The mostly dry Gila River today hardly resembles the unruly, historic stream that came roaring out of the Black Mountain Range in western New Mexico, crossing the Great Divide and then Arizona before ending its 650-mile journey by joining the Colorado River at Yuma.
In those days, before construction of eastern Arizona’s Coolidge Dam and an irrigation-canal system commandeered the Gila’s water, boats navigated the river, which varied in width from 150 to 1,200 feet with depths ranging from 2 to 40 feet. Hydrologists calculate that without dams and irrigation canals the natural flow of the Gila would carry an average of 6,070 cubic feet of water per second into the Colorado, the second-largest flow behind that of the Green River, which cuts through Wyoming and Utah.
The Gila River occupies a prominent place in the history of the West as well as the prehistoric West. Artifacts as old as 15,000 years have been found in the Gila region.
In 1538, the first nonIndian to traverse the trail that drew its name from the river probably was Esteban, a black Moor slave who became a free man and part of a Spanish expedition to find the fabled Seven Cites of Cibola. After gold was discovered in California in 1849, thousands of fortune seekers went westward along the Gila Trail.
For a period — between signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which in 1848 ended the Mexican-American War, and the U.S. Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico in 1853 — the Gila marked a portion of the U.S. border with Mexico.
Throughout Arizona’s Territorial and early-statehood days, the river raged and flooded at whim, serving as the setting for countless stories and events, including Arizona’s Federal Aid Project No. 1.
That project extended the beleaguered bridge at Florence in 1917. In the previous year, Congress reflected the nation’s quest to build roads and bridges by approving the Federal Road Aid Act of 1916 and President Woodrow Wilson signed the measure. Quickly, Arizona and Pinal County collaborated to raise the funds necessary to match $20,000 in federal aid. The project improved a bridge that remained in service until the late 1950s, when the Arizona Highway Department built a new one.
One of the descriptions of the river’s colorful history was told in the WPA Guide to 1930s Arizona, published by the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration as a way of providing work to writers during the Great Depression.
On September 10, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt help transferred a $20 million from Emergency Relief Act funds to the department of interior for construction of Friant Dam. The following year coming, he signed the act. Projected cost of the Friant Dam and Reservoir came in at $14 million, the Friant-Kern Canal came in at $26 million, and the Madera Canal was $3 million. The dam was built by the United State Bureau of Reclamation and the Faint dam was completed in 1942.
Up until the early 1900’s, the Salt River flowed without any control or restraints. However, it was a burden for travelers on the trail leading from Prescott to Tucson. In 1911 the Roosevelt Dam was built upstream from Tempe and the flow was reduced until in the late 1930’s when the river ceased to flow altogether. Many people have often wondered what it would be like if the riverbed would once again be filled with water.
John M. Barry's Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, takes us back 70 years to a society that most of us would hardly recognize.
The Mexican-American War of the 1840s, precipitated by border disputes and the U.S. annexation of Texas, ended with the military occupation of Mexico City by General Winfield Scott. In the subsequent treaty, the United States gained territory that would become California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado.
Although the southern Arizona area was retained by Mexico after the Mexican-American War, it was eventually acquired by the United States in the 1854 Gadsden Purchase.... ... middle of paper ... ... In 1846 alone, the position was new four times, the war office six times and the finance office sixteen times. But, Mexican public opinion and all political groups agreed that selling the territory to the United States would ruin the national honor.
The Oroville dam is a rock fill embankment dam, which means, a water barrier that is made with certain materials so that it isn’t prone to erosion or deterioration. Because the material is so heavy due to the need for a secure dam, , it creates a much stronger barrier and base to its foundation. A study was done to see if a rock fill dam is the most stable type of dam to hold the amount of water it is expected to. The study tested different types of dams stability compared to the stability of a rock fill, and ultimately found that the rock fill is completely acceptable and safe (Lei). The Feather River is the only river to feed into the dam, filling it to its total capacity of 3,507,977 acre/ft.
The Grand Canyon is one of the most amazing natural wonders in the world. It was originally deposited sediment that was lithofied, and turned into sedimentary rock. The rock was then carved out by hydraulic processes (Warneke). These processes, all combined, took almost three to six million years to form the Grand Canyon. Continued erosion by wind and rain in the present time continues to shift what the canyon looks like, and make it different as time goes on ("Grand Canyon Facts").
The expansion to the western lands of the United States created a number of benefits for the economy and its citizens. With the expansion to these lands, Americans gained the added land area along with the resources that the land possessed. One of these valuable resources that attracted Americans to the West was gold. During the mid-1800s, gold was discovered in northeastern California. This inspired a movement of many Americans to leave their homes to settle in the West in the hope of discovering gold. This gold rush attracted primarily single men into the uncharted western lands.
Have you heard of small towns with a really deep and strong history inside it? Well, the small city of Yuma, Arizona, that overlooks the Colorado River, has had so much history that takes us back to the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Back in 1875, one extreme prison facility opened its doors. This prison would later be an important part of Yuma. The Yuma Territorial Prison was so extreme that not the residents around it, but the own prisoners called it a “hell hole” because of its strong, dry weather, and of how they treated them! Now, we try and understand how things that are now around this State Historic Park helped this facility back in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. What was the importance of the Colorado River,
Endangered Plants and Animals of Oregon, by the Agriculture Experiment Station at Oregon State University.
United States and Mexico. "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo." From Treaties and Other Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949. Compiled by Charles I. Bevans. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968-76. American History Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 10 March 2012.
It ended about ten thousand years ago, meaning that the Mississippi river is about ten thousand years old. Giant pieces of ice left debris all over the Mississippi River Valley, then large amounts of water from the ice that had melted cut its way through the debris forming this massive river. The Mississippi river follows the same paths that were cut for it by the ice so long ago (so does its tributaries).
About one-mile upstream, the San Joaquín River winds north, and turns sharply south again in a hairpin meander. South of Sturgeon Bend, the name trappers gave the meander, the Stanislaus River flows into the San Joaquín from the east. Rich in wildlife, the locale had long hosted a Yokut village.
The Hohokam culture constructed and used more irrigation systems than any other previous culture in the Colorado river watershed. Their system of irrigation canals were built in and along the Gila river at which they were settle in and the canals ranged from 180 to 300 miles long. These canals had the ability to irrigate 25,000 to 250,000 acres of land. Although these canals provided water to many different regions of the watershed and allowed different civilizations to maintain their crops and water supply, the canals were also destructive to the natural topography of the land. It morphed the land significantly and altered quite a few waterways in the Colorado river basin. All of these early human groups also logged and harvested throughout many years of living in the watershed, but their actions also abused the land around them. Alterations in the land caused flash floods which in turn made agriculture difficult, which was a problem that was attempted at being fixed, but the megadrought stopped everything within the civilization and actually resulted in the collapse of the ancient civilizations. Most of the natives migrated to different lands or
Around 1848 gold was discovered in the American River, which ran right through California. By 1849 tens of thousands of people from around the world mad...