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Arizona Territory received little attention from Powell's Irrigation

Survey initially after its formation in 1888. In fact, aside from some hydrographic work involved in measuring stream flow, Arizona was largely ignored.20 To compensate, local interests financed surveys to inform federal legislators of the water storage needs in the Salt River Valley. In 1889 the Senate Select Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Land toured extensively through the West to investigate local conditions firsthand." In anticipation of the subcommittee's stop in Phoenix, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors appropriated funds that summer to field a three-man survey team that would investigate potential reservoir sites in the Salt River and Verde River watersheds. The best site discovered by County Surveyor William M. Breakenridge and his companions, John R. Norton and James H. McClintock, was at the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River, about 60 miles east of Phoenix. A quick reconnaissance indicated that a relatively short dam in the rocky gorge could easily impound upwards of 1 million acrefeet of water at an elevation of almost 2000 feel above sea level. Although its discovery did not involve the federal Irrigation Survey, the Tonto Creek site was exactly the type Powell had espoused as ideal for maximizing Western water resources. The county-sponsored survey did not prompt action by the federal government that would support Arizona irrigation directly. But the Tonto reservoir site was now public knowledge. It would not take long for private interests to initiate plans for its development.

22

In February 1893 articles of incorporation were filed in Phoenix for the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company. The intentions of the new company became clear two months later when it filed notice to "appropriate all of the surplus and floodwater of the Salt River and its tributaries above the mouth of the intersection of the Salt River with the Verde River not heretofore legally appropriated; and that it intends to build and maintain" three dams on the Salt River. Two of these dams, located between 10 to 20 miles above the confluence with the Verde River, were primarily intended to divert water into canals for use in the Salt River Valley. The third was "for the purpose of the storage of water in the basin called the Tonto Basin." This proposed dam would be a masonry gravity structure with an elliptically curved plan (see figure 3).

Foreseeing development of large tracts of land not previously susceptible to irrigation under the Valley's existing canal systems, the company announced its "intention to build in connection with said canals and reservoirs for the distribution of water for all legal purpose such flumes, dams, ditches, laterals and other means of conveyance and distribution to the end [of] reclaim [ing] all of the reclaimable lands not heretofore reclaimed by any [existing] system of canals" in the greater Salt River Valley.24

Figure 3. Plan of the proposed Tonto Dam by the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company.

Although the Hudson company's proposed project was technically and legally feasible, its directors could never generate enough capital to build the two-million-dollar system. Any chance of attracting investors to such an elaborate scheme was temporarily suspended by the nationwide financial Panic of 1893. Under the direction Phoenix entrepreneur Wells Hendershott, however, the company remained active in promoting itself as a viable enterprise. In early 1895, New York lawyer and financiers A.P. and Edward Man gained control of the firm. 25 By the end of the year the Hudson outfit had filed a map with the General Land Office delineating the land required for the Tonto. Dam and Reservoir.26 Submitted in accord with the previously noted Act of March 31, 1891, this gave the company exclusive rights to develop the site for five years. Hudson received an amended and updated approval for developing the site in October 1900, allowing it to control the site for five additional years.

Because the company's business records have not been preserved, it is difficult to ascertain exactly how close the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company ever came to funding construction of the enormous dam and distribution system its directors promoted.

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Certainly the firm kept up a public image of serious implementation of this project, both through the activities of Sims Ely, the company's secretary in Phoenix, and the Man brothers in New York. In February 1897 A.P. Man corresponded with Frederick H. Newell, chief hydrographer of the U.S. Geological Survey concerning the amount of water required for successful irrigation development." That same year basic plans for the proposed Tonto Dam appeared in James D. Schuyler's report, "Water Storage and Construction of Dams," published in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the U.S. Geological Survey. This design will be discussed at length in the next chapter, but in basic terms the company was planning an initial structure 225 feet high that would later be raised to 297 feet above bedrock (see figure 4). Schuyler, who was among the most prominent turn-of-the-century dam builders in the West, also visited the Tonto damsite in 1899 with California engineer Joseph B. Lippincott (later the assistant chief engineer for the Los Angeles Aqueduct).29

Despite such activities, little actual progress appears to have occurred in raising the more than two million dollars estimated for construction of the proposed Hudson system. By 1900 Ely was publicly discussing the possibility of a Maricopa County bond issue for onehalf million dollars to support the project, reflecting a gradual shift away from private to public financing.30 It is likely that the company's directors had gradually realized the enormous financial risk entailed in building a dam at Tonto Basin. Rather than abandon

the scheme altogether, they simply chose to keep a low profile while maintaining their legal option to the site's development. In retrospect, the Man brothers appear quite sagacious in their actions, because the huge cost overruns experienced by the government in building the Roosevelt Dam would unquestionably have bankrupted the Hudson interests before its completion.

The shift to non-private sources of funding to build the Tonto Dam soon involved others from outside the Hudson Company. Most important of these were Benjamin A. Fowler, later the first president of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association, and George

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Maxwell, a California lawyer and prominent publicist and lobbyist who had established the National Irrigation Association in the late 1890s." Neither Fowler nor Maxwell were typical small-scale farmers of the late 19th century, as idealized by the irrigation crusaders. Both were relatively well-to-do businessmen with influential friends in governmental circles. The two men personified the values of a patrician class that often migrated to the southwest United States for reasons of health.

By late 1900 Fowler was head of a public interest group formed by the Phoenix and Maricopa County Board of Trade and generally known as the Water Storage Committee. Acting through Fowler, the committee approached the U.S. Geological Survey for assistance in studying the Phoenix region's "physical conditions of topography, water flow, depth of bedrock, amount of sediment carried by the water and other facts." To Fowler, "these fundamental facts, and with estimates of the capacity and cost of construction [will]... lay before the people the data by which they can be guided in future action." The intent of the Water Storage Committee at this time was to convince Congress to allow Maricopa County to issue bonds supporting the construction of storage reservoirs. Such approval was necessary because Arizona was a territory, still under Congressional jurisdiction. Any hope of getting the federal government to finance such construction directly appeared too remote to warrant serious attention.

The county offered $1500.00 to pay the cost for a proposed government study. With this carrot of inducement, Fowler and Maxwell traveled to Washington in January 1901 to lobby the Geological Survey and interest congressmen in the project. On January 7th they met with Newell, and the next day it appears they attended a lecture given by Newell at the home of Nevada Congressman (later Senator) Francis G. Newlands. A conservationist and a major Congressional advocate of irrigation, Newlands would eventually co-sponsor the landmark legislation establishing the Reclamation Service. Maxwell and Fowler's lobbying proved successful. Within a week the Geological Survey had accepted the requested assignment; work on the study began a few days later in order to complete as much as possible "while the climatic conditions are favorable."35

Responsibility for the project fell to Arthur Powell Davis, a

nephew of John Wesley Powell. After graduating with a degree in engineering from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Davis went directly to work for his uncle's Irrigation Survey in 1888.36 In the mid-1890s, he undertook a study of irrigation works in the Phoenix area that appeared as "Water Supply Paper No. 2," published by the Geological Survey in 1897." With this background, Davis was the logical candidate to lead the new investigation into the Central Arizona water situation. Developed over a period of almost eighteen months, Davis' report was issued in 1902 under the title, "Water Storage on Salt River, Arizona".38 Although it examined sites other than the one

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at the Tonto Basin - most notably the McDowell site on the lower Verde River - the bulk of the report focused on the location discovered by the Breakenridge Party in 1889.

Davis' discussion of the Tonto site began with an extensive analysis of stream flow records for the Salt River to determine if sufficient water would exist to fill the proposed reservoir. Although everyone knew that large quantities of spring floodwaters usually flowed through Phoenix without diversion into irrigation canals, it was important to document that the reservoir would provide the service promised. Clearly, no one wanted to spend millions of dollars to build a dam only to have it impound a marginal quantity of water much less than potential capacity of the reservoir. After examining the accumulated stream flow data for the years 1889-1901, Davis concluded that at least 660,000 acre-feet could have been stored at the site for every year other than 1900 (a year that still could have stored more than 500,000 acre-feet). With this, the functional viability of the reservoir to increase Phoenix's water supply appeared assured.

Additional analysis of water quality determined that the effect of sediment build-up in the reservoir would be relatively minor and that any major provision for removing silt would be unnecessary for more than a century." Test borings were made at various locations in the canyon to gauge the depth to bedrock. This was important, because excavation to bedrock for the entire base of the dam was necessary to insure structural stability, and removal of excessive overburden would greatly increase construction costs. Under Davis' direction, four different lines of borings were made across the canyon. The first was at the site of the Hudson Reservoir and Canal Company filing; the other three were clustered together about 1,600 feet further downstream. At the Hudson site there existed a deep gap in the center of the canyon where bedrock lay more than 64 feet below the surface. At the other borings all bedrock (which consisted of either red sandstone or black shale) was found no more than 40 feet from the surface. Because of the considerable amount of overburden at the Hudson site, Davis rejected it in favor of a location centered in the other group of borings. Ultimately the latter site was chosen for Roosevelt Dam.40

In sum, Davis laid out a schematic, yet relatively complete, building plan for a structure with a total height of 240 feet above bedrock and a storage capacity of 840,000 acre-feet." His report outlined a preliminary structural design and specifications for the dam (including analysis of the necessary spillway capacity to prevent overtopping), design for outlet works to release water from the reservoir, design for a power canal and powerhouse to provide hydroelectric power to equipment during the construction, and design of a cement mill to be built adjacent to the damsite. Taking into account other expenses such as road building, construction of concrete bridges over the spillways and the purchase of cultivated lands in the reservoir area, Davis estimated the overall construction cost of the dam at $1,908,387.43