^: II 1 I t^^Y^y [^m ^ YUMA ^= =\ The O Gate City of the Great Southwest to d Published by The Yuma County Chamber of Commerce Yuma, Arizona 906 iW s m m w 2 F«9»r"« Print S!iop. Yjra« Arizona (tes iiSzX iQn PRFSKNTKI) HV i YUMA ' C , 'wV. a.^*' The Gate City of the Great Southwe^ a Published by the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce Yuma, Arizona 1906 Yuma County Chamber of Commerce OFFICERS. John W. Dorrington President F. R. Pugh .... Fir^ Vice-President Isaac Polhamus . . Second Vice-President E. F. Sanguinetti Treasurer O. F. Townsend Secretary Geo. H. Rockwood . . AssiSant Secretary DIRECTORS. John Gandolfo A. Mode^ John Stoffela L. W. Alexander H. V. Clymer Harry BrownSetter Jerry Millay W. A. Bowles J. M. Molina A. F. White H. C. Haupt Frank Hodges T. W. Underhill J. E. Ludy ■i ^ ^ iiffnrHiinrft* ^ ^ As a result of the campaign of publicity, inaugurated some months ago by the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce, fir^ by sending Mr. W. E. Lynch with an exhibit to the Texas State Fair at Dallas, Texas, and later by send- ing Mr. O. F. Townsend with a similar exhibit to the Territorial Fair at Phoenix; next by publishing extended articles in the Los Angeles papers and other publications, the intere^ed attention of inquiring hundreds has been at- traded to the fair and fertile fields of Yuma County, and our promoters of publicity have been deluged with reque^s for literature furnishing the informa- tion desired. This pamphlet, therefore, has been compiled, from all available sources of information, to meet the exigency created by the flood of que^ons to be answered. Nothing unique or original or voluminous has been attempt- ed. We have aimed to furnish a compendium of "fads and figures" that may be endorsed by the moS conservative without reservation and accepted by the moS skeptical without hesitation as entirely authentic and accurate. The truth about Yuma County is good enough. There is no need of em- bellishment or exaggeration; although, in a country where, truly, it may be said, that " Every prospedl pleases And only man is vile," while what is written may be "nothing but the truth," it is impossible, in the limits of these pages, to write "the whole truth." Anyway, dear intere^ed reader, come and see for yourself, and, without doubt, when you have seen, you will be ready to exclaim, as did one of old, "The half was never told me." THE YUMA COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. Members of Yuma County Chamber of Commerce. George A. Duke, Solicitor and Colledlor. Alexander, L. W. Ap John, Dr. Henri. Bailey, D. L. Balsz, J. M. Bell, T. B. Benjamin, V. C. Blaisdell, F. G. Blaisdell, H. W. Bowles, W. A. Bridge, G. M. Brownstetter, Harry. Byrnes, A. C. Clark, J. L. Clymer, Dr. H. V. Cook, Fred. De Corse, Sam. De Vore, D. M. Donaldson, C. E. Donkersley, H. H. Dorrington, J. W. Dorrington, George E. Duke, George A. Dunlap, Burt. Dunne, John. Durme, W. J. Durward, A. Dyer, C. C Esselburn, L. Foster, A. M. Gandolfo, John. Gandolfo, John, Jr. Gilroy, Charles. Godfrey, Isaac P. Hall, D. W. Haupt, H. C. Henry, Joe. Hodges, P. B. Hodges, Frank. Hodges, Ed D. Huffman, John L. Ingraham, F. L. Ingram, E. A. Johnson, O. C. Jordan, T. A. Kelso, Frank. Lee, Frank. Lindsey, W. Ludy, J. E. Lyon, W. H. McPherson, R. A. Meeden, C. V. Michelsen, George. Millay, Jerry. Modesti, A. Moffat, J. P. Molina, J. M. Molloy, Thomas D. Monson, P. Moretti, Paul. Polhamus, Isaac. Polhamus, J. M. Post, M. E. Pugh, F. R. Rockwood, George H. Sanguinetti, E. F. Shorey, W. H. Smith, Cash. Stahl, L. C. Stoffela, John. Stratton, Thomas. Townsend, O. F. Townsend, Albert W. Trautman, E. Underbill, T. W. Utting, C. H. Wessel, Fred. White, A. F. Wilder, U. G. Woodman, W. W. f itma QInimtii.-3lt^ Unrattnu au^ ulnpngrapluf. LOCATION AND AREA. The southweSern corner of Arizona is occupied by Yuma County. Mo- have County lies to the north, Maricopa and Pima Counties to the eaS; So- nora, Mexico, is its southern neighbor, and the Colorado River washes its entire w^e^ern border, and separates the Territory horn California. It com- prises an area greater than that of Vermont, or New Hampshire, or Massa- chusetts, and would make a state equal in extent to the combined areas of Delaware, Connedticut and Rhode Island. Its acreage approximates ten thousand square miles, or about six and a half million acres. GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY. The general topography of the County may be described as a high table, or mesa, land, sloping from an elevation of four or five thousand feet, in the northeastern corner, to a low plain scarcely I 00 feet above sea level, in the southwestern corner. The Bill Williams River, a tributary of the Colorado, forms the northern boundary; and the erratic Gila winds its tortuous, turbulent way, from east to west, for more than 1 00 miles, through the entire width of the County, and pours its tribute of waters into the mighty Colorado behind "Prison Hill" at Yuma. The Colorado, deep, silent, mysterious, red with the silt gathered hom many soils, washes the County for 225 miles from north to south along the western border. THE SOIL CONDITIONS. Probably one-half the area of the County lies within the valleys of these three great rivers. The soil of the valleys is a rich alluvial deposit, formed by the accumulation of ages, and varies in color from a dark chocolate to a light sandy loam. The whole sedion, in prehistoric times, was a vast lake, or cup- like depression, with the mountains forming the rim, with a gap in the rim on the southern side, through which the Colorado breaks its way to the gulf. The bottom of the cup is filled with the washings and erosions of ages, to which has been added the decomposed vegetation of later aeons. The soil of the mesa, or table, lands is somewhat different from that of the valleys, being looser and coarser, with niore iron in its composition, and being filled with small pebbles of undecomposed granite. Under the blaze of the desert sun, as one flies across these waterless mesas, behind the iron horse, they look wa^e, desolate, barren; but put water on them, and lo! a transfor- mation as complete and almo^ as sudden as any in the fabled experience of Ur-tr'Pf''~^' i^¥k^f:l3^^s^^- ^-t •i||ii^."»^'.'4S«^i Street Scene in Yuma During Hay Marketing Season. Alladin with his wonderful lamp. And here at Yuma one sees a literal ful- fillment of the words of Holy Writ: "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." The valley lands are alluvial, composed of the finer particles of the washings from the mountains, and the decayed vegetable accumulation of countless years. There is pradlically no bottom to the soil, in richness it is unrivaled on the American Continent, and experts declare that a scientific analysis of the soil shows it to be similar in charader to that of the Nile Valley in Egypt, and the Colorado River has not inaptly been spoken of as "the American Nile." E. TRAUTMAN Jeweler and Optician Yuma, Arizona THE MORNING SUN Yuma's Only Daily Newspaper MULFORD WINSOR. Editor THE YUMA SUN Southwe^ern Arizona's Be^ Weekly Newspaper SUN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, Yuma, Arizona Souvenir Po^ Cards, Souvenir Views, Figures of the Great Laguna Dam, Souvenir Curios, Indian Baskets, Navajo Blankets. ::::::::::::::::: Yuma Stationery Company, Yuma, Arizona W. C. GREEN, F. L. PROCTOR, President. General Manager. Cananea Cattle Company HEREFORD CATTLE REGISTERED SIR RICHARD II, ANXIETY IV, LORD WILTON AND GROVE III Strains Predominating ^ Largest Herd in the United States. ^ Every Animal of Pronounced Beef Type. ^ Well Known All Over America as the " Colin Cameron Registered Hereford Herd." SHETLAND PONIES CHOICEST ISLAND STRAINS Registered in Island and American Stud Books. Unequalled for Children. Prices Made on Application. COLIN CAMERON, ^cso^. Sbr CEnlnraitn Siitrr. DRAINAGE BASIN-EXTENT AND CHARACTER. The Colorado River drains portions of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Nevs^ Mexico, California and Arizona. Including its principal tributary, the Green, it is 2000 miles long and has a drainage basin of over 225,000 square miles, ranking in size as the second drainage basin in arid America. The basin of the Colorado includes several features of peculiar interest: The Grand Canyon, made famous by Pow^eH's explorations and writings; the Gila River, probably the muddiest and one of the most torrential streams in the w^orld; Roosevelt Dam, one of the very highest dams ever built, now be- ing constructed at Tonto Basin near Phoenix, Arizona; the Salton Basin, a great inland sink, 280 feet below s^a level, which in recent years has been dry, but is now receiving the total flow of the Colorado as it probably did in ancient times. Indeed, there is unmistakable evidence that it was once a part of the Gulf of California. Scene on the Colorado River, Showing a Ferry Boat in Mid Stream. SILT CARRIED BY THE COLORADO. To the thoughtful observer who ^ands at the head of Bright Angel Trail and looks into the mighty abyss, which, lacking an adequate name, we simply call the Grand Canyon, the que^on mu^ occur, "How was this excavation made, and what has become of the material excavated?" The tiny rivulet which he sees nearly lo^ in the sand, and which men sometimes call the mighty Colorado, has been running there for ages. Each year with its puny ^rength it carries away a few particles of rock from those mighty walls. As it flows it breaks, and granulates, and pulverizes these fragments until when it reaches the lower valleys, it drops its load, and man speaks of this little frag- ment which the upper country each year contributes as ninety million tons of sediment or seventy square miles of soil one foot deep. Where once the Gulf of California extended is now solid land, the Delta of the Colorado; and further up are smaller valleys on the margin of the river, all built up by the river. This soil, the combined produd: of the varied re- gions comprised in the 225,000 square miles of the basin of the Colorado, is not surpassed in fertility by any portion of the earth's surface that has been cultivated by the hand of man, including the valley of the Nile itself. This fad; has been demon^ated by crops raised by the settler as well as by the analysis of the chemi^. The silt carried by the river has been measured and analyzed during the pa^ three years by the Reclamation Service, and before that by the Agricul- tural Experiment Station of the University of Arizona. These measurements show that the silt carried down each year amounts to about 90,000,000 tons (dry weight). It contains large amounts of potash, phosphoric acid and nitro- gen. The value of the nitrogen alone, at the price paid for it in commercial fertilizers, is $1.25 per acre-foot of water, or $5.00 per four acre-feet, the amount used yearly in irrigating an average crop. Indeed, the great problem is not how to enrich the soil, already the mo^ fertile in the world, but how to keep the fertilizer off the land. There is too much. This is no joke. The problem of disposing of the mud has been the rock on which have split the various private companies which have undertaken to use the waters of the Colorado for irrigation. Only the hand of Uncle Sam, dealing with the river as a whole and m a large way, is able to cope with it properly. By darnming the river, sufficient fall is obtained to dispose of the mud by sluicing. FLOODS. The problem of irrigating land from the Colorado River may be resolved into four fadors: Fir^, to put the water on the land; second, to keep the flood water off; third, to drain such portions of the lower land as may become water-logged by seepage water; fourth, to dispose of the mud. As compared with the fourth, the other problems are insignificant; but the second is in itself an expensive task, as any one will recognize who takes a look at the levees now being con^rucfted by the Reclamation Service. A portion of these levees has already been te^ed by the flood of November 29th, 1905, which has been exceeded but once so far as known. The following table gives the higher and lowe^ ^ages of the river each year for the pa^ twenty-eight years, as observed on the gage at Yuma. This gage was established in 1877 by the Southern Pacific Railroad, and has been observed by the Southern Pacific Railroad or by the United States Ge- ological Survey continuously up to the present time. YEAR. 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 THE GILA. The regular annual rise of the Colorado, caused by melting snow in Colo- MAXIMUM. DATE. MINIMUM. DATE. (FEET.) (FEET.) 23.0 June 24 14.7 Dec. 3 1 20.0 May 12 13.2 Od. 14 24.0 May 3 1 14.9 Dec. 8 23.5 June 14 15.0 Jan. 25 22.6 June 18 15.5 Dec. 20 24.5 July 3 14.0 Dec. 14 a 28.5 June 27 14.2 Dec. 5 24.7 June 1 3 13.7 Feb. 8 26.8 June 6 14.4 Jan. 19 23.5 June 10 14.9 Jan. 26 21.8 June 25 14.8 Jan. 4 . 22.4 June 7 15.4 SepL 27 25.5 June 5 16.4 Jan. 29 b 33.2 Feb. 26 16.4 SepL 22 25.5 July 3 15.5 Dec. 3 1 25.2 Mav28 15.5 Jan. 2 23.7 June 14 15.9 Jan. 23 28.2 Ian. 20 16.8 Feb. 1 3 24.5 Sept. 30 17.4 Dec. 17 ■ 26.1 June 9 17.9 Dec. 2 1 23.6 June 27 17.5 Jan. 8 27.0 July 1 17.0 Od. 17 26.0 June 10 16.4 Sept. 10 27.2 May 3 1 16.2 Jan. 14 24.5 May 26 16.6 SepL 28 27.7 June 26 16.8 Jan. 1 3 26.3 June 5 18.3 Dec. 27 31.8 Nov. 29 17.8 Dec- 31 a. Said to be higheil flood for seventeen years preceding. b. Higheil flood recorded. rado, Utah and Wyoming, begins sometime during May and la^s about two months. Floods coming at other times than during the spring months are gen- erally from the Gila. This treacherous stream at its mouth is dry mo^ of the time. Occasionally it sends down sudden heavy floods, and in 1 89 1 it swept away the town of Yuma, which was then unprotected by levees. In the Gila Basin there are several good reservoir sites, by means of which the floods can be controlled and the water used for irrigation. The Roosevelt Dam for the Tonto Reservoir above mentioned is now being conitrudted, and others are contemplated. THE DISCHARGE OF THE COLORADO. During ordinary seasons the Colorado discharges at low water about 3000 second-feet (cubic feet per second), and at high water from 50,000 to 75,- 000 second-feet. During the flood of 1 89 1 it reached a discharge of about 125,000 second-feet. The annual discharge of the Colorado, without the Gila, is about 1 0.000,000 acre-feet. This is sufficient to irrigate two or three million acres of land, and this amount of good land is available. W. D. SMITH, Irrigation Engineer, United States Reclamation Service. The Colorado River ESTABLISHED IN 1870 The "ARIZONA SENTINEL" Published in Yuma, the Gate- way of the Great Southwest IS THE PIONEER OF ARIZONA WEEKLI ES FOR THIRTY-SIX YEARS CONTINUOUSLY PUBLISHED WITHOUT MISSING AN ISSUE J. W. DORRINGTON EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR T. L. McCutchen D. L. Bailey Yuma Drug Store Prescription Pharmacies Drugs, Medicines and Fine Chemicals, Toi- let Articles, Perfumes, Soaps, Rubber Goods, Etc. High Grade Cigars MAIN STREET ' TELEPHONE 39 Follow the crowd to the New York Department Store..... Yuma's Leading, Up-to-Date Dry Goods, Clothing and Shoe House~the real Bargain Center One Price 'Che Store thai Saves 2/ou Monei/" Strictly Cash Colorado River Lumber Company Alex Durward, Manager 3ea/er in Jill Jlinds of Lumber and Building Material Builders' Hardware, Placer, Lime and Cement Office, Corner Third Street and Madison Avenue Yuma, Arizona THE COLORADO RIVER-HOW IT IS BEING DIVERTED TO YUMA COUNTY'S GREAT BENEFIT. Under the above headlines the Chri^mas number of the Arizona Republi- can contains a rather brief but mo^ comprehensive article on Yuma and Yu- ma County, from which we quote the following: "Gateway to the Southwe^, Key to the Valley of the American Nile," is the manner in which the modesl resident of Yuma headlines his description of the advantages of his home locality. And it's so. For years Yuma has ^rug- gled under the malign spread of the ancient blanket ^ory. Now the weather bureau has found many places much hotter in we^ern localities that smugly have arrogated superior climatic attractions to themselves, and Yuma is becom- ing known not for heat, but for the probability that lies ahead that soon will she become one of the garden spots of the world. One of the greatest rivers on earth flows pa^ her gates, and back of her are scores of thousands of acres of rich land, needing only the touch of water to become fruitful in the higheS degree. The climate is hot in summer, though of the kind that brings no sun- ^rokes, and the heat, coupled with the lack of winter fro^s, enables the farmer to grow in perfection almost every fruit that can be found in the tropic and semi-tropic zones. That Yuma has more than mere hope on which to base dreams of a great future is shown by the fadl that hundreds of men, driven even by night under the eledlric lights, are toiling upon the constiudlion of a Government dam across the Colorado, twelve miles above the city. Officially it is the Laguna Dam. A part of its construcftion is charged against the California side of the river, where, at the start, it will irrigate about 15,000 acres, largely to the benefit of the Yuma Indian Tribe. If the Government ever takes over the Imperial Projedt, on the lower border of California, it is possible that one of the largest canals ever known will lead away from the California end of the dam. But as far as now known, the main attribute of the strucfture will be the diversion of water for the irrigation of 73,100 acres lying around Yuma, Arizona. These lands will be called upon to repay the Government their part of the cost of construction, but their value will be so much increased that the burden is expeded to be a light one— less than $40 an acre. There is no expectation of making the Laguna Dam a storage enterprise. The river takes care of that itself, for its flow, fed by the melting snows from the mountains of Colorado, is greatest m summer, the time of greatest need. The dam will simply divert. Bedrock is an unknown quantity, impracticable to reach. So the construction will be a weir, similar to three that have proved effective across the Nile, in Egypt. It will back the water for ten miles, though the water depth at the weir will be only ten feet. Safety will be as- sured by the use of sheet piling, and the building of steel and masonry walls across the river between the natural rock abutments. The dam will be only nineteen feet in extreme height above the river bed, but will be a mile long- to be exad, 5470 feet. The main canal on the Arizona side will be fifty feet in width, with a depth of eight feet. Though the Colorado is, next to the Gila, the muddied ^ream in the Southwe^, it is believed that the Gov- ernment engineers have found a practicable plan for ridding the water of moft of the silt held in solution, by means of flushing gates below a settling basin, into which the water is admitted only by skimming from the comparatively clear surface of the river. One of the harden engineering problems solved was that of passing the Gila river, which enters the Colorado from the ea^. Nli^U i ' Scene on the Colorado River, Showing the Draw Bridge at 'l uma Open for a Steamer to Pass just above Yuma. This will be done by means of three ten-foot concrete tunnels, steel lined, their top§ several feet below the bottom of the river channel. Beside the land to be irrigated by this canal, in the vicinity of Yuma are about 90,000 acres that can be brought under cultivation by raising water from the river. It is proposed to irrigate 25,000 acres of these lands by rais- ing water from the main canal on the Arizona side, power being furnished by ele(5lrical energy generated at or near the dam. In the low lands in the river bottom near Yuma now is being constru