From the muddy waters of the Little Colorado River we jump into the future. Those pioneers who struggled to cross the big Colorado at Lee's Ferry and Pearce's Ferry could little imagine that within the lifetime of their children, the mighty Colorado would be tamed by one of the largest engineering feats to that date undertaken in the history of the world. Here is the construction of Boulder (now Hoover) Dam, the largest dam of its kind at the time it was built:
This is an amazing story. Be sure and watch for the comparative size of the people to the huge structures built for the dam. Although Lake Mead is not used for irrigation directly, many more dams would dot the Southwestern landscape before the pioneers established reliable water and power supplies.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Living without rain
Depending on the definition, Arizona has as many as five climate zones. See Map. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences of the University of Arizona, Cooperative Extension Service defines the climate zones as follows:
Fortunately, the early settlers of Arizona saw the agricultural potential of the area despite its natural desert appearance. That potential was only realized as a result of extensive irrigation activities. Here is an animated map showing how little rainfall the state receives over a year. You can also see from the map above (click for enlarged image) that almost all of the state receives less than ten inches of rain a year. By definition, all of that area with low rainfall is considered to be desert.
The area of northern Arizona where the early Mormon settlers first set up camp, was as much of a desert as the rest of the state. Although the area falls in the part of the State designated as Cool Plateau Highlands, the name is anything but descriptive of the area. It is a flat, mostly treeless sandy desert. Summer temperatures can reach well over 100 degree F. Winter temperatures sometimes drop to almost 20 degrees below zero. The only water in the area comes from intermittent streams like the Little Colorado River. The river can be a raging torrent in the Spring and completely dry in the Summer. Without supplemental water from a very few mountain streams that reached the desert, the pioneers could not have survived.
Truly, there are few places in the world less likely to host an agricultural community than the high plateau of Arizona along the Little Colorado River. You have to understand both the religion and the culture of these people to even begin to understand why they came and even more, why they stayed.
Zone | Title | Elevation (in feet) |
| 1 | 6,000-8,000 | |
| 2 | 4,000-6,000 | |
| 3 | 3,500-5,000 | |
| 4 | 2,000-4,000 | |
| 5 | 1,000-2,000 |
Fortunately, the early settlers of Arizona saw the agricultural potential of the area despite its natural desert appearance. That potential was only realized as a result of extensive irrigation activities. Here is an animated map showing how little rainfall the state receives over a year. You can also see from the map above (click for enlarged image) that almost all of the state receives less than ten inches of rain a year. By definition, all of that area with low rainfall is considered to be desert.
The area of northern Arizona where the early Mormon settlers first set up camp, was as much of a desert as the rest of the state. Although the area falls in the part of the State designated as Cool Plateau Highlands, the name is anything but descriptive of the area. It is a flat, mostly treeless sandy desert. Summer temperatures can reach well over 100 degree F. Winter temperatures sometimes drop to almost 20 degrees below zero. The only water in the area comes from intermittent streams like the Little Colorado River. The river can be a raging torrent in the Spring and completely dry in the Summer. Without supplemental water from a very few mountain streams that reached the desert, the pioneers could not have survived.
Truly, there are few places in the world less likely to host an agricultural community than the high plateau of Arizona along the Little Colorado River. You have to understand both the religion and the culture of these people to even begin to understand why they came and even more, why they stayed.
Monday, August 24, 2009
A very nasty muddy stream
The earliest Mormon settlers into Arizona in 1876 found the Little Colorado River to be "like a running stream of mud of reddish color." (Quoted from John A. Blythe in Tanner, George S., and J. Morris Richards. Colonization on the Little Colorado: The Joseph City Region. Flagstaff: Northland Press, 1977, page 32). Joseph H. Richards used the words in the title to this post to describe the river. See Tanner, page 33. For the settlers camped on the banks of this unpredictable stream, they would depend on the river for almost all of their water for forty years.
I drank the water from the Little Colorado River off and on for most of my earlier years and I can still distinctly remember the muddy taste of the water. The early journals describe filling large containers with the water and letting it settle over night only to find only an inch or so of clear water in the top of the barrel or kettle. Although the River enters the world as a clear, cold mountain stream, by the time it crosses the desert plateau, it is salty and bad tasting.
The main problem with the River however, was its unpredictability. In the Spring and early Summer it would flood and wash away the diversion dams. Within a few weeks the river bed could be bone dry. When the pioneers arrived on the river bank and established the four small settlements that are today combined in Joseph City, they began immediately to plow and plant crops. Just a few days later they began building a diversion dam on the river to turn the water into ditches to irrigate the crops. In that very first year, they planted a total of fifty acres or wheat, sixty acres of corn, and potatoes, melons and gardens. In July, a summer thunderstorm flooded the river and washed out that first dam. Without the water in the ditches most of the crops failed. See Tanner, page 32.
One early settler complained that they had no salt for their bread, but that the river water took care of the problem.
That first dam was only the beginning. Although many of the first settlers abandoned the mission and went back to Utah, those that stayed and those that came in later years, built and rebuilt the dams year after year from 1876 to 1923 when the last and most stable dam was finally constructed.
I drank the water from the Little Colorado River off and on for most of my earlier years and I can still distinctly remember the muddy taste of the water. The early journals describe filling large containers with the water and letting it settle over night only to find only an inch or so of clear water in the top of the barrel or kettle. Although the River enters the world as a clear, cold mountain stream, by the time it crosses the desert plateau, it is salty and bad tasting.
The main problem with the River however, was its unpredictability. In the Spring and early Summer it would flood and wash away the diversion dams. Within a few weeks the river bed could be bone dry. When the pioneers arrived on the river bank and established the four small settlements that are today combined in Joseph City, they began immediately to plow and plant crops. Just a few days later they began building a diversion dam on the river to turn the water into ditches to irrigate the crops. In that very first year, they planted a total of fifty acres or wheat, sixty acres of corn, and potatoes, melons and gardens. In July, a summer thunderstorm flooded the river and washed out that first dam. Without the water in the ditches most of the crops failed. See Tanner, page 32.
One early settler complained that they had no salt for their bread, but that the river water took care of the problem.
That first dam was only the beginning. Although many of the first settlers abandoned the mission and went back to Utah, those that stayed and those that came in later years, built and rebuilt the dams year after year from 1876 to 1923 when the last and most stable dam was finally constructed.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Irrigation, the life blood of the West
One of the most amazing things I remember seeing as a child, was when I first traveled out of the state of Arizona and realized that the farms were growing crops just using the rain that fell out of the sky. I still have a hard time believing that it is possible for a plant, other than a native desert plant, like a fruit tree or a vegetable, to grow without supplemental water from a sprinkler or a ditch.
We have always grown a garden, now for more than forty years, and each and every plant depended entirely on the water we provided from a hose on the side of the house. If we missed even one watering session, we risked losing the whole garden. If we left town, we had to arrange for someone to come over and water the garden, a common neighborhood task.
Modern irrigation can involve hugely expensive pumps and equipment, with automated sprinkler systems running in gigantic circles. But along side these computer operated high-tech systems, there are still the old faithful irrigation ditch with its gravity fed watering system.
The whole idea is to block a river or stream with a diversion dam at a level above the place where the water is needed. The water is then conducted downhill in a series of canals and ditches passing through diversion gates, until it finally gets to the field where it is to be used. I learned very early in life that the water does not run from the feeder ditch into the rows, but is siphoned in by large plastic pipes. When doing the irrigation, you put a hand over the end of the pipe and fill it with water from the ditch by dunking it in the water. When the pipe is full of water, you drop the pipe over the ditch bank and the weight of the water starts a siphoning action draining water through the pipe to the row in the field. It is very hard work and fortunately, I didn't have to irrigate too many times using siphons. Some people do that almost every day of their lives.
But, before there was plastic pipe, you had to build little feeder ditches to each row and stand there and make sure the water got to each row and then shovel like crazy before the water flooded over the rows and washed away the plants.
Irrigation ditches were a subject of constant maintenance. The ditch banks would get soft from the water and eventually leak. Small leaks always became larger leaks. I was already through with field irrigation by the time someone thought about lining a ditch with cement.
By the way, I didn't mention that the water was stored in huge reservoirs and delivered to the fields in large canals or feeder ditches. During the growing season the water runs 24/7 and you get your irrigation turn by virtue of the number of water shares you own on a rotating basis. So, guess what? Your water turn can come any day of the week, including Sundays and holidays and can be at any time, 2:00 am, 3:00 am. You get the picture. Almost nothing, not even funerals or weddings will interfere with a water turn. I can't tell you how much fun it is to get up at 2:00 am and try and find the water head and lead the water down to your field or lot. It is a lot of work trying to turn a ditch full of water down a side ditch and then dam off the main ditch so the water will run down your feeder ditch.
Irrigation from a ditch turns the whole field into a swamp. That is why it is sometimes called flood irrigation. I am intimately acquainted with a variety of types of mud in Arizona. Most people have a set of boots or shoes left by door or in a shed specifically dedicated to irrigation.
It is somehow comforting however, to realize that right now, somewhere in Arizona dozens, perhaps hundreds of people are standing out in the heat, rain or shine, irrigating fields.
We have always grown a garden, now for more than forty years, and each and every plant depended entirely on the water we provided from a hose on the side of the house. If we missed even one watering session, we risked losing the whole garden. If we left town, we had to arrange for someone to come over and water the garden, a common neighborhood task.
Modern irrigation can involve hugely expensive pumps and equipment, with automated sprinkler systems running in gigantic circles. But along side these computer operated high-tech systems, there are still the old faithful irrigation ditch with its gravity fed watering system.
The whole idea is to block a river or stream with a diversion dam at a level above the place where the water is needed. The water is then conducted downhill in a series of canals and ditches passing through diversion gates, until it finally gets to the field where it is to be used. I learned very early in life that the water does not run from the feeder ditch into the rows, but is siphoned in by large plastic pipes. When doing the irrigation, you put a hand over the end of the pipe and fill it with water from the ditch by dunking it in the water. When the pipe is full of water, you drop the pipe over the ditch bank and the weight of the water starts a siphoning action draining water through the pipe to the row in the field. It is very hard work and fortunately, I didn't have to irrigate too many times using siphons. Some people do that almost every day of their lives.
But, before there was plastic pipe, you had to build little feeder ditches to each row and stand there and make sure the water got to each row and then shovel like crazy before the water flooded over the rows and washed away the plants.
Irrigation ditches were a subject of constant maintenance. The ditch banks would get soft from the water and eventually leak. Small leaks always became larger leaks. I was already through with field irrigation by the time someone thought about lining a ditch with cement.
By the way, I didn't mention that the water was stored in huge reservoirs and delivered to the fields in large canals or feeder ditches. During the growing season the water runs 24/7 and you get your irrigation turn by virtue of the number of water shares you own on a rotating basis. So, guess what? Your water turn can come any day of the week, including Sundays and holidays and can be at any time, 2:00 am, 3:00 am. You get the picture. Almost nothing, not even funerals or weddings will interfere with a water turn. I can't tell you how much fun it is to get up at 2:00 am and try and find the water head and lead the water down to your field or lot. It is a lot of work trying to turn a ditch full of water down a side ditch and then dam off the main ditch so the water will run down your feeder ditch.
Irrigation from a ditch turns the whole field into a swamp. That is why it is sometimes called flood irrigation. I am intimately acquainted with a variety of types of mud in Arizona. Most people have a set of boots or shoes left by door or in a shed specifically dedicated to irrigation.
It is somehow comforting however, to realize that right now, somewhere in Arizona dozens, perhaps hundreds of people are standing out in the heat, rain or shine, irrigating fields.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Early morning recumbent ride instead of walking
Many times a week for the past few years we ride our Catrike recumbent trikes on various routes through Mesa, Arizona. Usually, we go for about an hour or so and ride about seven or eight miles. Here is a Web album of one of the rides we took this morning.
I plan to photo the other rides too.
 |
| Bike Ride.081409 |
I plan to photo the other rides too.
Comment on Ceremonial Porpoises
One of my readers attributed shopping carts in the canal to Ceremonial Porpoises. I have never seen a porpoise in the canal, but, of course, that does not mean that they do not live there. However, they might have a hard time stealing shopping carts without any legs to stand on. Just like this attribution has no legs to stand on.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Fabled Water Bottle Burial Ground
We set out on our search for the fabled Water Bottle Burial Ground reportedly located along the canal in Mesa. It was an unusually wet and stormy day, with lowering clouds and rain showers. The canal bank was deserted, probably because of the rain. It rains so infrequently that people freak out when they think about getting wet and stay indoors.
Our first indication of civilization as we know it, was the high protective screen on the bridge over the canal. I speculate that it is to keep despondent people from jumping from the bridge and drowning in the canal. Notice that the fence extends about four feet from the edge of the bridge. One morning someone had driven their car into the canal and it was under this bridge. Driving into the canal is a regular occurrence in Mesa and the Salt River Valley.
Next we see a walking lady making her way down the canal bank. The Water Bottle Burial Ground is invisible to those who are not in tuned with the spirit of the canal.
There it was, the Burial Ground. I conjecture that future generations will find layers of plastic that they will mine for the hydrocarbons. 
The banks of the canals are coated with fabulous shells. It is easy to resist picking them up however, since you do not want any extra weight so you can survive the fierce summer heat.
Every so often, about every 100 yards, the Salt River Project has placed lovely yellow steps in the canal bank. If you fall into the canal and can swim, you can swim to one of these steps and get out of the canal. If you can't swim, you need to fall into the canal right next to the stairs.
Walking lady is still walking.
Canals banks, power lines, retention basins, irrigation ditches, all sorts of things to see along the canals.
Walking lady reaching her goal of a walk along the canal.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Walking the canal bank
Irrigation ditches and canals are a basic fact of life in the Arizona desert. From the times of the ancient Hohokam Indians to the present, water has been running through our neighborhoods. Walking the canals is an almost daily routine. There are usually wide dirt roads on either side of the canals and there is no vehicular traffic. You can watch the birds, ducks, pigeons, doves and a few humming birds fly over or swim in the canal water. You can also see the fish. There are thousands of huge fish in the bigger canals. I understand that these fish include catfish, bass, trout and the white amur. Another surprising thing is that the sides of the canal roads are partially paved with shells. The bottom of the canals are alive with mollusks.
In the summer in the early morning at 6:00 am it is almost 100 degrees. We walk down to the canal and along the canal road. We say hello to the running bag lady. We watch the running blubber man. We are passed by the running fru-fru lady. All the usual characters are there, including us, I presume. We are probably known as the slow older couple walkers. A lot of the walkers and runners have dogs. Evidence of their passage lines the canal road.
The raised roads next to the canals give walkers and bike riders a distinct perspective -- the backyards and rear lots of homes and businesses. In a lot of cases, the view is not good. It is amazing the amount of trash some people have in their rear yards. For the most part, the trash is kept far away from the canals however, there is seldom so much as a piece of paper along the canals. One exception is water bottles. They seem to pile up in drifts. You also have to ignore the huge amount of dog droppings, but keeping a positive attitude, you can enjoy your walk.
Now, why did I switch from talking about Arizona pioneers to talking about canals? That is simple, the pioneers would never have succeeded in settling this huge desert without water and they got water from canals coming from rivers. In the modern day there is a disconnect, the Central Arizona Project canal that carries water from the Colorado River across the state to somewhere near Tucson. But in the early days canals were a fact of life in Arizona, so much so, that when I go elsewhere and there are no canals or irrigation systems I wonder how the plants live. So it is on to the next chapter in pioneering Arizona, the water projects.
In the summer in the early morning at 6:00 am it is almost 100 degrees. We walk down to the canal and along the canal road. We say hello to the running bag lady. We watch the running blubber man. We are passed by the running fru-fru lady. All the usual characters are there, including us, I presume. We are probably known as the slow older couple walkers. A lot of the walkers and runners have dogs. Evidence of their passage lines the canal road.
The raised roads next to the canals give walkers and bike riders a distinct perspective -- the backyards and rear lots of homes and businesses. In a lot of cases, the view is not good. It is amazing the amount of trash some people have in their rear yards. For the most part, the trash is kept far away from the canals however, there is seldom so much as a piece of paper along the canals. One exception is water bottles. They seem to pile up in drifts. You also have to ignore the huge amount of dog droppings, but keeping a positive attitude, you can enjoy your walk.
Now, why did I switch from talking about Arizona pioneers to talking about canals? That is simple, the pioneers would never have succeeded in settling this huge desert without water and they got water from canals coming from rivers. In the modern day there is a disconnect, the Central Arizona Project canal that carries water from the Colorado River across the state to somewhere near Tucson. But in the early days canals were a fact of life in Arizona, so much so, that when I go elsewhere and there are no canals or irrigation systems I wonder how the plants live. So it is on to the next chapter in pioneering Arizona, the water projects.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Henry Martin Tanner -- a noble pioneer
My great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner, died on March 21, 1935 at the age of 82 years in Gilbert, Arizona. He was the father of seventeen children and seventy-eight grandchildren. At the time of his death, he had seventeen great-grandchildren. His grandchildren are almost all dead by now and his great-grandchildren are all at or approaching the traditional retirement age of 65. There is no way to estimate the number of his great-great-grandchildren or their descendants but the Sydney Tanner book (see reference below) estimated his descendants at 1025 in 1982. That number has increased considerably since then because my wife and I alone, currently have twenty-eight grandchildren. It is very common for me to encounter one of his descendants, my cousins in Arizona and elsewhere.
It is impossible to measure the impact that this one family has had on the history of the Southwest. If you thought that pioneers had to have been hard characters, Henry Tanner was the exception. George A. Parkinson, Henry's brother-in-law wrote to Henry's son George S. Tanner, in 1947, and said, "George, in regard to my appraisal of your father, words would fail me to give you my estimate of that wonderful soul. I think if ever a child of God will enter the Celestial Kingdom of God he will. Never in my life have I known a sweeter, purer person than he. I don't believe an unclean thought ever entered his mind. A lover of the beautiful things of life like flowers, and saying sweet things. God bless his memory. What more can I say of him?"
Again from George S. Tanner. "[Henry Tanner] was a great favorite with children of all ages. His quiet gentle ways quickly won them over and no one could compete with him for the affection of a little child. His interest in everyone led them to believe that they were his favorites and many a parent and child has been heard to make a statement to that effect. At his funeral service James M. Flake, one of his lifelong friends, stated that when the news of Henry M. Tanner's death reached them one of his sons remarked, "I always felt I was Brother Tanner's favorite."
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