstanding heavy storms and the tidal action of the Gulf of Mexico. 170 Fourth Annual Report, pp. This report includes a breakdown of all submitted bids. It also includes data on three informal bids received by the Service that presumably did not adhere to all the formal bidding requirements in terms of posting a performance bond. For more on the bidding process see files in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 171 Fourth Annual Report, p. 69.

172 Concrete Mixing and Handling Machines for the Galveston Seawall, Engineering News 49 (15 January p. 55. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 50) O Rourke s firm had been free from criticism about the quality of the seawall, thus there was little basis for rejecting the proposal of the Texas-based contractor. On April 8, Secretary of Interior E.A. Hitchcock awarded the dam construction contract to John M. O Rourke and Company.173 There was no official indication that anyone in the Reclamation Service believed that O Rourke could not fulfill the contract.

But with the benefit of hindsight, it is difficult to understand how anyone cognizant of conditions in the Tonto Basin could have reasonably expected the bulk of the dam s masonry construction work to be completed by April Boston s Wachusett Dam, for example, required roughly 20 percent less than the Roosevelt Dam cubic yards for Wachusett, cubic yards for Roosevelt), and it took about four years to place the masonry.

Furthermore, the Wachusett Dam benefitted from a railroad line extending directly to the construction site and a location in the heart of eastern Massachusetts, with an abundance of laborers within a few score miles.174 It now seems incredible that both O Rourke and the Reclamation Service believed that the level of the Roosevelt Dam could be reached within two years of the contract signing. O Rourke s success in building the seawall at Galveston actually provided him with little experience that would be directly relevant to Roosevelt Dam. Built entirely of concrete, the seawall did not involve any quarrying or laying of structural stone masonry. Access to the high structure was provided by a railroad line that ran along its length.

Cement and stone aggregate were delivered by rail to a movable concrete mixing and handling machine used to construct the seawall.175 This operation bore little resemblance to the construction plant required to build a large masonry dam in Arizona. But in the immediate euphoria of having signed a contract, neither O Rourke nor the Reclamation Service were interested in potential problems. During the late spring, summer and early fall of O Rourke s crew labored to assemble the construction plant at Roosevelt.

Accompanied by his business partner, George Steinmetz, John O Rourke visited the site in mid-April to direct the initial preparations, and during the next few months the firm concentrated on establishing a suitable camp along the north side of the canyon, immediately upstream from the dam site.176 Early work included building a reservoir and distribution system for domestic water supply and laying out access roads and trails. Although they were delayed until the end of the year in erecting the two 1200'-long Lidgerwood cableways that would carry materials across the Salt River Canyon and around the dam site, the crew succeeded in building the cableways large fixed anchorages. In terms of work on the dam itself, 173 Fourth Annual Report, p. 72.

174 The time and techniques required to build the Wachusett Dam are provided in Wegmann, Design and Construction of Dams, pp. 175 Illustrations and descriptions of the equipment used by O Rourke in building the seawall are given in Concrete Mixing and Handling Machines for the Galveston Seawall, Engineering News 49 (15 January p. 55. 176 See Earl A. Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to (Phoenix: Salt River Project, p. for reference to O Rourke s and Steinmetz s early visit to the site in the Arizona Republican, 25 April THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 51) O Rourke s men were confined to stripping overburden from the quarry sites and driving piles for the upper cofferdam.177 By the end of all the major contracts for Roosevelt Dam had been let, and the project ostensibly moved from planning to the construction phase. On the surface, everything appeared to be in good shape. The Reclamation Service promoted its success in developing the Salt River Project quickly along with its other endeavors in the West.178 Behind the fa ade of positive publicity, however, the Service faced serious economic problems in Arizona.

Newell admonished Hill in a letter at the end of saying: I am somewhat appalled at the enormous expenditures which have been made in Arizona, and it will be necessary for us at an early date to compare these expenditures in detail with the preliminary estimate and state why the expenditures have been so large. This, however, will not help us out of the shortage of funds.179 The major reason that costs had grossly exceeded preliminary estimates related to problems with the power canal.180 But much to the chagrin of Newell and his subordinates, the project s problems did not disappear once the power canal s system came on-line. In fact, the arrival of O Rourke and his crew at Roosevelt only exacerbated difficulties at the site.

O Rourke s work on the Roosevelt Dam was continually plagued by delays, the number and magnitude of which is so significant that they should be discussed before describing the construction process. This hardly represents a circumstance that either O Rourke or the Reclamation Service would have hoped for, but it reflects reality. Thus, this section begins with a chronological discussion of the delays that affected construction of the Roosevelt Dam. O Rourke and his crew gradually assembled the construction plant during By autumn, they were well along on building both the upstream cofferdam and the timber flume designed to carry floods through the dam site. All of this was washed away late in November by a huge flood that swept through the Salt River Canyon.

With a flow of approximately cubic feet per second, the deluge exceeded the maximum capacity of the flume by more than three times, 177 Fourth Annual Report, p. 72. 178 The best evidence of boosterism is in the early annual reports of the Reclamation Service and in articles aimed at popular audiences. The latter includes: Blanchard, Winning the West: An Account of the Marvelous Progress of Our Reclamation Service in Reclaiming the Desert, National Geographic Magazine 17 (February pp. 82- 99; Blanchard, National Reclamation of Arid Lands, American Geographic Society 21 (April pp. Newell, The Reclamation Service, Popular Science Monthly 66 (December pp.

and Newell, Reclamation, the Work of the Government in Providing Irrigation for Arid and Hitherto Useless Lands in the West, Outlook 83 (25 August pp. Both Newell and Blanchard were employees of the Reclamation Service when these promotional articles were published. 179 Newell to Hill, 26 December NA, RG Entry 3, Box 180 In Davis report, Water Storage on Salt River Arizona, pp. the costs of the diversion dam and power canal were initially estimated at he estimated the entire power system to cost only In the Reclamation Service s Sixth Annual Report (published in the power canal alone was reported to have cost the diversion dam had cost and the hydroelectric power plant had cost Thus, Davis original estimate had been exceeded by well over 600 percent. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 52) carrying away all of the company s equipment and supplies from the canyon floor.181 In the aftermath of this debacle, O Rourke and the Reclamation Service agreed that any effort to reconstruct the flume would probably prove futile; they decided instead to use the previously built sluicing tunnel as the exclusive means of diverting water around the damsite. Construction on the permanent hydraulic gates that would regulate the flow of water through the sluicing tunnel was substantially behind schedule, however, precluding any immediate action in adapting the tunnel for diversion purposes. In the meantime, O Rourke began rebuilding the cofferdam in March but high water again washed out many of the piles driven by the company.

Floods also disrupted work on the cofferdam in April; the structure was essentially complete by the end of May. By that time, the Reclamation Service had agreed to postpone completion of the hydraulic gates for the sluicing tunnel indefinitely so that water could be diverted through it as soon as O Rourke could excavate the tunnel entrance to allow the Service to erect a concrete debris screen. Water was successfully diverted into the sluicing tunnel beginning on June 13. O Rourke was then able to work on the project relatively unimpeded until the end of the year. The floods of late and early dealt a catastrophic blow to O Rourke s plan to build the dam to the level by April Even if the Salt River had not flooded, however, he would have been hard pressed to make progress.

This was primarily because delays afflicting the power canal and temporary powerhouse prevented any substantial amount of electrical generation before April O Rourke s contract called for the government to supply him with electricity to power the construction equipment, and he could not have been expected to proceed very far without this energy source. In truth, the pile drivers used in building the cofferdam were steam powered and did not require electricity, so O Rourke could not reasonably claim that lack of electric power would have prevented him from making any construction progress.182 On June 13, water began to flow through the sluicing tunnel, and work on clearing the foundation soon proceeded in earnest.

O Rourke s crew worked all through the summer but did not make enormous progress. In fact, Chester Smith characterized their effort as quite dilatory and in accordance with their own ideas on the subject and their ability. They did not do as much work as they should have. 183 By the end of the summer parts of the foundation were sufficiently cleared to allow placement of the first stone in the dam. This occurred on September 20, Over the next ten weeks the dam s upstream face slowly began to rise. Progress came fitfully, though. At the beginning of December another massive flood struck the dam site, destroying the part of the cofferdam and damaging construction equipment.

O Rourke attempted to repair the damage, but his efforts were soon wiped out by yet another flood at the end of the month. 181 O Rourke to E.A. Hitchcock, 14 March and Smith to Hill, 18 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box 182 Ibid. 183 For comments on O Rourke s slow progress during the summer of see Smith to Hill, 18 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box Written notice of the first stone laid in the Roosevelt Dam was provided to the Reclamation Service leadership in Hill to A.P. Davis, 21 September NA, RG Entry 3, Box The stone was laid at 5 o clock in the afternoon on September 20. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 53) Following this second heavy flood, work on the dam was shut down for more than six months; no more masonry was laid until mid-June O Rourke passed the deadline to reach the level in April having accomplished only minimal work. In fact, no part of the dam exceeded 10' in height, and most of the foundation area remained uncovered by masonry. About cubic feet of masonry had been laid: less than 5 percent of the total required for the entire structure.185 As the two-year milepost approached, the Reclamation Service was faced with either dismissing O Rourke or granting him a contract extension.

Given the extraordinary floods that had wreaked havoc on the dam site, an extension was easily justified.186 In addition, Service engineers could not have relished the thought of searching for a new contractor to replace O Rourke on a project burdened with so many difficulties. Thus, the Reclamation Service extended the deadline for an additional thirteen months, without an increase in funds.187 Although falling river levels in the spring of allowed O Rourke to start rebuilding the cofferdam, in mid-May operations were hampered by a ten-day shutdown of the powerhouse, which impeded the transportation of men and materials around the site.188 On June 18, crews once again began to place masonry on the dam.

However, on June 28 one of the two Lidgerwood cableways used to deliver masonry from the quarries to the dam site was severely damaged by fire. The cableway was unusable for almost two months, reducing the crew s ability to place masonry on the structure. Between July 25 and September 15, flooding caused O Rourke to suspend work for over thirty days; between October 18 and November 5, floods further delayed work for eighteen days. Fortunately for O Rourke and the Reclamation Service, the month of December did not bring massive flooding to the Tonto Basin as it had the two previous years.

But in its place the contractor suffered delays caused by a breakdown of the sand crushing plant (January a shutdown of the power plant (January a minor flood (three days lost in early February), and a broken turbine in the powerhouse that suspended electrical power generation for twelve days in mid-April. In January the Service started the long delayed plan to complete work on the hydraulic gates that would control flow through the sluicing tunnel. This required closing the tunnel entrance. Consequently, all water in the Salt River was now required to flow over the dam. To minimize the effect on construction work, the dam s north section had been left at a much lower level (about 10' above datum) to concentrate overflow in one location.

By this time the south end had reached a height of about 25' above datum, the elevation at which it was necessary to place the steel penstock that would pass through the dam and connect with the permanent powerhouse on the downstream side. The sections of the penstock needed to be riveted together directly on 184 Sixth Annual Report, p. 65. 185 Sixth Annual Report, p. 64. 186 Smith to Hill, 18 March NA, RG Entry 3, Box 187 Ibid. 188 Smith to Newell, 17 April NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 54) top of the partially completed dam before being lifted into place.

Smith acknowledged that the space taken up by the overflow section at the northern end and the area required by the penstock assembly at the southern end severely restricted the area where masonry could be laid.189 O Rourke s progress during the spring of was hampered both by the breaking of the turbine shaft in the temporary powerhouse and by the need to fabricate the powerhouse s new penstock. These did not impede construction for more than a few weeks, however, and by June work was again underway. At the beginning of the month, work on the sluicing tunnel s hydraulic gates had progressed to a point where the tunnel could carry water once again. At the end of June O Rourke had placed almost cubic yards of masonry, representing 42 percent of the completed structure.

The height at the south end reached a maximum of 75' while the north end was about 22' above low water datum.190 By this time the Reclamation Service had given O Rourke another extension on his contract, and it does not appear that the leadership of the Interior Department ever again seriously considered canceling the contract for failure to meet deadlines.191 During the next fiscal year (July 1908-June work on the structure accelerated. By this time the flooding had been mitigated by the ever-increasing height of the structure, the use of the sluicing tunnel for diverting water, and the tactic of leaving a 40'-wide gap at the north end of the dam to concentrate any overflow. By the end of June O Rourke had placed more than cubic yards of masonry on the structure.

With this, the dam reached a height of at the south end and at the north. O Rourke s crew had completed almost 75 percent of the dam, by volume.192 During the twelve months preceding July the contractor experienced relatively little delay. Aside from a cement shortage in November and a power shutdown in January resulting from a need to connect the new penstock with the permanent powerhouse, O Rourke suffered no setbacks comparable to those in previous years. This streak of good luck come to an end in May though, when the gates of the sluicing tunnel were closed, and Reclamation Service engineers examined the condition of the tunnel.

This inspection revealed serious erosion of the concrete floor as well as damage to the gates themselves, resulting from continuous flow of water through the tunnel under a head (or pressure) of over 50' for over ten months. Fearing further erosion, the Service closed the tunnel for permanent repairs that included placement of heavy steel plates around those portions of the passageway near the gates.193 Repair work on the sluicing tunnel extended from May until early November. During this time O Rourke was prevented from placing any masonry in the gap on the dam s north side because of water overflow. Instead, the Service directed him to drill another tunnel through the 189 Ibid. 190 Third Annual Report, p. 51. 191 Hill to Newell, 24 April NA, RG Entry 3, Box 192 Eighth Annual Report, p.

44. 193 Ninth Annual Report, pp. tunnel repairs are also described in Chester W. Smith, The Construction of the Roosevelt Dam, Engineering Record 62 (31 December p. also see A.P. Davis to Hill, 25 May NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 55) north foundation of the dam at an elevation of about above datum. Once masonry work recommenced in November, three large cast-iron pipes were built into the dam and connected to this new tunnel. Apparently, construction of this additional outlet was prompted by concern over the damage to the original sluiceway and the desire to provide an alternate means of releasing water from the reservoir.194 With the repairs completed, water was again diverted through the original sluicing tunnel, and flow over the dam s north gap ceased.

This allowed masonry work to resume once again. Within a few weeks, the gap was filled so that the entire dam now extended above the level.195 Finally, more than two-and-a-half years behind schedule, O Rourke had completed the most important phase of the construction. Concerns about laying masonry in the upper part of the dam during periods of hot weather were largely irrelevant during the winter of As spring approached, these concerns assumed greater significance.

Originally, the Service had contemplated embedding steel into the upper level of masonry as a means of absorbing temperature stresses.196 By April however, Chester Smith had devised a system of placing small water pipes across the downstream face that allowed the surface of the dam to be cooled by evaporation.197 This cooling method proved effective and, in fact, a similar system is still used today to keep the downstream face of the structure wet.

By the end of June the Reclamation Service declared the dam to be practically complete except for a small amount of work remaining to be done on the parapet walls, the spillways and the reinforced bridge over the spillways.198 By this time a substantial amount of water was being impounded behind the dam, and, although it would not be formally dedicated until March O Rourke s work was largely finished. In assessing the various factors that impeded completion of the Roosevelt Dam, it is obvious that natural events played a major role in delaying the construction process. Similarly, equipment breakdowns and logistical problems in delivering supplies also contributed to construction difficulties.

But it is not appropriate to attribute all the project s woes to either climatic or physical causes. Bureaucratic and personal factors also exacerbated project difficulties. First, construction of the Roosevelt Dam was but one part of a huge political undertaking to develop a federally sponsored project in the Salt River Valley. The bureaucratic problems inherent in managing any large-scale federal program were clearly manifest in the Salt River Project. Here the problems were perhaps even more intense because of the enormous amount of privately held land in the project area. Political maneuvering occupied an enormous amount of 194 Ninth Annual Report, p. 63. 195 Salt River Project, Project History, p. NA, RG Entry 10. 196 Third Annual Report, p.

60; the option of having iron or steel placed in the upper dam is noted explicitly in Section 60. 197 See Smith to O.H. Ensign, April 12, NA, RG Entry 3, Box This letter describes the system developed by Smith to cool the downstream side by evaporating water. No mention of using steel reinforcement in the top of the dam appears after the initial design stage of the project. Steel is never reported as a component of construction costs during the latter stages of the erection process. 198 Ninth Annual Report, p. 64. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 56) the energy expended by the Reclamation Service leadership, and this resulted in little benefit in terms of resolving engineering or technical issues.

The biggest event to distract the Reclamation Service s attention from work going on in the Tonto Basin occurred early in when floods washed away much of the Arizona Dam in the lower Salt River Valley. The Arizona Dam played a critical role in diverting large quantities of water from the Salt River for use in irrigating the valley s farmland. With the dam largely destroyed and the private company that owned it practically bankrupt, the Service faced the possibility of supplying water from the Roosevelt Dam reservoir to a community which had little means of using it. Roosevelt Dam could serve the valley s farmers only if adequate means existed to divert water into the various irrigation canals.

With operation of these irrigation systems dependent upon the Arizona Dam, enough irrigable land was imperiled by the structure s failure to threaten the financial viability of the overall Reclamation Service project. To prevent a valley-wide agricultural collapse, the Service purchased the Arizona Water Company, owner of the wrecked Arizona Dam and other canal interests, early in Soon Hill and much of his Phoenix-based staff were preoccupied with efforts to build the Granite Reef Diversion Dam (a concrete structure designed to supersede the old timber crib Arizona Dam) and to meld the federally-owned water distribution network into an irrigation system developed by private capital.

When the Service purchased the Arizona Water Company, Hill practically abandoned the Tonto Basin in favor of the agency s office in Phoenix. Left in charge of the work at Roosevelt, second- in-charge Chester Smith did not develop a very smooth working relationship with O Rourke or his crew.200 These difficulties resulted from a variety of factors, some of which were rooted in the personalities of the various men and some based on real problems associated with the work. Smith s previous experience at the Wachusett Dam had done little to prepare him for conditions at Roosevelt, with the attendant labor, funding and logistical problems.

Smith had never worked in the West before, but he apparently saw little reason to alter his construction standards or his view of what constituted acceptable practice. For O Rourke, the Roosevelt Dam contract presented an almost insurmountable problem of maintaining a sufficient labor force at wages that would not break the company. Operating under these constraints made it difficult for the firm to reap a profit; O Rourke chafed under Smith s close supervision.201 Neither party wished to erect a shoddy or unsafe structure, but O Rourke clearly had more interest in accepting work that perhaps did not meet the most exacting standards.

Smith complained often about the contractor s inefficient construction plant and the seemingly disorganized work force.202 The former condition reflected O Rourke s inexperience with 199 For more on negotiations related to the government s purchase of the Arizona Water Company, see Karen Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, pp. 200 Ibid., pp. Karen Smith draws several examples of Chester Smith s difficulty in working with O Rourke s crew from diaries kept by Smith in 201 For more on the relationship between Smith and O Rourke, see Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, pp. Considerable data is drawn from diaries kept by Chester Smith during the dam s early construction. 202 Ibid., p. 87. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 57) handling masonry, and the latter was aggravated by his inability to pay wages that would adequately compensate the skilled work force for living in the harsh environment of the Tonto Basin. He initially hoped to attract workers to Roosevelt, but it appears that the greatest number of men actually working on the dam at any one time was only about O Rourke attempted to alleviate some of his labor shortage problems by having his crews work ten-hour days rather than the eight-hour day stipulated in his contract. Ever mindful of the public relations problems that such a change could engender, the Reclamation Service refused to approve the ten- hour days.204 In the end, the Service came to view the efforts of O Rourke with a fairly benign, if not outright complimentary, attitude.

As Davis wrote a few weeks before construction was finished: O Rourke & Company are about completing the Roosevelt Dam. They have done an excellent job and have to date given very little trouble; although rather slow, they have acquired a lot of useful experience, and may be considered [as] satisfactory as the average large connecting firm.205 The general impression of Smith s contribution to the project was also gracious, at least as reflected in correspondence that Davis received from his close friend and professional colleague, John R. Freeman. Based in New England, Freeman was a major figure in the world of hydraulic engineering who kept abreast of work throughout the United States.

In line with this, Freeman informed Davis that he had been led to believe that: Smith, through no fault of his own, got a rather raw deal and believed that others got considerable credit to which Smith was entitled. And after this, Smith lost his push.206 In reading these assessments of O Rourke and Smith, it is easy to surmise that the project experienced problems related to the speed of execution and to personnel interaction. Even under the best of circumstances, the Roosevelt Dam would have been difficult to build in a timely, cost efficient manner. Unfortunately, these difficulties were heightened by O Rourke s and Smith s inability to work well with one another.

Work on Roosevelt Dam necessitated construction of a large-scale, temporary town in the Tonto Basin to support the hundreds of laborers, engineers and ancillary support staff responsible for the project s construction. Before describing the actual building process for the dam, it is worth discussing the physical layout of the construction community and describing the cultural background of those men responsible for erecting the structure.207 203 See the Arizona Republican, 22 April The best data on labor used to construct the Roosevelt Dam is provided in Chester W. Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, pp. 204 See Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, p. 87. 205 A.P. Davis to Cushman, 3 January NA, RG Entry 3, Box 206 Freeman to A.P.

Davis, January 3, NA, RG Entry 3, Box In this letter, Freeman describes a recent visit to his office by O Rourke as part of an effort by the contractor to learn about future projects. 207 For readers interested in these subjects, detailed archeological data on the Roosevelt Dam construction camps is available in: 1) Jeffrey L. Hartman and Jeanette A. McKenna, O Rourke s Camp: Social Archology of an Early THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 58) The Roosevelt camp was divided roughly into three areas.

[See Appendix A, Figure On the north side of the canyon, almost upstream from the dam proper, lay O Rourke s Camp, an assemblage of tents, wooden barracks and a large, two-story frame administration building that housed the supervisors, workers and some family members of the project s prime contractor. Built to house a contingent of over 300 people, the quarters at O Rourke s Camp were semi- permanent in nature, with some of the facilities resting on earthen foundations and some on concrete slabs. Although the use of tents for long-term shelter might appear to represent rather crude conditions in the camp, the hot, arid climate at the site did not call for the widespread construction of insulated frame structures such as might be necessary in more temperate locations.

A long, single-story frame building served as the kitchen and commissary, and the two-story frame structure on a promontory at the southern edge of the camp was used as a residence by O Rourke and as the headquarters for his company. Because the latter structure was later adapted for use as a hotel, this promontory has come to be known as Hotel Point.208 The remainder of the camp s tents, store schoolhouse and other facilities were scattered across an area of several acres that lay upon a sloping ridge west of Hotel Point. Workers living at O Rourke s Camp were able to walk to the dam site along a road that extended directly westward down the Salt River Canyon.

Now maintained as part of Arizona State Highway this road connected with the Apache Trail after passing over the dam s crest and spillway bridges.209 O Rourke s crew could also cross over the Salt River to the south side of the Tonto Basin on a temporary wire cable suspension bridge. The bridge was built with a deck not much above the normal height of the river. Consequently, when the reservoir began to rise behind the dam near the end of it became necessary to replace the suspension bridge with a ferry designed to carry people, horses, wagons and equipment.

Near the dam on the canyon s south side, the Reclamation Service erected the cement mill; on a hillside little more than a half mile east of the dam the Service maintained its on-site headquarters and residential area for staff and supervisors. Called Government Hill, this complex of buildings and structures was situated high enough above the basin floor to avoid inundation by the reservoir, when full. Most of the structures at Government Hill were later razed, but the one- story main Administration Building has survived as a recreational hall used by Salt River Project personnel.

Twentieth Century Construction Town, published by Arizona State University in as part of a project funded by the Arizona Department of Transportation; and 2) a forthcoming report by Dames and Moore entitled Historical Archeological Investigations at Dam Construction Camps in Central Arizona, prepared for the Bureau of Reclamation in the late as part of the agency s mitigation for the enlargement of the dam. 208 A copy of a ca. advertisement for this hotel, called the Roosevelt Lodge, appears in Hartman and McKenna, O Rourke s Camp, p. 209 With the present enlargement of Roosevelt Dam, State Highway 188 will no longer be carried along the top of the dam.

A separate steel arch bridge for the road is currently under construction over the reservoir just upstream from the dam by the Arizona Department of Transportation. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 59) As construction of the dam began, a small commercial district known as Roosevelt sprang up to serve the large number of workers at the site. Located on the south side of the basin below Government Hill, the Roosevelt townsite housed a post office and several shops before it was flooded by the rising reservoir early in At that time, several of the settlement s merchants relocated their businesses into an area southeast of Government Hill that came to be known, quite appropriately, as Newtown.

Because both towns were located on government land, the Reclamation Service could prohibit saloons and liquor sales. The Roosevelt site now sits beneath Roosevelt Lake. Though not inundated, the Newtown townsite, like O Rourke s Camp on the other side of the basin, was dismantled after completion of the dam.210 Men working on the construction project lived at O Rourke s Camp, Government Hill or in Roosevelt/Newtown. O Rourke s crews lived in his camp; engineers and administrative staff of the Reclamation Service, as well as the operating crews for government-owned facilities such as the cement mill, were usually housed on Government Hill. The teamsters, general laborers and others involved peripherally with the project and commercial operations resided in the two towns.

Recent archaeological research and analysis of substantial data by the consulting firm of Dames and Moore has provided a good idea of racial and ethnic characteristics of the people involved in the dam s construction.211 The total population at the dam site during peak periods of construction is not known with certainty, but the number probably exceeded a thousand. As construction was winding down in the combined population of O Rourke s Camp, Government Hill and Newtown was 664 people, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.

(This divided up as 168 and 306 people, respectively.) Although the relatively late date of the census may skew the results of the data somewhat, the composition of the population provides a general impression of workers ethnic backgrounds that is reflective of more long- term employment patterns. A popular notion about Roosevelt Dam s construction is that Italian stonemasons brought en masse to the site comprised the bulk of O Rourke s work force.212 A significant number of Italians and central Europeans did indeed work for O Rourke in but they only accounted for 23 percent of the contractor s work force.213 The largest percentage of the crew were white Americans (42 percent), supplemented by a significant group of black Americans (11 percent).

Spanish emigrants comprised 15 percent of the work force, while other groups such as Chinese (2 percent), Mexican (3 percent) and a smattering of others rounded out the crew. 210 See Dames and Moore, Second Annual Report: Dam Construction Camps, pp. for discussion of archeological investigations in the Government Hill and Newtown areas. 211 Data from the Thirteenth U.S. Census containing information on the Manuscript Population Schedule of Gila County, Arizona is analyzed in detail in Dames and Moore, Second Annual Report: Dan Construction Camps, pp. Statistical information related to the Census that appears in this HAER report is derived from the Dames and Moore research.

212 For contemporary descriptions of Italian workers coming to Roosevelt, see the Arizona Republican, 16 June and the Arizona Republican, 14 September Although they may not have made up a large percentage of O Rourke s workers, Italian stonemasons certainly played a significant role in building the dam. 213 The latter group often included immigrants of Italian descent. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 60) Significantly, no American Indians or Mexican-Americans were recorded as living in O Rourke s Camp. At the Reclamation Service compound on Government Hill, white Americans comprised almost 80 percent of the population; among the ethnic groups, only the Italians comprised a significant number (10 percent).

The supervisors and professional staff working directly for the Service were overwhelmingly white Americans, and the few Italians living on Government Hill may have been hired specifically to undertake the final masonry work at the top of the dam work that was not included in O Rourke s contract. In contrast to the two other districts at the dam site, Newtown contained 28 percent American Indians, 25 percent Mexican-Americans and 13 percent Mexican nationals. Native-born white Americans comprised the remainder of the Newtown population.

Although Apache workers are known to have been involved in construction of the Mesa-Roosevelt Road and features such as the sluicing tunnel, they and their Mexican-American counterparts apparently played no role in the masonry construction of the Roosevelt Dam proper. This segregation of American Indian and Mexican American residents into only one of the three districts graphically demonstrates how clearly lines of social demarcation could be drawn within the Roosevelt Dam work force. A wide range of workers contributed to the project, but the Tonto Basin site could hardly be characterized as a melting pot of socioeconomic groups.

Construction of the Roosevelt Dam proceeded in a few basic stages.214 The first involved clearing the foundation so that the masonry could be placed directly on solid bedrock. This was important, because any instability or weakness at the dam s base could undermine the integrity of the entire structure. The key to excavating the foundation lay in controlling the flow of river water so that dirt, rock and boulders could be removed without impediment. It was also important to keep river flow away from the excavation area so that additional debris would not wash into the foundation. The method of river diversion designed by Reclamation Service engineers required construction of temporary cofferdams immediately upstream and downstream from the dam site.

Built using wooden piles surrounded by earth and rock-fill, these structures were inadequate for any kind of permanent use, but they would last long enough to complete the construction. Although both cofferdams were necessary to de-water the dam site, the upstream structure was the larger and more important of the two. Located above the dam site, this temporary barrier had to break the full force of the river s flow and direct it into the diversion works. In contrast the downstream cofferdam had only to keep backwater from entering the area. As discussed previously, heavy flooding destroyed or damaged the Roosevelt cofferdams on several occasions, severely disrupting O Rourke s progress.

After the heavy floods of late 214 The description of construction work at the dam site is drawn from Chester W. Smith, Progress on the Roosevelt Dam, Salt River Project, U.S. Reclamation Service, Engineering News 60 (10 September pp. Chester W. Smith, The Construction of the Roosevelt Dam, Engineering Record 62 (31 December pp. and various portions of Chester Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 61) November the contractor and Reclamation Service engineers agreed to abandon construction of a timber flume to carry the river flow through the site. Instead, they used the 480'-long sluicing tunnel already drilled through the south canyon wall as the only means of diverting the river.

The original purpose of this tunnel was to provide a way to release water and accumulated silt periodically from the bottom of the reservoir. The decision to adapt the 13' x 10' tunnel for diversion purposes would not affect its capacity to sluice silt. The only drawback related to the relatively small size of the tunnel: its carrying capacity of cubic feet per second could be easily exceeded by even minor floods. In the absence of floods, the process of clearing the foundation involved two methods of excavation. One was a dry technique, which used the overhead cableways to carry away buckets of rocks and dirt excavated by hand. This system was employed primarily to clear those portions of the foundation along the dry canyon walls above the riverbed.

The second method was used in the much wetter lower depths of the foundations. The consistency of material in the lower foundation was akin to a fluid mud or muck that could not be easily shoveled into buckets. To handle this material, O Rourke used a system of hydraulic excavators that used pressured water (delivered by pipes from the power canal) to first dislodge and then eject the material into a small wooden flume. From there, water in the flume washed the debris downstream beyond the lower cofferdam. In addition, hydraulic jet pumps (also powered by water from the power canal) were used to help clear the foundation by pumping standing water into the excavator flume where it could then flow downstream.

Once the work crew reached bedrock, the men carefully removed all loose rock and dirt from the foundation. They used only small amounts of dynamite to clear the site to avoid cracking or fissuring the bedrock. Instead of explosives, the work crews used pressurized jets of water to clean away loose material and compressed-air powered drills to dig the cutoff trench. Devoid of serious faults or crack lines, the foundation required relatively little heavy clearing work. But frequent floods during the early stages of construction forced the men to clean debris and mud from the foundation several times. Once the foundation was cleared, the next step involved placing the masonry.

O Rourke s men opened a quarry above the dam site on the north side of the canyon to quarry the large stones and smaller spalls. After clearing the loose surface rock overburden, they cut, blasted and pried the large stones from the distinctly stratified, fine grained sandstone uncovered in the quarries.215 Because the sandstone at Roosevelt was so well stratified (i.e., the rock lay in even layers undisturbed by ruptures or distortions), the stone blocks could be released with a relatively small amount of explosive placed in a series of parallel holes created using electric compressed-air drills.

To divide large chunks of stone into pieces smaller than 10-ton capacity of the cableways, the quarry crews split them by drilling additional holes using a non-explosive method known as 215 Cost data for quarry operations are given in Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams, pp. Preliminary cost data is given in Smith, Progress on the Roosevelt Dam, Engineering Record (31 December This data varies in minor ways from his later, more complete, tabulations. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 62) plug and feather.

This method protected the stone from damage by excessive explosive shocks and involved hand driving a type of wedge (i.e., the plug and feather) that could split the stone using relatively little pressure.216 After freeing the stones from the ground, the men maneuvered them around the quarry using wooden derricks. The quality of rock ranged from the relatively small amount of dressed face work for the upstream and downstream surfaces, to numerous roughly shaped large stones for the dam s interior and to a large quantity of smaller stones, known as spalls, that helped to fill the interior between the large stones.

Because of the rough texture allowed for the face work and the even stratification of the stone beds, relatively minimal shaping of the stone with chisels was required.217 This reduced the need for skilled stonemasons. Once quarried, stone was carried to the dam proper by two 1,200'-long Lidgerwood cableways that extended from one side of the canyon to the other, above low water. These cableways supported buckets that could be moved horizontally and lifted vertically. With a capacity of 10 tons, they were capable of hauling extremely massive stones or large quantities of mixed mortar and concrete. Construction of the dam required large quantities of mortar and concrete to bond the structure into a monolithic mass.

Production of these materials required a sophisticated plant spread out over a distance of almost A key component of this system was the cement plant located on the southern canyon wall east of the dam site. Here clay was delivered by wagon from pits in the Tonto Basin and mixed with limestone taken from a small quarry adjacent to the plant. After some clay was delivered to the cement plant by a small electric railway that extended for several hundred yards to the power canal. After firing in a rotary basin, the cement was crushed into a fine powder and then allowed to cure in nearby bins for at least sixty days. From the bins, the material was carried to the mixing plant via a 1,700'-long Leschen aerial tramway that transported the material at an elevation of about above the river.

About halfway between the cement plant and the mixing plant, the tramway passed by the sand crushing plant where sand necessary for the cement and concrete was produced. Thus, operation of the tramway allowed the two critical ingredients for mortar to be delivered directly to the mixing plant on the hillside above the southern end of the dam. For concrete, it was also necessary to supply crushed rock (usually called aggregate), which came from a small quarry adjacent to the mixing plant. Within the mixing plant, there were three storage bins, one each for cement, sand and aggregate.

Depending upon the quality of mortar and concrete being produced at any given time, operators would take appropriate quantities of material out of each bin and, after adding water, mix them in a 1.3 cubic-yard mixing machine. Delivery to the construction site was handled by a 3.5 cubic-yard bucket attached to the cableways. These buckets were used 216 The plug and feather method is briefly described in Adelbert P. Mills, Materials of Construction (New York: John Wiley and Sons, p. Use of the plug and feather method was called for in Davis, Water Storage on Salt River, Arizona, p. 40. 217 For problems associated with the location where chisel work was necessary to shape the stone blocks before placement in the dam, see Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, p. 87.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 63) to carry two batches of mixed mortar or concrete during each trip from the mixing plant to the dam. The delivery of mortar and concrete by cableway took place at completely different times than the delivery of large stones. At night, the cableways carried stones and spalls to the general location where they would be laid up the next day. During daylight hours, the cableways were employed to carry mortar and concrete directly to the particular site where masonry was in the process of being placed. Separating the times at which the quarried stone and the mixed concrete or mortar were delivered made logistical sense, especially since the latter materials needed to be put in the dam structure very quickly before they hardened.

In contrast, the stone could rest on top of the dam for an indefinite period of time without any change to its structural character. The process of forming the monolithic mass of the dam was quite simple. Stone delivered by the cableways was positioned close to its final position by one of five wooden derricks. Then the cableways delivered a batch of mortar and dumped it where the stone was to be embedded. Shortly after, the stone was lowered slowly onto the mortar and tamped down lightly to eliminate any voids or air pockets. In the vertical spaces between the stones, O Rourke s crew placed concrete and filled the larger spaces with spalls. The masonry was then kept wet for several days to make sure that it set properly without prematurely drying.

After this, the stones and concrete were ready to form the base for another stepped layer of masonry. As Smith later explained, this method represented a comparatively casual operation which may as well be done by reasonably intelligent laborers as by expert masons. 218 The construction was well suited to the Tonto Basin, where expert masons were hard to come Differing from the approach used on the recently completed Wachusett and Croton Dams, the technique used to build Roosevelt comprised a distinct development in masonry dam construction.

The large stones on the former dams were embedded in fairly dry mortar, and skilled masons were required to lay up the vertical joints with mortar and spalls.220 In contrast, by using fluid mortar for the horizontal beds and placing workable concrete and small spalls in the vertical joints, O Rourke s relatively untrained crews could create a monolithic mass without extensive hand labor. When the final stone was laid in February the dam contained a total of cubic yards of masonry.

Of this, percent consisted of large stones, percent were smaller rock spalls, percent was mortar, and concrete comprised the remaining percent.221 Although Reclamation Service engineers wanted the structure to contain as many large stones as possible, they tempered this desire by the need to assemble the masonry into a mass without any continuous joints between the stones. By directing O Rourke to lay the stones in an irregular three-dimensional pattern and use considerable quantities of concrete and spalls to fill the gaps, 218 Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams, p. 67. 219 For discussion of the difficulties O Rourke had in keeping skilled stonemasons at Roosevelt, see Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, p. 84. 220 See Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams, p. 69.

221 A percentage breakdown of the various masonry quantities in Roosevelt Dam is given in Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams, p. 69. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 64) they could create a structural mass devoid of continuous joint lines. As a result, the techniques used at Roosevelt did not utilize a tremendous number of large stones, but it did create a structure well suited to resisting hydrostatic pressure. Before concluding discussion of the Roosevelt s Dam construction, it is important to note the number of laborers employed in the various tasks required during the erection process.

Drawing from data assembled by Chester Smith, this analysis will focus on the work completed during March and during March Both were periods of high productivity at the site, and March was described by Smith as O Rourke s largest month up to date with practically the entire force [of the company] at work on the masonry, and necessary adjuncts. 223 March was an even more productive month than its counterpart a year earlier and is probably representative of O Rourke s peak performance capability. In March the quarries used a total of ninety-four men, each working an average of twenty- nine eight-hour shifts. The small quarry on the south side of the canyon operated only during the days and required a total of twenty-one workers, most of whom were listed as either helpers or laborers.

Operations in the north side quarry were carried on during two shifts, one at night and the other in daylight. Combined, these shifts utilized the services of slightly more than seventy men, with fifty-two working the day shift and twenty-one working at night. During the nocturnal hours, when large stones were being delivered to the dam via the cableways, most workers were described as laborers or helpers; only two men were categorized as either foremen or engineers. Most of the daytime workers were still listed in the labor/helper category, but the number of foremen/engineers increased to nine. In addition, seven workers were described as quarrymen, a category that was not used at all for the night shift.

From this data it appears clear that in the quarries the most closely supervised work, and presumably the most important, occurred during the day when the majority of workers and foremen/engineers were employed. Transportation of materials comprised an essential part of the construction process, as reflected in the labor required to carry on such work during March The 1,700'-long tramway connecting the cement plant and sand crushing facility with the mixing plant operated for an average of twenty-six days for both day and night shifts. The work involved four laborers for both shifts with supervision provided by one engineer during the day and two engineers during the night.

Operation of the cableway also took place in day and evening shifts, but in this case the number and type of employees for each shift differed substantially. During the day the cableways were used to deliver freshly mixed mortar and concrete, along with spalls form the south side quarry, requiring only four laborers (referred to as tagmen ), two signalmen and two supervisory engineers. At night the labor force involved in running the cableways increased to a total of thirty-one men. Work during this period involved collecting large stones in the quarries, transporting them to the dam site and situating them for placement in the structure the next day. 222 Data in this section of the report is drawn from tabulated statistics provided in Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams, pp.

Additional cost data is provided in the file, Special Reports on Cost, NA, RG Entry 3, Box 223 Smith to A.P. Davis, 30 April NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 65) Spread over a wide area, this poorly illuminated work required three foremen, seven engineers, two signalmen, one electrician (presumably to handle the artificial lighting), one watchman and sixteen general laborers. Conducted exclusively during the day shift, work at the concrete mixing plant involved only six men: one foreman, one engineer and four laborers. Despite the large quantities of cement, sand and crushed rock handled in the mixing plant, its location along the side of the canyon wall allowed the crew to use gravity to deliver material to the mixer.

By placing the storage bins at the top of the plant, it was possible to transport the materials via gravity chutes rather than hauling them either manually or mechanically. The final and most important part of the construction process involved the placement of stones, mortar and concrete into the dam structure. This work only took place during the day shift and required a total work crew of thirty- six men: three foremen, three engineers, seven masons, and twenty-three laborers/tagmen who worked a total of twenty-six and one-half shifts (the same number of shifts as the mixing plant crew). Efforts to place the masonry were facilitated by the operation of three derricks, a fact which helps explain why the crew required three foremen and three engineers.

During March costs for O Rourke s entire work crew were calculated by Smith at slightly more than In this amount Smith also included the cost of general bookkeeping, repairing equipment (eighty-five men-days), moving equipment (seventy-seven men-days), and purchasing worth of electricity from the government horsepower/hours at 0.5 cents per hour). This labor and expense resulted in the placement of cubic yards of masonry in the dam at a unit cost of per cubic yard. One year later, in March the overall productivity of O Rourke s crew increased to a total of cubic yards of masonry placed in the dam.

To accomplish this increase in productivity, O Rourke had increased his work crew from approximately 185 men to around Interestingly, although the work force increased by only 20 percent, the masonry embedded in the dam jumped by over 33 percent. A closer comparison of data for the two month-long periods (in which the number and length of work shifts were essentially identical) reveals that a relatively small increase in the labor capacity fostered a substantial boost in overall productivity. The labor required to operate the cableway systems and the aerial tramway remained almost static. In March fifty people were employed for this work; a year later O Rourke only needed to increase the work force by three men.

Exact figures for the crew at the mixing plant in March are unavailable, but given that total labor expenses at this facility remained practically constant between March and March apparently no more than one additional worker was employed at this facility. In contrast to these functions, the work force at the quarries increased substantially. Although the day and night shifts at the north side quarry actually decreased slightly in size (from seventy- three to sixty-five men), this was more than compensated for by a doubling of the crew (from twenty-one to forty-four men) at the south side quarry during the day shift. Apparently the north THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 66) side quarry had reached its full capacity and, to increase production, O Rourke enlarged operations at the smaller quarry above the mixing plant. With the increased quantities of stone coming from the quarries, the crew responsible for placing masonry in the dam increased correspondingly from thirty-five to fifty-one men. To assist the larger work force, O Rourke added two more derricks to the construction plant, requiring two more foremen and two more engineers to oversee their operation. Laborers increased from seventeen to twenty-four but, significantly, the number of masons remained static at seven. This last data further demonstrates that O Rourke did indeed have difficulties in attracting skilled masons to the Tonto Basin.

The total amount of masonry laid in March came to cubic yards and cost a total of As a result, unit costs for one cubic yard of masonry were In comparing these monthly figures with those of a year earlier, it is apparent that O Rourke had been able to both increase his productivity and reduce his average costs during the latter period. This was not accomplished by reducing wages to save on labor costs.

The daily wages for various tasks remained practically unchanged for the two monthly periods; they averaged about for laborers and helpers, for semi-skilled workers such as drillers and quarrymen, for engineers, and for masons and foremen.224 Despite a need to hire about thirty-five new employees, O Rourke apparently did not feel compelled to raise wages in order to lure additional workers to the Tonto Basin. The contractor s cost savings came in being able to use the fixed plant erected to support the construction process more efficiently. For certain operations, such as quarrying, the output was almost directly proportional to the number of men employed. But for other operations, it cost a substantial amount of money to carry on work, no matter how little was required.

As Chester Smith wrote: The operation of a cableway costs as much [to serve] one derrick as for three or four. A derrick requires an engineer for work at one-tenth its capacity as well as at full capacity. A given crushing and mixing plant will require just about the same number of attendants for an output of 100 cubic yards per day as would the same plant for cubic yards, a pump at gallons per day or with nearly every operation there is an irreducible minimum expense no matter to what point the progress or output is reduced.225 224 The cost figures for labor are taken from Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams, pp.

The wages paid by O Rourke are very similar to those stipulated by various unions in New York City during the spring of For data on these latter wages see Richard Dana, Handbook of Construction Plant: Its Cost and Efficiency (Chicago: Myron C. Clark Publishing Company, pp. 225 Smith, Construction of Masonry Dams, pp. Smith goes on to say: Whenever it becomes necessary to suspend work entirely the problem of unit cost is only to be met by a reduction of general expense, [that is] by discharging employees. The extent to which it is advisable to go in that direction is a matter of the known or estimated duration of the shutdown, probable dispersion of the force and the expense of reconstruction [of] the [labor] organization when work is resumed.

With Roosevelt Dam, the problems inherent in bringing workers to the THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 67) In economic terms, it was vital for O Rourke to make maximum use of his firm s fixed capital costs if he was to maximize productivity. Unfortunately, the numerous delays caused by floods, equipment failures, and power outages made it impossible for him to operate at levels even remotely approaching ideal efficiency. These factors, coupled with the dam s isolated location and the contractor s concomitant inability to lay-off workers on short notice for limited periods of time, are largely responsible for O Rourke s difficulties in completing the project in a timely and cost-effective manner.

O Rourke and his crew had almost completed their work on the dam by the end of but more construction was still needed to complete the immense structure.226 The dam s extreme top section needed to be fitted with architectural details, a job undertaken by laborers hired directly by the Reclamation Service.

These features included: 1) masonry parapets along both sides of the dam s crest that would provide barriers for the highway running across the structure; 2) column- like stone pilasters along the downstream parapet that provided bases for the light standards; 3) two masonry tool houses adjacent to the concrete spillway bridges at either end of the dam, built to provide storage space at the top of the structure for use by Service personnel; and 4) thirty-six cast-iron light standards mounted atop the pilasters and spillway bridges.

These later decorative features supported incandescent light globes that illuminated the dam s crest.227 As these last elements were under construction along the top of the dam late in another Reclamation Service crew installed a permanent sprinkling system used to cool the dam s downstream face. This replaced the temporary drip system that Chester Smith had installed to cool the upper parts of the dam during construction. Since the completion of construction late in February the principal elements of Roosevelt Dam have remained virtually intact. Structurally and architecturally unaltered, the masonry mass of the dam itself has changed only to the extent that its downstream face has been discolored by algae and water from the drip cooling system.

The tool houses and gate house stand intact as do the reinforced-concrete arch bridges over the two spillways. The spillways themselves, though, have been altered by the addition of nineteen Tainter gates that, when closed, provide an additional 15' of reservoir height, increasing its storage capacity to more than acre- feet.228 Supported by reinforced-concrete piers, each of the riveted steel gates is 20' wide. Lifting Tonto Basin made it difficult for O Rourke to dismiss them for short periods of time, because once a worker had been laid off there was a good chance they would leave the area permanently.

226 O Rourke and George Steinmetz visited Phoenix on January 16, and reported to a newspaper reporter that they would be completely finished with their work by the beginning of February but would not have vacated the construction camp before the beginning of March. Arizona Republican, 17 January 227 See A.P. Davis, Irrigation Works Constructed by the United States Government (New York: John Wiley and Sons p. 16, for a cost breakdown of these features: pilasters: coping capstones: gate and tool houses: lighting system: On January 27, A.P. Davis reported that the work on the coping was underway.

Arizona Republican, 28 January 228 The addition of the spillway gates was initially proposed in a report by Cragin, O Hara and Lawson entitled Report on Proposed Additional Hydro-Electric Power Development of the Salt River, submitted to the Salt River Valley Water Users Association in February Cragin was chief engineer of the association at this time, and the document is usually known as the Cragin Report. Construction of the spillway gates, of which ten were on the south side of the dam and nine were on the north side is described in History of the Salt River Project for this THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 68) motors and gears are mounted above the gates on a steel footbridge which spans between the piers.229 The spillways are used only to release extreme floodwaters to prevent overtopping of the dam. Under normal operations, water is released from the reservoir through three other tunnel systems. The first of these is the original sluicing tunnel that extends for approximately through the south side foundation of the dam.230 The inlet of this tunnel is situated at the height of the original streambed, allowing it to drain the reservoir completely, if necessary. Flow through the tunnel is controlled by inlet gates that can be reached via the semi-circular masonry gate house attached to the upstream face of the dam.

Originally, the sluicing tunnel was equipped with two sets of three Stoney gates, each measuring by 9'. One of these sets was designed purely to provide for emergency service and was located a short distance upstream from the gates used under normal conditions. The Stoney gates were designed as solid steel bulkheads that could be raised or lowered in order either to allow passage for water flow or to shut the flow entirely.231 Stoney gates were usually designed for controlling water under relatively low pressure, a condition that did not exist in the Roosevelt Dam sluicing tunnel. As a result of handling large quantities of water under high pressure, the original Stoney gates fabricated by the Llewellyn Iron Works were damaged during the time the dam was under construction.

The sluicing tunnel was lined with concrete and steel at the same time that original repairs were made to the Stoney gates. The lining of the tunnel proved successful in eliminating problems with erosion; the gates themselves proved unreliable, however, and in the Reclamation Service replaced them with a new valve designed by O.H. Ensign.

Sometimes referred to as a needle valve (because of its pointed tip) or as a balance valve (because the movement of the plug that is moved within the shaft to control the water flow is by hydraulic devices that balance the water pressure on both sides of the plug), this new device proved generally unsatisfactory.232 The second means of releasing water from the reservoir consists of the 10'-diameter steel penstock that extends through the southern end of the dam s upstream face at an elevation 75' Period, October 1, to September 30, and History of the Salt River Project for This Period, October 1, to September 30, These manuscripts are available in the Salt River Project Archives. See also T.A. Hayden, Salt River Project, Arizona, Western Construction News 5 (25 June p.

for description of the spillway gates. In work was done on the spillways that lowered them 6' to reduce blockage. See J.A. Fraps, Construction of Alterations to Spillway, Roosevelt Dam, Salt River Project, Phoenix, Arizona, 24 June NA (Denver), RG Engineering and Research Center Project Reports, Box 229 Tainter gate technology is more fully described in Calvin Victor Davis, Handbook of Applied Hydraulics (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, pp. Tainter gates are named after Tainter of Menomonie, Wisconsin, who patented a movable sector sluiceway gate in See Hunter Touse, Hydraulics in the United States (Iowa City: Institute of Hydraulic Research of the University of Iowa, p. 55.

An early, large-scale example of movable sector dams was built as part of the Chicago Drainage Canal in See Wegmann, Design and Construction of Dams pp. 230 The sluicing tunnel is described in Chester W. Smith, The Construction of the Roosevelt Dam, Engineering Record 62 (31 December p. and Davis, Irrigation Works, p. 9; also see NA, RG Entry 3, Box 231 For a discussion of the various types of hydraulic gates, see Calvin Victor Davis, Handbook of Applied Hydraulics (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, pp. 232 Davis, Irrigation Works, pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 69) above the original streambed.233 The penstock passes through the dam and downward into the powerhouse located immediately downstream.

Inside the powerhouse it connects to turbine/generator units designed to convert water pressure into hydroelectric power. Once used for power production, the water is discharged back into the Salt River. Based on the difficulties experienced in operating the Stoney gates for the sluicing tunnel, the Reclamation Service installed a balanced needle valve between the upstream face of the dam and the generator room in the powerhouse. This valve could be used to shut the flow completely through the tunnel. Flow through the three turbines could also be individually controlled by smaller valves attached directly to the generators.

The third means of releasing water from the reservoir consists of a group of three cast-iron penstocks, each 5' in diameter, located on the north side of the dam.234 These penstocks, and the tunnels they connected with, were not part of the original design. They were added after to help reduce the need of using the sluicing tunnel under high pressure when the reservoir is filled near capacity. The north side penstocks extend through the upstream face of the dam at an elevation above the original streambed. All of the north side penstocks were originally equipped with balanced needle valves like those used for the refurbished sluicing tunnel and the power penstock.

In the original needle valves installed at the upstream end of the north side tunnels were replaced with a new set of needle valves located at the downstream end.235 The most important function of Roosevelt Dam aside from storage of floodwaters was to generate hydroelectric power. On-site electric power generation was necessary for construction (e.g. electricity powered the Lidgerwood cableways and lit the dam site at night), and this logically led to the development of a permanent hydroelectric plant to supply power for the greater Salt River Valley. Originally, a temporary powerhouse was to be attached to the power canal at a location about 1/2 mile upstream from the dam site.

By the end of Reclamation Service engineers had rejected this plan in favor of a temporary power plant built in a recess excavated in the foundation wall a short distance downstream from the dam.236 This temporary power plant was designed to connect directly with the tunnel/penstock that extended from the forebay of the power canal and would ultimately hook up with turbines in the permanent powerhouse. Equipped with a 1300-horsepower turbine and a 950-kilowatt generator, the 233 The south side penstock is described in Smith, Construction of Roosevelt Dam, p. see also data in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 234 The north side penstock/tunnel is described in Smith, Construction of Roosevelt Dam, p.

construction of the tunnel is also documented in NA, RG Entry 3, Box 235 The installation of the new valves on the north side penstock is described in History of Salt River Project for the Period October 1, to September 30, 236 For information on the decision to relocate the temporary power plant, see Wisner, Sanders and O.H. Ensign to Newell, 14 November Hill to Wisner, 21 November and A.P. Davis to Hill, 6 December all in NA, RG Entry 3, Box See also Wisner, O.H. Ensign, and Hill to Newell, 12 December NA, RG Entry 3, Box THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 70) temporary plant came online in the spring of and provided power for over three years until it was superseded by turbine/generators installed in the permanent powerhouse.237 Construction of a permanent hydroelectric power generating facility had been planned since the inception of the Roosevelt project. But its exact configuration was not immediately designed. By July O.H.

Ensign, the engineer responsible for most of the electrical work associated with the Reclamation Service s early Salt River Project, had conceived of a system in which the permanent powerhouse would contain six turbine/generator units, three of which would be attached to the power canal penstock and the others connected to the penstock extending through the dam s south side.238 Although only five generators were ultimately installed in the powerhouse (the last one was replaced by a unit installed in this plan formed the basis of the powerhouse design.

Construction of the x 35' reinforced-concrete powerhouse with stone facing began in October and reached completion in the spring of The installation of equipment was delayed, however, and the permanent powerhouse did not come on-line until June The first units to become operational in the permanent powerhouse were the three turbines attached to the power canal penstock. Operating under a head of these units were clustered in the western end of the powerhouse. Unit No. 1 was brought into service in June and Units No. 2 and No. 3 were in use that August. The turbines were manufactured by S. Morgan Smith; the generators by General Electric.240 The equipment generated three-phase alternating current (AC) at a potential of volts and a frequency of 25 cycles.

This represented a standard form of electric power for the era. Because they produced 25-cycle current, the generators at Roosevelt were clearly geared toward use in powering irrigation pumps and large motors. For more general electric power markets, 60-cycle current was typically used, because 60-cycle current did not produce as much flickering in electric lights as did 25-cycle current. After the power canal turbine/generator units became operational in it was several years before the south side penstock came online. By Units No. 4 and No. 5, which were of similar generating capacity as the first three units, were in service and operating under heads ranging from 90' to depending upon the reservoir s level.241 These were located adjacent to the south side penstock in the powerhouse.

Because of potential inefficiencies in operating turbines under conditions of variable heads, Unit No. 6 was designed with a turbine that would 237 The turbine in the temporary power plant was manufactured by Stilwell-Bierce and Smith-Vaile Company; the generator was fabricated by the Bullock Electric Manufacturing Company. See Fourth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, p. 81. 238 See O.H. Ensign, Wisner, Sanders and Hill to Newell, 3 July1905; NA, RG Entry 3, Box 239 For a description of the early generating system at Roosevelt, see the Ninth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, pp. 240 In addition to the main turbines and generators, the powerhouse included two direct current exciter generators of 100-horsepower capacity.

These were required to excite or charge the electromagnets in the main generators. For more on the electrical equipment at Roosevelt, see NA, RG Entry 3, Box 241 Operating heads for Units No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 are provided in Davis, Irrigation Works, p. 18. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 71) function under variable levels.242 This last unit was substantially larger than originally planned, and when it came online in it added kW of capacity to the powerhouse. Once the current was generated in the powerhouse at a potential of volts, it was transmitted by copper wire to the 80' x 30' transformer house located approximately downstream.

The function of the transformer house was to raise the voltage from to for more economical transmission to the Salt River Valley some 60 miles away. The equipment in the transformer house was manufactured by General Electric and the Wagner Electric Manufacturing Company.243 The 45,000-volt, three-phase AC current was carried from the transformer house to Phoenix via a 65-mile transmission system that also connected with branch lines to Mesa.

The transmission line was supported by steel towers spaced between and apart.244 Customers for Roosevelt s power included a number of municipal and industrial users, but the primary recipient of electricity was the privately owned Pacific Gas and Electric Company (later the Central Arizona Light and Power Company (CALAPCO)).245 The original electric generating system at Roosevelt functioned elegantly most of the time, but it experienced difficulty when water poured through the spillways. Spray from the falling water interfered with the wires carrying the current between the powerhouse and the transformer house and disrupted the reliability of the entire system.

In the Salt River Valley Water Users Association proposed to reconstruct the facilities at Roosevelt so that a new transformer house would be built directly on top of the powerhouse. This ostensibly would eliminate problems precipitated by the spillway spray.246 Power transmitted from the transformer house would now be carried by a new line supported by a new tower attached to the south side tool house on top of the dam. From there it would pass over the top of the spillway (where there is no appreciable spray) and connect with the main power transmission line on top of the hill above the south side of the canyon. The new system was also planned to increase the voltage of the transmission system from volts to volts as a way to further improve efficiency.

Along with modifications to the transmission system, it was also proposed to install a new generator/turbine (Unit No. 7) that would provide for an additional kW of power capacity and allow the plant to take full advantage of the increased storage and head provided by the new spillway gates. Located at the eastern end of the new spillway gates, this new turbine/generator unit was to be supplied by water from a new tunnel connected with the intake of the sluicing tunnel. Because of concerns about the reliability of the power canal, it was also proposed that a 242 For more on the variable head turbines, see NA, RG Entry 3, Box 243 See NA, RG Entry 3, Box 523 for detailed information on the transformers and switchboard equipment used at Roosevelt.

For a succinct description of the transformer house, see Davis, Irrigation Works, pp. 244 The transmission line is described in the Ninth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, pp. and in Davis, Irrigation Works, pp. 245 For detailed information on the Reclamation Service s activity in leasing power from Roosevelt, see NA, RG Entry 3, Box The origins of the lease with Pacific Gas and Electric are noted in Hill to Newell, 26 January NA, RG Entry 3, Box 246 The planned reconstruction of the Roosevelt power system is described in Cragin, O Hara and Lawson, Additional Hydroelectric Power Development of the Salt River, February pp. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 72) direct connection between the sluicing tunnel be made so that Units No. 1, No. 2 and No.

3 could be supplied with water even if the power canal became inoperable. The plan envisaged by the Water Users Association was soon put in place at Roosevelt and was in operation by The new system operated successfully for several decades as part of the much larger Salt River Project hydrogeneration system. The only major drawback to the long- term serviceability of the system was that it provided power at a frequency of 25 cycles. As mentioned earlier, 25-cycle current is well suited to operating large pumps and motors, but it is not ideally suited to domestic usage. Plans to convert the entire Salt River Project to 60-cycle current were promoted as early as But, it was not until the early that the facilities at Roosevelt were replaced with 60-cycle equipment.

At this time all of the turbines and generators built in the early twentieth century were replaced with a single modern unit located in an all reinforced-concrete powerhouse attached to the eastern end of the old powerhouse. Since this change, the original powerhouse has been used only for storage. Aside from the dam itself and structures associated with the power system, there are few surviving structures in the Tonto Basin that date to the era of the Roosevelt Dam s construction. O Rourke s Camp has long since been reduced to an historic archaeological site, the original town of Roosevelt has been inundated by the reservoir, and most of the buildings erected by the Reclamation Service on Government Hill and elsewhere have been razed.

Chapter 4: Epilogue On March 18, formal ceremonies celebrating the dedication of Roosevelt Dam took place at the dam site. Although the structure had already begun storing water for farmers in the Salt River Valley (on March 18 the reservoir level at the upstream face extended above low water datum), the ceremony signaled formal completion of construction. To increase interest in the event, the Reclamation Service and the Salt River Valley Water User s Association had enticed former President Theodore Roosevelt to dedicate the structure himself. His presence was most appropriate, both because of the dam s name and because of his instrumental role in the establishment of the Reclamation Service.

Roosevelt arrived in Phoenix on the morning of Saturday, March Following a cursory greeting by the leadership of the Water Users Association, he quickly boarded an automobile in the company of Louis Hill, association president John Orme, and Territorial Governor Richard Sloan. The party escorting the former President made a stop at the Phoenix Indian School, where 247 The reconstruction work is described in History of the Salt River Project for This Period, October 1, to September 30, pp. see also T.A. Hayden, Salt River Project, Arizona, Irrigation and Hydroelectric Development by Salt River Valley Water Users Association Six Major Dams, 5 (25 June pp.

248 See Raymond Hill, Economic Survey of Salt River Project, Arizona, September Minutes of the Board of Governors, Salt River Valley Water Users Association, Vol. 26. 249 For a good description of Roosevelt s visit to central Arizona in March see Earl Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to pp. This account draws heavily from numerous issues of the Arizona Democrat, the Arizona Republican, and the Arizona Gazette. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 73) Roosevelt made a brief speech, and from there continued to Granite Reef Dam. After a short rest at the government-built diversion structure, the group wound its way up the Apache Trail and arrived at Roosevelt Dam late in the afternoon.

The dedication ceremony proceeded at a fairly rapid pace, with speakers addressing the crowd of several hundred spectators from a temporary wooden platform built on the dam s crest. The crowd listened to remarks from Orme, Sloan, Hill, Charles Blanchard (statistician for the Reclamation Service), and Benjamin Fowler (first president of the Water Users Association and current president of the National Irrigation Congress). When Roosevelt s turn finally came, he spoke extemporaneously about the origins of the Reclamation Service and the efforts of Frederick Newell and Gifford Pinchot to impress upon him the importance of federal support for western irrigation projects after he had ascended to the presidency in September Roosevelt praised the efforts of Newell and A.P.

Davis who, in his words: Took the keenest personal interest in everything connected with starting this work just as if they had been citizens of Arizona who were directly to be benefited by the proposed work, and they couldn t have been more devoted to it or towards it or have served it or have more conscientiously worked to see this policy adopted in a form that would make it of the widest and most far reaching benefit to the Salt River Valley.250 Though the praise was certainly heartfelt, the irony of the situation must have been evident to at least a few members of the audience. Despite Newell s and Davis long-standing involvement with the Roosevelt Dam project, neither engineer was present at the dedication ceremony.

Davis was absent because of a trip to Czarist Russia, where he was to assist the government in planning reclamation projects for the Turkestan province.251 Newell s absence was much more problematic and highlighted Reclamation Service differences with the Water Users Association over the issue of project costs and repayment.

Newell did not have any pressing engagement that day in March; in fact, he spent an uneventful day in Washington, However, had he come to the Salt River Valley for the first time in a year and a half, it would have brought controversy to the dedication ceremony.253 A few months after completion of the Roosevelt Dam, Newell expressed some of his concerns to Hill regarding the financial status of the Salt River Project, and he provided a rationale for why he was loath to report the Reclamation Service s work as being done: 250 This quote is also taken from material appearing in the March 19, Arizona Republican, the March 20, Arizona Democrat, the March 20, Arizona Gazette; see Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to 251 Davis trip to Turkestan and his inability to attend the dedication ceremony is noted in the March 12, Arizona Republican; see Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to p.

252 Evidence of the mundane office matters that occupied Newell s attention on March is provided in his pocket diary for he makes no mention of the Roosevelt Dam dedication ceremony in the March entry. See Newell Pocket Diaries, Frederick Haynes Newell Papers, Manuscript Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, 253 Newell s last visit to Arizona came in October when he accompanied Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger and the U.S. Senate Committee on Irrigation during a fact-finding investigation of federal irrigation projects. See Karen Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, p. 98. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 74) From certain standpoints it is not wise to let it be understood that the project is completed and that the Valley has nothing more to expect.

This has been emphasized by the attitude of a number of citizens who have implied that now there is nothing more to be had out of Uncle Sam they can concentrate their energies on securing deferred payments, or even the repudiation of a whole or a part of the debt. I have been astonished at the way this feeling had apparently spread.254 Seriously tarnishing the reputation of the Reclamation Service and its director, the repayment issue soon became a major stone around the agency s neck. The source of the problem lay in the construction costs of the dam and associated features which had burgeoned dramatically beyond initial projections.

In his report, Davis had estimated the cost of the Tonto Dam at slightly more than million, including for the dam proper, for the hydrogeneration plant and power canal, for the cement plant and for roads.255 As it turned out, none of these estimates were even close. In June a few months before completion of the dam, Reclamation Service engineers listed its aggregate cost at million.

This included the expenses associated with the government-owned cement mill and auxiliary structures such as the rock crushing plant, excavation at the clay pits, the aerial tramway system and the Lidgerwood cableways, but did not include such features as the sluicing tunnel, the hydraulic gates (which required extensive modifications and repairs) and the expense of purchasing and clearing land for the reservoir. Of these expenses, O Rourke received only about million, which was probably not much more than that needed to keep his firm from going bankrupt while operating in the Tonto Basin for over five years.256 The greatest unforeseen expense involved construction of the power canal and the hydroelectric power plant.

The initial estimate for their construction had been but this soon proved unrealistic. By June while the temporary powerhouse was still in operation, expenditures for the diversion dam and the power canal had already reached million, and the hydroelectric plant had cost almost This exceeded the original estimates by over six times, greatly contributing to the financial difficulties associated with the project.257 Reclamation Service engineers placed great stock in their cement mill as a means to reduce costs. They had initially estimated that the government could produce cement on-site at less than per barrel, but by the end construction costs had risen to per barrel for barrels.258 254 Newell to Hill, November 25, NA, RG Entry 3, Box 255 A.P.

Davis, Water Supply on Salt River Arizona (Washington, Government Printing Office, p. 52. This report was formally submitted to the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey on June 12, These cost estimates were repeated in the First Annual Report of the Reclamation Service in 256 All data in this paragraph related to construction costs and the payment received by O Rourke is taken from the Ninth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, pp. 257 Construction costs for the power canal and the initial hydroelectric power plant are taken from the Sixth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, p. 68.

258 A complete breakdown of cement production costs is given in Expense of Operation and Maintenance, Roosevelt Cement Plant, May to July Inclusive, NA, RG Entry 3, Box The bid for supplying THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 75) This included some barrels of cement used to build the Granite Reef Dam, a circumstance that helped to increase overall quantities and thus reduce unit costs for the cement. In bids as low as per barrel, delivered to Roosevelt, were received from commercial cement manufacturers, which means that the Service probably saved about 25 percent in costs by making its own cement. After the completion of Roosevelt Dam, ardent interest in the structure by Reclamation Service personnel and farming interests in the Salt River Valley gradually diminished.

In its place, attention shifted to the electric power system built as part of the Salt River Project. Initial construction of the Roosevelt Dam was facilitated by a temporary hydroelectric power plant, but by June the permanent powerhouse directly downstream from the dam was placed in operation.259 By five turbine/generator units with a total capacity of kilowatts were on-line and serving the Salt River Valley. Power transmission was boosted from volts to volts by transformers placed in the transformer house located a short distance downstream from the powerhouse. The full generating capacity of the Roosevelt plant was realized in when a final 5,000-kilowatt turbine/generator was installed.

In late Secretary of Interior Franklin Lane accepted the report of the Central Board of Cost Review and set the total cost of the original Salt River Project at This included the construction of the Roosevelt Dam and all of its associated features along with such things as the Granite Reef Dam, new distribution canals in the Salt River Valley, and a widespread electric power transmission system. Details related to how the Salt River Valley Water User s Association reimbursed the federal government are too complicated for this report to elucidate.

However, it is worth noting that repayment for the original project extended for almost forty years until the debt was finally paid off in the The question of how much the construction of the Salt River Project actually cost was crucial to the Salt River Valley Water Users Association, which was legally committed to reimburse the government for these expenses. This repayment was to be made in ten annual installments, to begin when the project was declared complete by the Reclamation Service. As construction of Roosevelt Dam neared its end, the enormity of the cost overruns concerned the association members, and public dissatisfaction in the Central Valley began to grow.

Initial efforts to reduce the liability of the Water Users Association centered around a Congressionally authorized study of all Reclamation Service projects undertaken in This review of the Salt River Project did not reveal any significant waste or needless cost overruns. But it also did little to appease discontent among farmers in the valley. During the years immediately after completion of Roosevelt Dam, the issue of repayment was forestalled while work continued on the government-financed electric transmission system. A cement to Roosevelt at a price of per barrel stipulated that no holdback of payments be made on the contract. With a 20 percent holdback the low bid was per barrel.

259 A brief history of the early electric power plant system is provided in the Ninth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, p. 64. 260 The final cost figure for the initial Salt River Project is given in Smith, The Magnificent Experiment, p. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 76) great deal of attention at this time focused on exactly which lands in the greater Salt River Valley would be served by the new system. The Kent Decree in had classified all the agricultural acreage in the valley according to its prior irrigation status.

Although it was practically certain that all Class A and Class B lands, as defined by Kent, would be included within the Salt River Project, there were more Class C lands in the Central Valley than could be served by the storage capacity of Roosevelt Lake. To resolve the issue, Reclamation Service engineers convened a Board of Survey in and to determine the limits of the project area. By August the repayment conflict had become serious enough among the initial Reclamation Service projects to prompt Congress to pass the Repayment Extension Act [38 Stat This legislation revised the Newlands Act of extending the repayment time period allowed from ten to twenty years. With this law in effect, the farmers of the Salt River Valley were relieved of the burden.

The cost to construct the Salt River Project was finally negotiated in including Roosevelt Dam itself, the power canal, Granite Reef Dam, the hydroelectric generation and transmission system and new water distribution facilities in the valley, this amounted to almost million. Operation of the Salt River Project was turned over to the Salt River Valley Water Users Association in September marking the beginning of the repayment schedule. The association made timely payments for only two years before a sharp depression of agricultural prices after World War I forced it to suspend payments in and When the association faced difficulties at the onset of the Great Depression later in the decade, the Reclamation Service restructured the debt over a new twenty-year period.

Congress authorized additional payment deferrals for the years and In some forty-four years after the dedication of Roosevelt Dam, the association made its final payment on the original debt. In structural terms, the Roosevelt Dam has undergone very little repair or alteration during its almost eight decades of active service. The most significant alteration occurred in the early when movable spillway gates were installed to increase the reservoir s storage capacity and increase the hydraulic head acting on the turbines in the powerhouse.261 The only major repair work required on the dam took place in when a small amount of erosion slightly damaged the foundations on the downstream side of the structure.

Despite floods, labor shortages, personality clashes, and bureaucratic foot dragging, the completed masonry construction known to the world as Roosevelt Dam has proved to be a most remarkable and enduring monument. The Roosevelt Dam is representative of the last generation of stone masonry gravity dams. The visual texture of its surface has rarely been matched in agricultural expressiveness by the concrete gravity dams that came to dominate western irrigation and power projects in the 261 See Gaylord M. Taylor, Power and Pumping System of the Salt River Project, pp. for more on the power facilities at the Roosevelt Dam. This is a typewritten report dated January 1, it is available at the Research Archives of the Salt River Project. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 77) remainder of the twentieth century. But its legacy is perhaps best seen in the growth and expansion of Phoenix and the Salt River Valley in the years since it first began to store the floodwaters of the Salt River. As Benjamin Fowler, first president of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association and an early advocate of the dam s construction, so eloquently stated at the March 18, dedication ceremony, To a great and growing community in an arid region, it is a guarantee for all time of prosperity and happiness, comfort and peace. 262 262 This prophetic quote from Fowler is taken from the March 20, Arizona Gazette; see Zarbin, Roosevelt Dam: A History to p. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 78) Appendix A: Illustrations Note: The drawings have been edited in Adobe Photoshop to improve legibility, including removing illegible text and small scale details if necessary. Figure 1: Plan of the proposed Tonto Dam by the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 79) Figure 2: Profiles of the proposed Hudson Reservoir Company Tonto Dam. Figure 3: Theoretical dam profiles. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 80) Figure 4: Profile of Furens Dam. Figure 5: Profile of New Croton Dam. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 81) Figure 6: Plan of Roosevelt Dam by U.S. Reclamation Service. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 82) Figure 7: Profile of Roosevelt Dam by U.S. Reclamation Service. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 83) Figure 8: Elevation and plan of two-span reinforced-concrete arch by U.S. Reclamation Service. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 84) Figure 9: Cross section of Roosevelt Dam by U.S. Reclamation Service. Figure 10: Elevation of proposed Salt River Dam, Arizona by U.S. Reclamation Service. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 85) Figure 11: Site plan of Roosevelt Dam and related facilities. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 86) Figure 12: Site plan of Roosevelt Dam and related facilities. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 87) Appendix B: Drawings Note: The drawings have been edited in Adobe Photoshop to improve legibility, including removing illegible text and small scale details if necessary.

Figure 1: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Plan of East Half of Dam Abutment and Spillway. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 88) Figure 2: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Plan of West Half of Dam Abutment and Spillway. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 89) Figure 3. Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Maximum Cross Section. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 90) Figure 4. Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Bridges and Spillways. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 91) Figure 5: Salt River Project Arizona: Preliminary Outline Plan of Power Plant, Longitudinal Section. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 92) Figure 6: Salt River Project Arizona: Preliminary Outline Plan of Power Plant, Cross Sections.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 93) Figure 7: Salt River Project Arizona: Preliminary Outline Plan of Power Plant, Plan. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 94) Figure 8: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Chambers for Sluicing Tunnel. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 95) Figure 9: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Arrangement of Sluicing Gates. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 96) Figure 10: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Partition of Gate Chambers. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 97) Figure 11: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Tunnel Walls of Gate Chambers. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page 98) Figure 12: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Details for Gate Chambers THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page 99) Figure 13: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Details of Stoney Gates. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Figure 14: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Beams and Struts Cylinder Chambers. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Figure 15: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Upper Piston Rod Hydraulic Cylinders. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Figure 16: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Lower Piston Rod Hydraulic Cylinders. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Figure 17: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Automatic Shutoff Hydraulic Cylinders. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page Figure 18: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Structural Work for Upper Chambers. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Figure 19: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Bypass Pipes, Sluice Gate Chambers. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Figure 20: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Gate Chambers and Mechanism. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Figure 21: Salt River Project Arizona, Roosevelt Dam: Hydraulic Cylinder and Base. THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No.

AZ-6 (Page Bibliography Primary Source Collections: Arizona Department of Library and Archives; Phoenix, Arizona Newell Pocket Diary, Frederick Haynes Newell Papers, Manuscript Collections, Library of Congress; Washington, Record Group Records of the Bureau of Reclamation (formerly the U.S. Reclamation Service), Project History Files (Entry and General Administrative and Project Records (Entry National Archives, Washington, In the latter file (Entry records related to the Salt River Project and the Roosevelt Dam are located in Boxes through The following is a general description of the types of records held in each of these 52 boxes.

These box numbers comprise the basis of the record retrieval system used by National Archives in accessing Entry #3 of Record Group Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands (Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company) Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Purchase and Acquisition of Lands Fuel Oil Hauling Consulting Engineer s Reports through Consulting Engineer s Reports and Authorities for Construction Cement Plant and Power Canal Contracts Contracts for Telephone Line, Cement, and Sluicing Tunnel Contracts for Roosevelt Dam Contracts for Roosevelt Dam Repayments (Lease of Water, Power, etc.) Repayments (Lease of Water, Power, etc.) Repayments (Lease of Water, Power, etc.) Repayments (Pacific Gas and Electric) Repayments (Utah Canal Company) Repayments (Lease of Water) Repayments ( Surplus Water Rentals) Lease of Power Water Rights (Hurley vs.

Abbott) THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Salt River Valley Water Users Association Salt River Valley Water Users Association Indian Land Irrigation Tunnel Lining Roosevelt Powerhouse Newspaper Clippings, Miscellaneous Roosevelt Road Cooperation with Settlers Board of Survey Board of Survey Exclusion and Inclusion of Lands in Project Land Classification Reclamation Extension Act Power Development Contracts for Electrical Equipment Operation of Cement Mill Operation and Maintenance Contract w/ SRVWUA Electrical Apparatus, and Mise. Contracts Contracts for Electrical Apparatus, and Jan.

Transmission Line Accident Contracts for Penstock and Valves Centrifugal Pumps and Transformers Transmission Lines, and Water Rights Applications Water Rights Applications, and Variable Head Turbine Turbine, AC Generator, Cave Creek Cutoff, etc. McQueen Well, Arizona Canal, Needle Valve Outlets Needle Valves Roosevelt Dam North Tunnel Books, Government Documents and Dissertations: Baker, Ira. A Treatise on Masonry Construction. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Brough, Charles H. Irrigation in Utah. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Brown, William A. The Portland Cement Industry. New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Creager, William P. Engineering for Masonry Dams. New York: John Wiley and Son, Courtney, Masonry Dams from Inception to Completion.

London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, Davis, Arthur Powell. Irrigation Works Constructed by the U.S. Government. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Davison, Stanley R. The Leadership of the Reclamation Movement, New York: Amo Press, Gray, David S. How to Measure Running Water. Grand Junction, Colorado: by the Author, THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Hall, William H. Irrigation Development: France, Italy and Spain. Sacramento: State Office, Harding, Water Rights for Irrigation: Principles and Procedures for Engineers. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, Hill, Edward E. (compiler). Records of the Bureau of Reclamation. Washington, The National Archives, Institute for Government Research. The U.S. Reclamation Service: Its History, Activities and Organization. New York: D.

Appleton & Co., Introcaso, David M. Roosevelt Power Canal. HAER AZ-4, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Coolidge Dam. HAER AZ-7, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Jackson, Donald C. A History of Water in the American West: John S. Eastwood and The Ultimate Dam dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Lee, Lawrence B. Reclaiming the American West: An Historiography and Guide. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Lesley, Robert W. History of the Portland Cement Industry in the United States. Chicago: International Trade Press Inc., Mann, Dean E. The Politics of Water in Arizona. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, McClintock, James H. Arizona: Vol 12.

Phoenix: Clark Publishing Company, Meade, Richard K. Portland Cement. Easton, Pa.: Chemical Publishing Company, Montcrieff, Scott. Irrigation in Southern Europe. London: E. & Spon, Report of the Massachusetts Board of Health Upon a Metropolitan Water Supply. Boston: Wright and Potter Printing Company, Robinson, Michael C. Water for the West: A History of the U.S. Reclamation Service. Chicago: Public Works Historical Society, Schuyler, James D. Reservoirs for Irrigation, Water Power and Domestic Water Supply. New York: John Wiley and Sons, THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Smith, Chester W. Construction of Masonry Dams. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Smith, Courtland L. The Salt River Project: A Case Study in Cultural Adaption to an Urbanizing Community.

Tucson: University of Arizona Press, Smith, Karen L. The Magnificent Experiment: Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, Smith, Norman. A History of Dams. New Jersey: Citadel Press, Thomas, George. The Development of Institutions Under Irrigation with Special Reference to Early Utah. New York: MacMillan Company, United States Congress, Senate. Special Committee on Irrigation. Report of the Special Committee of the U.S. Senate on the Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands. Congress, 1st Session, S. Report No. United States Department of Interior, Geological Survey. Irrigation Near Phoenix, Arizona, by Arthur P. Davis. Water Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 2. Washington, Government Printing Office, Water Storage on Salt River, Arizona, by Arthur P.

Davis. Water Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 73. Washington, Government Printing Office, United States Department of Interior, Reclamation Service. Annual Reports of the U.S. Reclamation Service. Washington, Government Printing Office, Wegmann, Edward. Design and Construction of Dams, 6th edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Zarbin, Earl. Roosevelt Dam: A History to Phoenix: Salt River Project, Journal Articles: A Government Cement Making Plant. Engineering News 51 (February 5, Arthur Pow ell Davis. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 100 Blanchard, Great Works of Irrigation in the West: Story of the Town of Roosevelt. Travel 12 (August THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Home-Making by the Government. National Geographic (April Davis, A.P.

Reclamation of the Arid West by the Federal Government. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 31 (January The Salt River Project. Engineering Record 57 (June 20, Frederick Haynes Newell. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 98 Ganoe, John T. The Beginnings of Irrigation in the United States. Mississippi Valley Historical Review 25 The Origin of a National Reclamation Policy. Mississippi Valley Historical Review 18 (June Government Cement Plant at Roosevelt Dam. Engineering News 54 (August 24, Hudanick, Andrew, Jr. George Hebard Maxwell: Reclamation s Militant Evangelist. Journal of the West 14 Introcaso, David M. Roosevelt Dam: A Photo Essay. The Journal of Arizona History 27 (Summer Richard E. and Teeples, Reid W.

Salt River Project in Effort to Fight Drought. Arizona Waterline (Spring Newell, Reclamation of the West. National Geographic 15 (January The U.S. Reclamation Service in the Arid West. Engineering News 50 (November 26, Power Development from Salt River Project in Arizona. Western Electrician 43 (August 15, The Roosevelt Masonry Dam on Salt River, Arizona. Engineering News 53 (January 12, The Salt River Project, U.S. Reclamation Service. Engineering Record 52 (October 14, Schnitter, The Evolution of the Arch Dam. Water Power and Dam Construction 28 (October and November, THEODORE ROOSEVELT DAM HAER No. AZ-6 (Page Secretary Ballinger and the United States Reclamation Service. Engineering News 63 (January 13, Smith, Chester.

The Construction of Roosevelt Dam: An Accounting of the Difficulties Encountered in Constructing a High Masonry Dam in Arizona. Engineering Record 62 (December 31, Progress on the Roosevelt Dam, Salt River Project, United States Reclamation Service. Engineering News 60 (September 10, Reinforced Concrete Pipe for Carrying Water Under Pressure. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 60 Smith, Karen L. The Campaign for Water in Central Arizona, Arizona and the West 23 (Summer William Horatio Sanders. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 88 Wisner, George Y., Discussion in Harrison Charles L. and Woodward, Silas. Lake Cheesman Dam and Reservoir. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 53 89- Zarbin, Earl. The Committee of Sixteen.

The Journal of Arizona History 2 (Summer