Roosevelt Lake

Have you ever visited Arizona?   I am prejudiced, of course, but I think it is the most wonderful place on earth.  Not only will you find the hot, arid desert, it is also home to cool, high mountains, lush dense forests, deep mysterious canyons, exciting raging rivers, and clear, clean lakes.  Which brings me to my story for today,

How Roosevelt Lake Came to Be.

            When my grandmother, Ethel Stewart Russell,  was a little girl, a drought came to the Salt River Valley (or the Valley of the Sun as it later came to be known) where she lived.   By this time, in the early 1900's, Phoenix was a small but growing city, with the nearby farming communities of Tempe and Mesa all dependant on water brought from the river by canals and ditches to irrigate the desert.  

           Ethel's family lived on a beautiful farm west of Mesa.  In her memoirs she wrote that for a long time no rain fell to give water to their fruit trees.  One by one they died, and the vineyards too were dug up and used for fire wood.  Many people in the valley moved to other places.

           
           My papa was president of the Mesa Canal.  There were three canals which carried water to farms in Phoenix, Chandler, and Mesa.  The presidents of the three canals decided a dam must be built on the river so they could conserve the water that wasted during flood seasons.  So they asked my papa to help make a survey of the water shed.

           
            One morning early in the spring papa and his companions packed two mules with a tent, bedding, camp utensils and food, then mounting their horses they rode up into the mountains of the Salt River area.  They were gone several weeks because they had many miles to cover.

            One day they decided to try to reach a ranch house papa knew about to spend the night.  The people who lived there were his friends.  They rode through the rough, hard Superstition wilderness all day but didn’t reach the ranch house.  Finally they decided they would have to make camp and go on to the ranch the following day. When they got there the next morning they found the house burned down and the people lying dead in the yard.  The Apaches had been on a raid.  It was a horrible scene, but papa and his companions were thankful not to have been there the night before.

           
            When papa and his friends returned to Phoenix they gave their report of the survey to Mr. Lewis Hill, the government engineer.  He reviewed it and eventually it was decided a dam should be built on the Salt River.   At this time President Theodore Roosevelt was in favor of reclamation and soon a dam was begun.  It was to be called Roosevelt Dam in honor of our president.

(To Be Continued tomorrow.......)