Colorado River Reclamation Projects

 

TITLE:  Colorado River Reclamation Projects

DATE RANGE: 1825-1992 

CALL NUMBER: Y-MS77

 PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:   

PROVENANCE: Donated serially by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and individuals who worked on the projects.

COPYRIGHT: The Yuma County Library District owns the copyright to this collection.

RESTRICTIONS: This collection is unrestricted.   

CREDIT LINE: Colorado River Reclamation Projects, Y-MS79, Yuma County Library District, Yuma, Arizona

PROCESSED BY: Todd Anselmo, 2014 and Aiyana Irwin 2015

HISTORICAL NOTE: The Colorado River Reclamation Projects (CRRP) collection provides detailed information and photo documentation on four projects: the Yuma Project, the Yuma Auxiliary Project, the Gila Project, and the Parker-Davis Project.

It documents the “taming” of the Colorado River in the largest irrigation project ever attempted in the U.S. 

Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) initiatives on the Lower Colorado River were developed to deliver water consistently and safely to Southwestern and Central Arizona, Southeastern California and Mexico and provided electrical power to Arizona, California, and Nevada. The water harnessed and diverted as result of these projects opened up large and prosperous agriculture land in Arizona and Southern California. It also provided water and electrical power to settlers and businesses in the Southwest. 

The Yuma Project, which began in 1905, was created to provide to two divisions. The Reservation Division, which included the Arizona towns of Yuma, Somerton, and Gadsden, and the Valley Division, which included the California towns of Bard and Winterhaven. The Yuma Project constructed the Laguna Diversion Dam on the Colorado River, the Boundary Pumping Plant, a power plant, and a system of canals, laterals, and drains.

The Yuma Auxiliary Project, also known as “Unit B” was designed specifically to irrigate 3400 acres by pumping water more than 72 feet up from the Yuma Project’s main canal. This “B Lift Pumping Plant” provided water to the Yuma Mesa from 1922-1953 when water was delivered from the Gila Project.

The Gila Project, authorized to begin construction in 1937, is divided into the Yuma Mesa

Division and the Wellton-Mohawk District. It includes the Gila de-silting works at Imperial Dam; the Gila Gravity Main Canal; the Mesa Unit Canals and distribution system; the lateral system in the North Gila Valley (originally constructed as part of the Yuma Project); the canal and pipeline distribution in the South Gila Valley; and the Wellton-Mohawk Canal distribution and drainage systems and related protective works.

The Parker Dam spans the Colorado River between Arizona and California and is part of a system of storage and diversion structures built by the BOR to control and regulate the Colorado River. Under the terms of a contract between BOR and the Wellton-Mohawk District and with funds advanced by the latter, excavation for Parker Dam and Powerplant began in October 1934. The dam was completed in September 1938. Construction of the power plant began in July 1939 and was substantially completed in 1942.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:  Samuel A. McWilliams, known throughout the collection as S.A.

McWilliams, was the Supervising Engineer of the Yuma Auxiliary Project. Upon its completion, McWilliams left the Bureau of Reclamation to open an engineering consulting firm. A little more than a decade later, he was rehired by the BOR as the Construction Engineer for the ParkerDavis Project. 

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE: Due to serial donations from multiple sources, original order is unknown. This collection is arranged into nine series and organized alphabetically and chronologically within unless stated otherwise.  

Series I: Administrative – This series contains various manuals, training lessons, inspection data, and miscellaneous correspondence re project management. 

Series II: Finance – This series contains allotment advice and cost reports, construction supplies, property costs, purchase orders, and fiscal operations reports.   

Series III: Legal – The Legal Series documents a wide range of county, state and federal legal issues encountered by the BOR, Yuma residents, Indian Reservations, businesses, workers, politicians, and homesteaders.  Much of it includes legal research and case studies from the Arizona Territory days up to the 1980’s. Included are Supreme and Superior Court rulings, briefs, decisions, and lawsuits between Arizona and California, private citizens and businesses, taxes, perfected rights disputes, rights of way, government land acquisitions, contracts, deeds, congressional hearings, homesteading, the Soldier and Sailor Relief Act, land appraisals, Military Purpose Reclamations, and other situations where land was reclaimed, returned, reclaimed again, and then offered back to the public upon completion of the projects. Within the Legal series there are eight folders, dating from 1902-1979.  These document numerous property titles searches with correspondence, memos, maps, project schematics and financial transactions for purchase of land under federal right-of-way laws.  This includes discussion of Indian lands and “Mexican squatters”.  The bulk of this material relates to improvements and expansions of irrigation projects the Colorado Basin Salinity Control Project, the Coachella Canal and the Imperial Valley Water District, the Wellton-Mohawk Water District, and the continuation of the Gila and Yuma Irrigation Projects.

Series IV: Publications – These publications vary widely and include pamphlets about the various projects and the cities that they served, agricultural publications, newspapers and serials, property appraisal and real estate handbooks, irrigation instruction, settlement and homesteading instructions, various dam pamphlets, and more. 

Series V: Reports – This series represents the bulk of this collection.   The documents filed here include technical reports from all four projects. They include annual reports, exhibits, work summaries, data results, special studies, research and testing reports, specifications, silt, sedimentation, equipment, concrete, earth compaction, erosion, canal lining, tests and research results, annual inspections, field notes, and other reports that address issues on the following projects over decades: Parker Dam, Yuma, Gila, All-American Canal, Lower Colorado River (Basin and Region), Imperial Valley, Vicinity, and Dam, Gila Valley, Wellton-Mohawk, out of state projects, Salt River, and Central Arizona Project.   

Series VI: Specifications: Technical descriptions of equipment and materials to satisfy government contractual agreements.

Series VII: McWilliams – This series comprises the bulk of correspondence between Samuel A.

McWilliams, the Chief Engineer on the Yuma Auxiliary Project, as well as the lead Construction

Engineer on the Parker Dam Project, and other engineers, vendors, employees, Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Interior, and personal correspondence between businesses and family. Also included are financial materials, maps and charts, specifications, vouchers, letters of recommendation, raise proposals, equipment needs and costs, security information, and photographs of himself, Yuma Mesa, Parker Dam, and the Palo Verde Diversion Dam. 

Series VIII: Albums Series – Arranged in chronological order and a highlight of this collection. The bulk of these images were photographed by professionals either on the BOR staff or hired by the construction companies. The photographs are remarkable for their quality, composition, capture of specialized equipment and materials, workers, and the progressive documentation from the first excavations to the fully constructed projects. They are generally meticulously captioned and housed in original Bureau of Reclamation albums. Although the album covers show wear, the photographs are in good to excellent condition. The Lee D. Purdin (engineer) album pages are noteworthy for documenting “the personal side” of the construction of the All American Canal.

IX: Ledgers   Three large financial ledgers (heavy), one small ledger covering years 1912-1948 for the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. 

Series X: Maps. One box of small maps of surveys, irrigation systems, Arizona and California land along the Lower Colorado River, private properties and right of way. Note that large, oversized, fragile maps are located in map case drawers. See Map case list.

CONTAINER LIST: