Northern Canal, Starts at the Rio Hondo and runs south in Chaves County, Roswell

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-23. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Starts at the Rio Hondo and runs south in Chaves County, Roswell vicinity, Chaves County, New Mexico Dates of Construction: Builders: Pecos Valley Irrigation and Investment Company Original Owner, Use: Pecos Valley Irrigation and Investment Company, irrigation Current Owner, Use: Private owner, irrigation

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-23. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Northern Canal was the first large irrigation project in the Roswell, New Mexico, area, and the first large cooperative irrigation effort in the Pecos River basin. Description: The flow of the Rio Hondo is carried by a channel to the old wooden headgates of the Northern Canal. The water enters the canal at this point and flows west within 20' of the rear of the Pat Garrett farmhouse.1 The canal then turns south and continues 30 to 40 miles to the Hagerman area. This canal is also known as the Hagerman Canal as a result. The canal is used for irrigation in the Pecos Valley between Roswell and Hagerman, New Mexico. The wooden headgates are still in use but the rest of the system has been altered through maintenance and improvement throughout the years.

History: The Pecos Valley Irrigation and Investment Company built the Northern Canal and later projects like Lake Avalon and Lake McMillan near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It was dug during by workmen using plows to outline the area to be dug and to remove the sod. As soon as the sod was removed, a large machine (somewhat like a ditcher or grader) pulled by sixteen to twenty horses or mules was put to work in the area previously plowed over. Then scrapers or slips, two and four horse size, moved loose dirt and shaped the canal. Most of the dirt was thrown on the 1 Pat Garrett was the sheriff who killed Billy the Kid in Fort Sumter in and was a stockholder in the Pecos Valley Irrigation and Investment Company. NORTHERN CANAL HAER No.

(Page 2) east or down side of the canal and made a kind of dam.2 By the canal had reached the Feliz River, a distance of 25 miles, and a small diversion dam constructed on the Hondo River east of Roswell. The dam was located below the points where the Berrendo and North Spring rivers join the Hondo. No effort was made to store the water since these spring- fed rivers were very reliable.

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-23. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Cummings, Report of the Geography, Topography, and Geology of the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains with Notes on the Geology of the Country West of the Plains. In Third Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Texas, Austin: Henry Hutchings, State Printer, Howell, The Pecos Valley Irrigation System. Engineering News XXXVI, no. 12 (September 17, Lingle, Robert T. and Dee Linford. The Pecos River Commission of New Mexico and Texas. Santa Fe: Rydal Press, Lipsey, John J. The Lives of James John Hagerman. Denver: Golden Bell Press, Shinkle, James D. Fifty Years of Roswell History Roswell, NM: Hall-Poorbaugh Press, Roswell, New Mexico. Interview by field team, June 25, Wilson, Herbert M. Pecos Valley Canals. Engineering News XXVI, no. 42 (October 17, Historians: Steve Rae and T.

Lindsay Baker, June and October 21,

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NM-23. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Northern Canal 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 2 James D. Shinkle, Fifty Years of Roswell History (Roswell, NM: Hall-Poorbaugh Press,