THE CREATION OF THE OASIS

In 1891, John C. Beatty, of California, another man who had imagination and foresight, became interested in the agricultural possibilities of the Colorado Desert, and formed a corporation under the name of “The CaliforniaIrrigation Company” for the purpose of carrying water into the Salton Sink from the Colorado River. He engaged as his technical adviserMr.C. R. Rockwood, who had been in the employ of the U. S. Reclamation Service, and who was regarded as “a shrewd and clever man and engineer.”[3]Mr.Rockwood made a careful survey of the Colorado delta, and found, as Lieutenant Bergland had found in an earlier survey, that between the river and the Sink there was a natural obstacle in the shape of a range of sand hills, which extended southward to the border line of Mexico. All natural overflows of the river, in prehistoric times, had been south of this barrier, andMr.Rockwood thought that it would be easier and more economical to follow the river’s ancient track than to put a conduit through these hills on the American side of the boundary. He proposed, therefore, to take water from the Colorado at Potholes, twelve miles above Yuma, carry it southward into Mexico, thence westward around the promontory of sand hills, and finally northward, across the line again, into southern California. This plan would involve the digging of a curving canal, forty or fifty miles in length, through Mexican territory; but it would obviate the necessity of cutting throughthe sand hills, and would perhaps enable the diggers to utilize, on the Mexican side, one of the dry barrancas, or ancient overflow channels, through which the Colorado discharged into the Sink in ages past.

Relief Map of Imperial Valley and Its Environment

Owing to the lack of public confidence in reclamation experiments,Mr.Beatty and his associates were not able to secure as much capital as they needed for their enterprise, and when the monetary panic of 1893 came, they found themselves involved in financial difficulties from which they could not extricate themselves. In the latter part of 1893 the California IrrigationCo.went into bankruptcy, and its maps, records, and engineering data were turned over toMr.Rockwood, in satisfaction of a judgment that he obtained in a suit for his unpaid salary.[4]

This seemed likely to put an end to the Salton Sink project; butMr.Rockwood, whose observations and work in the Colorado delta had given him unbounded faith in the ultimate success of the scheme, determined to undertake the promotion of it himself. After several years of endeavor, he succeeded in forming another organization which was incorporated in New Jersey, on the 21st of April 1896, underthe title of “The California Development Company.” For two years or more, this corporation tried to get permission from the Mexican Government to hold land, acquire rights, and dig an irrigating canal south of the boundary line; but the Mexican authorities refused to make any concessions, and it was finally found necessary to organize a subsidiary Mexican company. This corporation, which had a nominal capital of $62,000, was wholly owned and controlled by the California DevelopmentCo., but it operated under a Mexican charter.

As the financial resources of both companies were largely on paper, it then became necessary to secure real capital for the prosecution of the work, and this taskMr.Rockwood found extremely difficult. The proposed reclamation of an arid desert, where the thermometer went in summer to 120 in the shade, and where only two or three inches of rain fell in the course of the whole year, did not strike Eastern capitalists as a very promising venture, and most of them were disinclined to go into it. At last, however, in 1898,Mr.Rockwood secured a promise from certain capitalists in New York that they would advance the necessary funds; but two days before the papers were to be signed, the American battleship “Maine” was blown up inthe harbor of Havana, and this catastrophe, together with the war that followed it, put an end to the negotiations.

But the plan for the irrigation of the Salton Sink was not destined to fail. Among the men with whomDr.Wozencraft discussed it, in the early eighties, was George Chaffey, a civil engineer and irrigation expert of Los Angeles, who had had a good deal of experience in dealing with water problems, and who had already established successful irrigation systems in other parts of California.[5]Mr.Chaffey declined to go into it atDr.Wozencraft’s solicitation, not because he was afraid of the engineering difficulties involved, but because he thought thatthe torrid climate of the Sink would prevent colonization of it, even if the colonists were promised plenty of water. Most men, he reasoned, would be frightened by the prospect of having to do hard agricultural labor in shade temperatures of 110 to 120, and sun temperatures of perhaps 140 to 150. They simply would not go to a place where they would be subjected to such heat. Some years later, however,Mr.Chaffey carried through successfully an irrigation enterprise in the interior of Australia, where the temperature in the shade often reached a maximum of 125, but where, nevertheless, men were able to work without danger or serious inconvenience. This changed his view of irrigation in the Colorado Desert; and in 1900, when the California DevelopmentCo.seemed unable to get money enough for its project elsewhere,Mr.Chaffey offered to finance the undertaking and superintend the work. His proposals were accepted, and on the 3rd of April 1900, he became president of the company, and signed a contract by which he bound himself to construct canals, at a cost of not more than $150,000, which would carry to the Imperial Valley 400,000 acre-feet of water per annum.[6]

Mr.Chaffey and his associates modified theplan ofMr.Rockwood by taking water from the Colorado at Pilot Knob, nearly opposite Yuma, instead of at Potholes, twelve miles above. Putting in a head-gate there, they carried their main canal southward across the Mexican boundary, in a course nearly parallel with the river, until they reached the barranca, or dry overflow channel, known as the Alamo. As this ancient watercourse meandered westward in the direction of the Salton Sink, they were able to clear it out, enlarge it, and utilize most of it as a part of their irrigation system. Then, at a point about forty miles west of the Colorado, they carried their canal northward, across the boundary line again, into southern California. The work throughout was pushed with great energy, and on the 14th of May, 1901, a little more than a year afterMr.Chaffey assumed direction of affairs, water was turned in at the Pilot Knob head-gate, and the irrigation of the Salton Sink became a certainty, if not a fully accomplished fact.

As the California DevelopmentCo.was a water-selling company only, and had no proprietary interest in the lands to be irrigated, it was thought best to form another organization for the promotion of settlement; and in March 1901 the Imperial Land Company was incorporatedfor the purpose of attracting colonists, laying out town sites, and developing the Sink by bringing its lands into cultivation. ThenMr.Chaffey and the Land Company began an advertising campaign for the purpose of interesting the general public in the scheme; and in order not to frighten settlers and small investors by using in their advertisements and circulars the ominous words “desert” and “Sink,” they changed the name of the basin that they proposed to irrigate and called it “The Imperial Valley.” This title was evidently alluring, because it attracted small investors in all parts of the East, and particularly in New England. The Development Company’s stock was bought, for example, in places as far away from the Salton Sink as Boston, Concord, Hopedale and Waverley,Mass.; Barre and Montpelier,Vt.; Portsmouth,N. H.; Elgin,Ill.; Portland, Oregon; and Toronto, Canada.[7]Settlers soon began to come in; mutual water companies were organized; and before the 3rd of April 1902, whenMr.Chaffey severed his connection with the company, four hundred miles of irrigating ditches had been dug, and water was available for 100,000 acres or more of irrigable land.[8]

About this time, however, the future of the Valley was seriously imperilled by unfavorable reports concerning its soil. In the early part of 1902, the Bureau of Soils of the U. S. Agricultural Department published the results of a survey of the irrigable lands in the Colorado Desert, and reported that they were so impregnated with alkali that very few things could be successfully grown on them.

“One hundred and twenty five thousand acres of land” (the report said) “have already been taken up by prospective settlers, many of whom talk of planting crops which it will be absolutely impossible to grow. They must early find that it will be useless to attempt their growth.... No doubt the best thing to do is to raise such crops as sugar beet, sorghum, and date palm (if the climate will permit), that are suited to such alkali conditions, and abandon as worthless the lands which contain too much alkali to grow those crops.” (“Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils, U. S. Department of Agriculture,” 1901,p.587.)

This report, which was widely quoted and commented upon, acted as a serious check to the colonization of the Valley; and if it had been made two or three years earlier, it might have been fatal to the whole irrigation project. Fortunately, however, the crops raised by a fewfarmers who had already been cultivating this “alkali impregnated” land proved conclusively that the report of the analysis of the soil made by the Government experts was unduly pessimistic, if not wholly erroneous. Almost everything that was trieddidgrow, in spite of expert predictions, and the practical experience of men on the ground gradually revived public confidence in the productiveness of the irrigated lands. The colonization and development of the Valley then proceeded with great rapidity. The two thousand settlers on the ground at the end of 1902 increased to seven thousand in 1903 and to more than ten thousand in 1904. A branch of the Southern Pacific railroad was built through the Valley from Imperial Junction to Calexico and Mexicali; town sites were laid out in six or seven different places; the water system was extended by the digging of nearly four hundred additional miles of irrigating ditches and canals; and before the 1st of January 1905, one hundred and twenty thousand acres of reclaimed land were actually under cultivation, while two hundred thousand acres more had been covered by water stock.

Colorado Delta and Imperial Valley

The observed fertility of the soil completely discredited the reports of the Government experts, and more than justified the predictionmade by Professor Blake half a century before that when the Sink should be supplied with water, it would produce “crops of almost any kind.” Grapes, melons and garden vegetables matured in the Valley earlier than in any other part of California; barley was a profitable crop; alfalfa could be cut five or six times a year; and the finest quality of long-staple Egyptian cotton yielded more than a bale (500 pounds) to the acre. Experiments proved also that the climate and soil were well adapted to the culture of grapes, grapefruit, oranges, lemons, olives, figs, dates, pomegranates, apricots, peaches and pears.

The fear that men would not be willing or able to do hard work in the hot climate of the valley proved to be wholly groundless. Great heat is not necessarily weakening or prostrating unless it is accompanied with great humidity, and the air of the Valley is at all seasons extremely dry. In a discussion of this subject,Mr.H. T. Cory, formerly chief engineer of the California DevelopmentCo., says:

“The climate of the region, with its long, hot, dry summers, is peculiarly favorable to agricultural luxuriance. Thus it is that here the very earliest grapes, fruits and vegetables are produced for the United States market, withthe consequent advantage of commanding the highest prices. This is notably true of the Imperial Valley cantaloupe, now famous all over this country, and of the early grapes, asparagus etc. On account of the very low humidity and gentle winds which blow most of the time in hot weather, the sensible temperature—which is indicated by the wet-bulb thermometer readings and gives the measure of heat felt by the human body—is much less than the actual temperature as measured by the dry bulb. It is conservative to say that a temperature of 110 in Imperial Valley is not more uncomfortable than 95 in Los Angeles, or 85 in the more humid sections of the Eastern States. Furthermore the nights are always cool, the low humidity resulting in rapid and large daily temperature variations.”

Under these favoring conditions of soil and climate, it seemed almost certain, in 1904, that the Imperial Valley would have a great and prosperous future; but no forecast in that region is trustworthy unless it takes into account the irrigating agency, as well as the climate and the soil. The Colorado River created the Salton Sink, and made fertile the Imperial Valley; but it could destroy, as well as create; and in 1904 it showed itself in a new aspect and threatened the Valley with a terrible calamity.

A Part of the Colorado River Watershed. The Grand Cañon

FOOTNOTES:[3]Mr.H. T. Cory.[4]Mr.Cory.[5]In his “Imperial Valley and Salton Sink,”Mr.H. T. Cory, formerly chief engineer of the California DevelopmentCo., refers toMr.Chaffey in the following words:“The writer takes pleasure in expressing appreciation of the standing ofMr.George M. Chaffey in irrigation work in the West. The Ontario Colony he founded in 1883 was selected ten years later as a model for the irrigation exhibit at the World’s Exposition, and in his work at Mildura, Australia, he designed, had built in England, and installed, the first centrifugal pumps on the same shaft with a total capacity of 320 cubic feet per second lifted 20 feet. He is at present, among other things, head of the magnificent water system irrigating 10,000 acres of citrus lands near Whittier, California, including the highest priced agricultural lands in California ($5,000 per acre). Furthermore he is a man of affairs, and of large means which he acquired principally in irrigation enterprises and banking.”[6]Andrew M. Chaffey.[7]List of stockholders inSou.Pac.office,N. Y.[8]Andrew M. Chaffey.

[3]Mr.H. T. Cory.

[4]Mr.Cory.

[5]In his “Imperial Valley and Salton Sink,”Mr.H. T. Cory, formerly chief engineer of the California DevelopmentCo., refers toMr.Chaffey in the following words:“The writer takes pleasure in expressing appreciation of the standing ofMr.George M. Chaffey in irrigation work in the West. The Ontario Colony he founded in 1883 was selected ten years later as a model for the irrigation exhibit at the World’s Exposition, and in his work at Mildura, Australia, he designed, had built in England, and installed, the first centrifugal pumps on the same shaft with a total capacity of 320 cubic feet per second lifted 20 feet. He is at present, among other things, head of the magnificent water system irrigating 10,000 acres of citrus lands near Whittier, California, including the highest priced agricultural lands in California ($5,000 per acre). Furthermore he is a man of affairs, and of large means which he acquired principally in irrigation enterprises and banking.”

[5]In his “Imperial Valley and Salton Sink,”Mr.H. T. Cory, formerly chief engineer of the California DevelopmentCo., refers toMr.Chaffey in the following words:

“The writer takes pleasure in expressing appreciation of the standing ofMr.George M. Chaffey in irrigation work in the West. The Ontario Colony he founded in 1883 was selected ten years later as a model for the irrigation exhibit at the World’s Exposition, and in his work at Mildura, Australia, he designed, had built in England, and installed, the first centrifugal pumps on the same shaft with a total capacity of 320 cubic feet per second lifted 20 feet. He is at present, among other things, head of the magnificent water system irrigating 10,000 acres of citrus lands near Whittier, California, including the highest priced agricultural lands in California ($5,000 per acre). Furthermore he is a man of affairs, and of large means which he acquired principally in irrigation enterprises and banking.”

[6]Andrew M. Chaffey.

[7]List of stockholders inSou.Pac.office,N. Y.

[8]Andrew M. Chaffey.

Back to Index Next