Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation System, Building No. 5 (House), 30641 Wellton-Mohawk Drive, Wellton

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER AZ-68-K. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Wellton-Mohawk Drive, Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District (WMIDD) administrative complex, Wellton, Yuma County, Arizona. Building 5 is 1 of 22 residential buildings arranged in a horseshoe-shaped plan on Wellton-Mohawk Drive, located approximately one-half mile north of Interstate 8. The building lies within the N 1h of the NE 1/4 of Section 4, Township 9 South, Range 18 West, on the Wellton Mesa, Arizona, 7.5-minute U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) quadrangle (photorevised Universal Transverse Mercator Coordinates: Zone 11, N E

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER AZ-68-K. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Building 5, as part of the former Wellton Government Camp, is associated with the Wellton-Mohawk Division of the Gila Project. Construction of the Wellton- Mohawk irrigation system began in and was essentially completed in With its completion, Colorado River water was delivered to previously arid lands in the lower Gila River valley. Concomitant to construction of the irrigation tem, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) built Wellton Government Camp to provide office space and housing for em- ployees engaged in fieldwork associated with the irrigation project. Today, the headquarters of the WMIDD stand on the site of the camp offices, and the houses serve as residences for WMIDD employees.

The WMIDD administrative com- plex is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as a district under Criteria a and c (Thompson and Sterner The residential build- ings have retained their integrity and contribute to the significance of the headquarters complex. Report Prepared by: Scott Thompson, Senior Historian Statistical Research, Inc. Tucson, Arizona Date: September Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation System, Building 5 (House) HAER No. AZ-68-K (page 2)

Physical History

See AZ-68-G for information pertaining to the physical history of the former Wellton Government Camp. II. BUILDING

Description

Building 5 (six-room residence, Type 6B) is a one-story, ranch-style, wood-frame house with a shingled, side-gabled roof; stucco exterior; steel-sash casement windows; and a concrete-slab foundation. There is no basement. The overall dimensions are x with a wing on the south (rear) facade that mea- sures x The wing has an end-gable roof. All of the gable ends are covered with horizontal wood siding and incorporate a louvered air vent. The interior space is approximately square feet. The north (front) facade has an off-center entrance with a concrete sill covered by a simple porch hood. A multipane, metal-sash casement picture window at the east corner wraps around to the east facade. There are 14 multipane, metal-sash, casement windows in use on the building's facades.

The south (rear) facade has an off-center entrance with a concrete sill leading into a 120-square-foot utility room that ex- tends from the primary building mass. As originally constructed, the west gable end had ductwork for receiving an elevated evaporative-cooling unit. The evaporative-cooling unit has since been replaced by a ground-mounted air-conditioning unit and ductwork. The front entrance is covered by a metal security-screen door, and an aluminum-frame screen door covers the entrance at the rear of the house. Building 5 has a porch addition on the southwest facade that consists of a concrete pad and a porch covering supported by three wood columns. The concrete pad measures 21 x The porch covering has a low pitch and is covered with roll-roofing material.

The addi- tion is open on the sides. On December 30, the Adams Construction Company was awarded a contract for remodeling some of the buildings at the camp (Pfaff Presumably, the porch addition was performed under this contract. Six rooms make up the Type 6B residence: a living room, a dining room, three bedrooms, and a utility room. In addition, there is a kitchen and bath. The building has approximately square feet of living space. Documentation for this report did not include visual inspection of the building's interior. Plan drawings for the permanent house, Type 6B, indicate the kitchen and bathroom floors were covered with asphalt tile and that the remaining interior floor surfaces consisted of finished concrete.

The interior ceilings and walls were plastered (Reclamation Construction costs for this house were (Pfaff The current condition of the building's exterior is good. Portions of the exterior walls have been patched with stucco. Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation System, Building 5 (House) HAER No. AZ-68-K (page 3) III. REFERENCES CITED Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) Wellton Government Camp, six-room residence Type 6B. Drawing U.S. De- partment of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Yuma, Arizona. Drawing on file, Record Group Project Reports, Box National Archives and Records Admin- istration, Rocky Mountain Region, Denver. Pfaff, Christine U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region: Historic Building Reconnaissance Survey. U.S.

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Technical Services Center, Denver. Thompson, Scott, and Matthew A. Sterner Inventory and Documentation of the Irrigation System of the Wellton-Mohawk Division of the Gila Project. Technical Report Statistical Research, Tucson.