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SOUTH CANAL HAER NO. AZ-52 South of the Salt River Mesa Vicinity Maricopa County Arizona PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD lntermountain Support Office - Denver National Park Service P .0. Box 25287 Denver, Colorado 80225-0287 HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD SOUTH CANAL HAER No. AZ-52 Location: On the south side of the Salt River in vicinity of the City of Mesa in Maricopa County, Arizona. USGS Granite Reef Dam, Buckhorn, Mesa Quadrangles Universal Transverse Mercator Coordinates: Head: 1,430,030.85E - 12,166,356.SN Foot: 1,391,765.27E - 12,138,499.58N Zone 12 Dates of Construction: 1907-1909. The current South Canal contains part of the historic Consolidated Canal, constructed in 1891. Engineer: U.S. Reclamation Service. Present Owner: U.S. Government, operated by Salt River Project (SRP), Phoenix, Arizona. Present Use: The South Canal conveys water for agricultural, industrial, and municipal uses south of the Salt River. Significance: The South Canal is the single irrigation feature that delivers surface water from the Salt River at Granite Reef Dam for the farmers and residents on the south side of the Salt River. It improved water distribution to the southside canals and provided water for a series of hydropower plants that supplied electricity to SRP and the cities. Historian: Shelly C. Dudley, Senior Historical Analyst SRP Research Archives. SOUTH CANAL HAER No. AZ-52 (Page 2) Table of Contents Introduction 3 Origins 3 U.S. Reclamation Service 6 Power Plants 9 Consolidated Canal I South Canal 14 Eastern Canal I South Canal 19 CCC 25 Rehabilitation and Betterment 26 South Canal and the Urban Landscape 29 Bibliography 32 Maps 34 SOUTH CANAL HAER No. AZ-52 (Page 3) Introduction The U.S. Reclamation Service constructed the South Canal to carry water to the farmers on the south side of the Salt River as part of the Salt River Federal Reclamation Project. Built between 1907 and 1909, the original canal measured only two miles and diverted water from the newly erected Granite Reef Dam. The South Canal eventually became the only irrigation structure to divert water directly from the Salt River and deliver it to the south side shareholders of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association (the Association). Controversy surrounded membership in the Association for many of the landowners south of the Salt River. A majority of the farmers held early water rights and did not see any advantages to joining the Salt River Project (SRP) when the project first opened. The canals that supplied water to these people had their own headings or diversion points in the Salt River. Although some farmers built new irrigation ditches and laterals so they could join the Association in the early 191 Os, it was not until the 1920s that almost all of the unsigned lands within the exterior boundaries of the Salt River Reservoir District became members of the Project. The original South Canal was enlarged and extended to accommodate all the water users on the south side of the Salt River, encompassing portions of the Eastern and Consolidated canals. Because the early founders of the Salt River Project saw the potential ofhydropower, the Association contracted with the federal government in 1910 to build three power plants on the Salt River Project canals. Eventually three hydropower plants would be built on the South Canal. They provided needed power to an expanding Salt River Valley for commercial and domestic use. This report will detail the history of the South Canal, from its minor beginnings to becoming the primary irrigation structure carrying water to the shareholders on the southern portion of the Salt River Project. Origins Although the U.S. Reclamation Service did not construct the South Canal until 1907, its original purpose dates back to the last quarter of the nineteenth century when other irrigation canals were built by farmers located south of the Salt River. Austin Carrington first filed a notice to appropriate 50,000 miners' inches of water about one mile southeast of the Arizona Dam, then with J. Frank Meador and T. J. Butler, incorporated the Highland Canal Company on December 13, 1887. The company planned to irrigate land east of the Mesa Canal after the Highland Canal SOUTH CANAL HAER No. AZ-52 (Page 4) was finished in November 1887 and the South Canal later followed the same general path as the upper part of the Highland Canal (see Image AZ-52-1 ). 1 The Mesa Canal Company constructed the city canal in 1879, for the local landowners and the City of Mesa. The canal's heading had a capacity of 175 second-feet and was in the Salt River approximately 21/i miles above the head of the Utah Canal, one of the earlier canals constructed by the southside farmers. U.S. engineer Arthur P. Davis reported that its alignment followed the bed of a prehistoric canal for part of its distance. The corporation experienced difficulty maintaining its heading in the river, requiring the local farmers to repair the headworks during the irrigating season. Dr. A. J. Chandler approached the Mesa Canal Company with a proposition to enlarge the Mesa Canal in 1889 so that he could use it to carry additional water for his proposed canal. After a year of negotiations, Chandler signed an agreement with the shareholders of the Mesa company and assumed control over a portion of the canal in 1891. The contract gave the Consolidated Canal Company the perpetual right to use the headworks and that part of the Mesa Canal extending from its dam to what was known as 11 Ayers Headgate 11 for a yearly rental fee (see Map 1). 2 A. J. Chandler, Dexter Ferry, and Charles C. Bowen, two of Dr. Chandler's former employers, formed the Consolidated Canal Company in March 1892, to bring water to uncultivated farm lands on the south side of the Valley. The company planned to construct new headworks for both the Consolidated and Mesa canals which would be large enough to divert enough water for both canals. The Consolidated would also deliver water for the Mesa lands to a designated point on the Mesa Canal. Chandler's crews built a diversion structure in the Salt River composed of large boulders with massive granite masonry abutments and wing walls. Ten wooden gates permitted the flow of the river into the initial two miles of the canal which was cut in boulders 1U.S. Department of1he Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Irrigation near Phoenix, Arizona, by Arthur P. Davis, in Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers No. 2 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897), 51. Earl Zarbin, Two Sides ofthe River: Salt River Valley Canals, 1867-1902. (SRP, 1997) 112. The United States purchased 1he canal property and rights of the Highland Water Company in 1910. Louis C. Hill, Supervising Engineer, U.S. Reclamation Service, to I. L.B. Alexander, U.S. Attorney, February 19, 1909. Warranty Deed, signed October 31, 1910. 2Sylvia Bender-Lamb, "Chandler, Arizona: Landscape as a Product of Land Speculation," (Masters thesis, Arizona State University, 1983), 23-24. Davis, Irrigation near Phoenix, 51-52. McClatchie wrote 1hat the Mesa Canal claimed its canal had a capacity for 375 second-feet or 15,000 inches. Alfred I. McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply," Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 43, (Tucson: University of Arizona, 1902) 80. The Mesa and the Consolidated canal companies signed 1he agreement on January 10, 1891. Mesa Canal Company, "Minutes," 1889 - 1891. Supervising Engineer, Reclamation Service to Examiner, September 30, 1913. National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 115, Microfilm, SRP. The United States government later,purchased the Mesa Canal Company's irrigation system under the May 7, 1910 agreement. SOUTH CANAL HAER No. AZ-52 (Page 5) and hardpan. A large steam dredger with a dipper capacity of two cubic yards cut into the earth, leaving a 26' deep canal. 3 After the first two miles Chandler enlarged the existing Mesa Canal, now called the Consolidated Canal, following the older canal's alignment until a point three miles northeast of the city of Mesa (see Image AZ-52-2). At this point, water for the Mesa Canal was carried in its original structure and the newly constructed Consolidated Canal, typically 45' wide and 7' deep, carried the flow to its landowners southward when completed in April 1893. The original Consolidated Canal was excavated in all types of soil conditions. Near Section 22, Township 2 North, Range 6 East, the canal was cut deep through solid rock, followed by ground which was very light and sandy. Like the Mesa Canal, the Consolidated Canal was seriously menaced by erosion from flood waters of the Salt River for a span of four miles. A. J. Chandler and the Consolidated Canal Company expended large sums of money to protect and maintain the structure from danger against erosion, but the river channel had gradually encroached on the canal banks.4 To widen the canal, Chandler acquired a medium-size dredger from the Marion Steam Shovel Company of Ohio, which permitted the water to continue flowing. Because of the success of the first machine, Chandler ordered a larger dredge from the same company. This piece of equipment measured approximately 46' wide x 84' in length and contained an 80' long boom. It was reported that this larger dredge could excavate "to a depth of 25' below the surface of the water, and at a distance of 80' from the center of the dredge on either side," drawing 21h' of water. The dredge's sixty horsepower boiler could drive a fifty horsepower engine and it required four men to operate the machine which worked the lower portion of the canal as far south as the division gates.

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