Elephant Butte Reservoir, Elephant Butte, Sierra County, NM. Surveyed as HAER NM-20, with a 717-word written history.
“With a capacity of over 2 million acre-feet, the Elephant Butte Reservoir is one of the largest water storage structures in the Southwest and is capable of holding the torrential flood waters that occur at regular intervals on the middle Rio Grande.”
Written record, HAER NM-20 survey. Machine-read text.
Surveyed by the federal HAER program as HAER NM-20 · the record runs 717 words · one of 2 surveyed structures published for this county.
Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-20. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.
Elephant Butte, Sierra County, New Mexico Dates of Construction: Engineers: Arthur P. Davis, Chief Engineer of the U.S. Reclamation Service Louis C. Hill, Engineer, superintendent of designs E.H. Baldwin, Resident Engineer, in charge of construction Original Owner, Use: U.S. Reclamation Service, irrigation, power, flood control Current Owner, Use: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, irrigation of the middle Rio Grande Valley
Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-20. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.
With a capacity of over 2 million acre-feet, the Elephant Butte Reservoir is one of the largest water storage structures in the Southwest and is capable of holding the torrential flood waters that occur at regular intervals on the middle Rio Grande. Description: The reservoir is on the Rio Grande east of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and is formed by the Elephant Butte Dam. The masonry, gravity dam measures long and high. It is built of cyclopean concrete and stone embedded in concrete. History: The need for a large storage reservoir on the Rio Grande in the El Paso area was realized in the late due to floods in the spring and insufficient flow for irrigation during the summer.
A large reservoir would provide flood control and a dependable supply of water for parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico. A site just above El Paso was first considered, but studies showed that a larger and deeper site was needed. A canyon about 100 miles above El Paso was selected as the location that became known as Elephant Butte Reservoir because of the large volcanic formation nearby resembling an elephant. Design work began in the year of the passage of the Reclamation Act. The gravity dam was built of cyclopean concrete made on site with about 25 percent of the volume being large stones quarried nearby. It was one of the most massive engineering structures completed in the early ELEPHANT BUTTE RESERVOIR HAER No. (Page 2) with a total of cubic yards.
The concrete was poured from three cableways spanning the canyon, each having a diameter of 2- 1 /4" and an 8-ton capacity. A flume with a cubic feet/second capacity diverted the Rio Grande during construction of the dam. It was completed in at a cost of about $5 million.
Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-20. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.
Boughton, International Waters Allocated under Treaty with Mexico. Engineering News-Record, CXXXIV, no. 3 (January 25, Clayton, Frank B. United States Mexican Water Treaty; Jurisdiction of the International Boundary and Water Commission and its National Section. The Department of State Bulletin XII, no. 291 (January 21, Davis, Arthur Powell. Irrigation Works Constructed by the United States Government. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Elephant Butte Dam: The Greatest Irrigation Enterprise in America. Scientific American CXI The Elephant Butte Dam. The Greatest Irrigation Storage Enterprise in the World. Scientific American Supplement LXXXII, no. (July 15, 33, 37. Forest, Newton. The Rio Grande Irrigation Project. The Largest Reservoir in the World. Scientific American Supplement no.
(August 13, 97, Hall, Rio Grande Project. In Proceedings of Second Conference of Engineers of the Reclamation Service. U.S. Geological Survey, Water-Supply Paper No. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, Irrigation on a Big Scale. Independent LXXXIV, no. (November 8, Lee, Willis T. Water Resources of the Rio Grande Valley and Their Development. U.S. Geological Survey, Water-Supply Paper No. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, A New Proposal for a Dam Across the Rio Grande, Near El Paso, Texas. Engineering News LII, no. 26 (December 29, Stevens, Future of Lake Mead and Elephant Butte Reservoir. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers CXI Wegmann, Edward. The Design and Construction of Dams. 8th ed.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ELEPHANT BUTTE RESERVOIR HAER No. (Page 3) Historians: Steve Rae and T. Lindsay Baker, September 22, and January 10,
Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-20. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.
The Elephant Butte Reservoir was inventoried for the Historic American Engineering Record as part of the Southwest Water Resources Project, a joint project with the Texas Tech Water Resources Center. The survey was subsequently published as Water for the Southwest: Historical Survey and Guide to Historic Sites by the American Society of Civil Engineers in September
| Elephant Butte, New Mexico | The place record: every map, photograph and survey of this town. |
| Sierra County, New Mexico | 68 topographic sheets across the county. |
| Library of Congress record | The original filed report as the survey filed it. |
The federal survey recorded these other structures elsewhere in Sierra County. These are the other structures they measured and filed a report on, longest report first.
| Sheet | Structure | Survey | Report |
|---|---|---|---|
| Town of Hillsboro | HABS NM,26-HILLSB,1- | 625 words |
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