ELWOOD MEAD: IRRIGATION ENGINEER AND SOCIAL PLANNER Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Kluger, James R. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 09/10/2021 10:58:43 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/290253 71-8429 KLUGER, James Robert, 1939- ELWOOD MEAD: IRRIGATION ENGINEER AND SOCIAL PLANNER. University of Arizona, Ph.D., 1970 History, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED ELWOOD MEAD: IRRIGATION ENGINEER AND SOCIAL PLANNER by James Robert Kluger r A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 7 0 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by James Robert KLuger entitled Elwood Mead: Irrigation Engineer and Social Planner be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the Doctor of Philosophy degree of ^ /, 1970 Dissertation Director Date\J After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its approval and recommend its acceptance:*" ^ Ow, S, /fro "This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination. The inclusion of this sheet bound into the library copy of the dissertation is evidence of satisfactory performance at the final examination. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the Uni­ versity Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allow­ able without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manu­ script in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. PREFACE Reclamation in the United States is largely a neglected field of historic inquiry. Outside of work on the Mormon triumph in Utah, few studies have been made of the men or accomplishments of this significant aspect of the development of the West, or of its impact on the na­ tion as a whole. Two reasons seem to account for the lack of historical interest in reclamation. First, the sources are widely scattered, requiring expensive travels to gather the necessary materials. Secondly, engineering and tech­ nology are not usually very attractive subjects for historians. Elwood Mead was not an ordinary engineer. True, he mastered the technical requirements of his profession and gained an esteemed reputation among his colleagues. More than this, however, his prime concern, was for the welfare of the benefactors of these engineering advances. Mead saw in the reclaiming of desert lands by irrigation the opportunity to create a new rural Eden. He sought to demonstrate planned rural communities on irrigated land. These projects, he hoped, would be an example to the rest of agricultural America and would lead to a transformation iii of the countryside into a desirable social and economic entity. In writing this dissertation, I am indebted to a large number of friends and scholars throughout the country. To my advisor, Dr. Harwood P. Hinton, who suggested the topic and guided me through the preparation of this study, I am more grateful than mere words can express. In addi­ tion, I wish to thank the other members of my doctoral com­ mittee—Drs. Herman E. Bateman, Russell C. Ewing, William R. Noyes, and Welter W, Davis—for their assistance, I also want to acknowledge my deep personal appreciation to Dr. Richard A. Cosgrove, Director of Graduate Studies in the History Department at The University of Arizona. Two persons were especially helpful in my research, Thomas Chase Mead, the son of Elwood Mead, and Mrs. George C. Kreutzer, the wife of Mead's closest friend.. Mrs. Kreutzer graciously spent a day answering questions and helping me understand Elwood Mead. Tom Mead not only gave his time, but also loaned me the Mead family papers to use in preparing this study. Without the assistance of these two fine people, this dissertation, of necessity, would have lacked any personal insight into Elwood Mead. I also wish to thank the staffs of the Bancroft Library at the University of California; the University of Wyoming Library; the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; and the National Archives. The librarians and archivists at these institutions assisted in every possible way, and made the gathering of information for this study both easy and pleasant. Finally, I wish to thank my family for their patience and understanding. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT vii 1. EARLY LIFE 1 2. WYOMING YEARS 19 3. ON THE NATIONAL SCENE 42 4. AUSTRALIA 65 5. WARTIME WORK 87 6. DURHAM AND DELHI 105 7. AROUND THE WORLD 135 8. COMMISSIONER OF RECLAMATION 155 9. BUILDING BOULDER DAM 184 10, CONCLUSION 212 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 226 Vi ABSTRACT Elwood Mead was one of the foremost irrigation ex­ perts in the history of the United States with interests which went beyond the narrow confines of dam and canal construction. He wanted the reclaimed lands used to pro­ vide homes for actual farmers. As his ideas evolved, Mead sought to create planned rural communities which would be a desirable social and economic entity, and which would serve as an example for the rejuvenation of the countryside. Born in Indiana in 1858, Mead graduated from Purdue University in 1882 and then went to Fort Collins, Colorado, co teach at Colorado State Agricultural College, It was here that he first came into contact with irrigated farm­ ing. In 1888, he was appointed Territorial Engineer of Wyoming, and when Wyoming became a state two years later, he wrote its water code and devised the administrative system for distributing water for irrigation. The laws and methods he employed in Wyoming became the model for similar legislation in most states of the arid West, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. Mead's stature rose, and he became a national figure in reclamation. From 1899 to 1907, he headed vii viii Irrigation Investigations for the Department of Agricul­ ture. However, he was opposed to the Reclamation Act of 1902, and with its passage, his influence ebbed. He did what he could through his investigations to assist the small irrigator, but he was increasingly frustrated in his work. In 1907 he accepted a position in Victoria, Australia. For eight years, Mead was chairman of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission of Victoria. While there, he became thoroughly embued with the Australian attitude toward so-called state paternalism. He was especially impressed with the government's closer settle­ ment scheme. Farmers were colonized in communities and given direction and liberal credit terms to help them become established. Mead applied this system to irrigated lands as a way of populating the countryside and of justi­ fying the large government expenditures for irrigation works. When he returned to the United States in 1915, Mead was anxious to demonstrate the Australian method in his native country. He failed to secure federal legisla­ tion to provide planned rural communities, but in California he was more successful. There he set up a state colony at Durham in 1918, and one at Delhi in 1920. Durham started well, but the farmers at Delhi were able to support them­ selves only with outside income which the state advanced ix to build a, drainage system. When these funds ceased, the discontent of the settlers grew and then spread to Durham. The two colonies were a failure, as were later attempts by Mead to obtain federal money for planned communities in the South. However, his ideas for rural development finally saw fruition in the Subsistence Homesteads Program of the New Deal. In 1924, Mead played a key role as a member of the Fact Finders Committee in formulating a new policy for rec­ lamation, and then was named Commissioner of Reclamation to implement that policy. Under his leadership, federal reclamation underwent a thorough reordering that returned it as far as possible to its original purpose of providing farms for actual settlers. He took an essentially bankrupt agency and turned it toward solvency. The Depression interrupted that progress, but his innovations softened its impact. Finally, under the New Deal, Mead's planning en­ abled his Bureau to expand its operations in an orderly fashion. Elwood Mead's final triumph was directing the con­ struction of Boulder Dam. This giant structure was dedi­ cated in September of 1935, only four months before Mead's death. It was a fitting tribute to this preeminent champion of arid America that the reservoir which formed behind the huge dam was named Lake Mead in his honor. CHAPTER 1 EARLY LIFE On February 14, 1936, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes announced that the reservoir forming be­ hind the recently completed Boulder Dam on the Colorado River would be known as Lake Mead in honor of Elwood Mead, the Commissioner of Reclamation who had died 10 days earlier.