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Q: Arizona History ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: Arizona History
Category: Reference, Education and News > Teaching and Research
Asked by: ppilot-ga
List Price: $35.00
Posted: 25 Jul 2004 14:55 PDT
Expires: 24 Aug 2004 14:55 PDT
Question ID: 378920
What is the importance of the federal government in the development of
Arizona between the 1860s and 1920s.
Answer  
Subject: Re: Arizona History
Answered By: tlspiegel-ga on 25 Jul 2004 17:15 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
Hi ppilot,

Thank you for a very interesting question.   :)

Arizona: The Political Ecology of a Desert State by Thomas E. Sheridan
http://www.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_2/SHERIDAN.PDF

"By the early twentieth century, however, some people were beginning
to view Arizona as more than a bundle of resources to be plundered.
Lungers set up tent cities on the outskirts of Phoenix and Tucson to
cure their tuberculosis in the desert air. And as the federal
government set aside Arizona?s most spectacular scenery and
archaeological sites as national forests, parks, and monuments,
tourists arrived as well. New constituencies were being formed, many
of them outside the state. Eventually those constituencies would
challenge the miners, ranchers, loggers, and farmers for the right to
determine how Arizona?s natural resources were used, especially on
public lands. The third phase--the great Transformation from
extractive colony to urban Sunbelt society--had begun."

[edit]

"All of Arizona?s major extractive industries--ranching, logging,
copper mining, and cotton farming--drew on national and global
networks of capital in order to respond to national and global demand
for particular commodities. A case in point was the extra-long-staple
cotton boom between 1916 and 1920. Arizona farmers cultivated very
little cotton until World War I, when the British embargoed Egyptian
long-staple cotton at a time when the U.S. military desperately needed
long-staple fiber for tires and airplane fabric. The federal
government and tire companies such as Goodyear, Firestone, and Dunlop
therefore turned to the deserts of Arizona, which offered the long,
hot, dry growing season long-staple cotton required. By then, the Salt
River Project, which had constructed Roosevelt Dam and tamed the Salt
River, was already in place and there was a ready supply of cheap,
seasonal labor just across the border in Mexico. Global disruption
created national demand, and national demand intersected with regional
climatic factors, river systems, irrigation networks, and labor
patterns to produce Arizona?s cotton boom."

[edit]

"Water control represented one such watershed in the political ecology
of the American West,including Arizona. The commodification of Arizona
was largely carried out by private capital originating outside the
state. But water control itself ultimately became the task of the
federal government. Until the late nineteenth century, Indian and
Hispanic farmers engaged in a creative give-and-take with Arizona
rivers but never learned to tamethem. The Hohokam may have constructed
the largest canal systems in pre-Columbian North America, but they,
like the farmers of the Salt River Valley in the 1890s, were
vulnerable to both drought and floods."

[edit]

"But one by one nature slapped those dreams down. Between 1890 and
1905 in the Salt River Valley, floods alternated with droughts,
ruining farmers and canal companies alike. Anywhere from 24 to 33
percent of the acreage in cultivation was abandoned. Banks failed and
merchants went broke. Individuals like Carl Hayden acquired their near
mystical belief in the power of big water projects while watching
their parents struggle to survive those hard times. Big business had
the capital and expertise to work the mines, stock the ranges, and
plant the cotton, but it could not afford the massive long-term
investment to build the water works. That enterprise required the
federal government, which could spread the costs across millions of
taxpayers. Without the federal government, there would have been no
Salt River Project, no cotton boom, and no urban explosion. That
alliance between big business and the federal government is the
foundation of Arizona?s economy, the very essence of its political
ecology.
But the nature of this shifting axis between business and government is easy to..."

[edit]

"... the Salt River Project, the Bureau of Reclamation?s (BOR) first
major experiment of the twentieth century. The federal government
built it, but the Salt River Valley Water Users? Association bought it
back. The farmers belonging to the association, not federal
bureaucrats, ran the organization within seven years of Roosevelt
Dam?s completion.

But the critique of Worster?s monolithic and hierarchical hydraulic
society needs to be broadened beyond the institutions directly
involved in water. Perhaps a better metaphor for the politics of
resource control in Arizona would be that of a feudal society of
competing warlords held together by a weak state. Copper companies,
railroads, ranchers, farmers, loggers, utility companies, real estate
developers, municipal governments--all need water to make their
enterprises thrive. And most of them at one time or another have
turned to the federal government to supply that water along with many
of the other resources they need. But different interest groups have
different needs. During the early 1900s, the Salt River Valley Water
Users? Association supported the abolition of grazing within the
Forest Reserves in order to protect its watershed on the Mogollon Rim.
Farmers and ranchers were enemies, not allies, in that struggle.
Business, big or otherwise, is not always a monolithic force.

Neither is the federal government. Different interest groups have cultivated,
manipulated, or co-opted different agencies of the government to
pursue their goals. In the process, different agencies have turned
against one another to defend their constituents and grab a greater
share of the federal budget. The Corps of Engineers fought the Bureau
of Reclamation for the right to build more and more dams. The Bureau
of Land Management does not always have the same land-use priorities
as the Forest Service, not to mention the Department of Defense.
Different agencies of the federal government sue one another over
Indian water rights. And there are bitter divisions within agencies
themselves. Which of its Multiple Uses are privileged within the
Forest Service: logging, grazing, recreation, wildlife? The answer
varies from administration to administration."

[edit]

"No development in Arizona history better exemplifies this
labyrinthine process of negotiation among interest groups and the
federal government better than the Central Arizona Project--Arizona's
political Holy Grail. The Central Arizona Project was conceived in the
1920s as an agrarian vision to make the desert bloom."

[edit]

"An even greater irony threatened to reverse Arizona history by
turning the water over to Native Americans. Anglo and Mexican settlers
had diverted water in rivers like the Gila and the Colorado that once
irrigated Indian crops. They also had pumped groundwater from aquifers
beneath Indian reservations in clear violation of the Winters
Doctrine, which evolved out of the Supreme Court decision in 1908 that
Indian reservations were entitled to enough water to meet present and
future needs."

=================================================

Arizona Early History
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/us/A0856705.html

"In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, conventions held at Tucson
and Mesilla declared the area part of the Confederacy. In the only
major battle in the Arizona area, Confederate troops were defeated NW
of Tucson in the battle of Picacho Pass.

Territorial Status and Statehood

In 1863, Arizona was organized as a separate territory, with its
first, temporary capital at Fort Whipple. Prescott became the capital
in 1865. Charles D. Poston, who had worked to achieve Arizona's new
status, was elected as the territory's first delegate to the U.S.
Congress. The capital was moved to Tucson in 1867, back to Prescott in
1877, and finally to Phoenix in 1889.

The region had been held precariously by U.S. soldiers during the
intermittent warfare (1861 - 86) with the Apaches, who were led by
Cochise and later Geronimo. General George Crook waged a successful
campaign against the Apaches in 1882 - 85, and in 1886 Geronimo
finally surrendered to federal troops. When Confederate troops were
routed and Union soldiers went east to fight in the Civil War,
settlement was abandoned. It was resumed after the war and encouraged
by the Homestead Act (1862), the Desert Land Act (1877), and the Carey
Land Act (1894) - all of which turned land over to settlers and
required them to develop it.

In the 1870s mining flourished, and by the following decade the Copper
Queen Company at Bisbee was exploiting one of the area's largest
copper deposits. In 1877 silver was discovered at Tombstone, setting
off a boom that drew throngs of prospectors to Arizona but lasted less
than 10 years. Tombstone also became famous for its lawlessness; Wyatt
Earp and his brothers gained their reputations during the famous
gunfight (1881) at the O. K. Corral. By 1880 the Santa Fe and Southern
Pacific railroads both extended into Arizona. Ranching began to thrive
and sheep raising grew from solely a Navajo occupation to a major
enterprise among white settlers. After 1897, the U.S. Forestry Bureau
issued grazing permits to protect public land from depletion.

In 1912, Arizona, still a frontier territory, attained statehood. Its
constitution created a storm, with such radical political features as
initiative, referendum, and judicial recall. Only after recall had
been deleted did President Taft sign the statehood bill. Once admitted
to the Union, Arizona restored the recall provision.

Modern Development

Irrigation, spurred by the Desert Land Act and by Mormon immigration,
promoted farming in the southern part of the territory. By 1900,
diverted streams were irrigating 200,000 acres (80,940 hectares). With
the opening of the Roosevelt Dam (1911), a federally financed project,
massive irrigation projects transformed Arizona's valleys. Although
Arizona's mines were not unionized until the mid-1930s, strikes
occurred at the copper mines of Clifton and Morenci in 1915 and at the
Bisbee mines in 1917."

=================================================

More information on Arizona and specific Federal Government Projects...


Hoover Dam - A National Historic Landmark
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/

*****

Carey Land Act  
http://www.slider.com/Enc/C/Cap/CareyLan.htm
 
"Sponsored by Sen. Joseph M. Carey and passed by the U.S. Congress in
1894. The act provided for the transfer to Western states of
U.S.-owned desert lands on the condition that they be irrigated.
Settlers were permitted to buy up to 160 acres (64.7 hectares) of the
land at 50¢ per acre plus the cost of water rights. Hopes that the act
would hasten reclamation and settlement were disappointed."
 
*****

Roosevelt Dam
http://www.srpnet.com/water/lakes/rooseveltdam.asp

"Roosevelt Dam was originally constructed between 1905 and 1911 to
control to the erratic flow of the Salt River and to harness the water
for irrigation. The dam turned the Arizona desert into land that could
be farmed."

*****

Dams, Projects & Powerplants - Salt River Project Arizona
http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/html/saltriver.html

Development History

"Irrigation of the Salt River Valley began about 1867. The riverflow
was erratic, varying from a small stream to enormous floods. During
years of drought, the supply of water at low river stages was
inadequate for the land in cultivation. River flows in excess of
immediate needs or canal capacities were lost, due to lack of storage
facilities.

From 1867 to 1902, a number of diversion dams, canals, and laterals
were constructed by private companies or through community effort.
Difficulties caused by lack of water storage, inadequate diversion
dams, and inequitable water distribution were so critical that many of
the settlers left the valley. A committee was named to investigate the
feasibility of a water storage system. A reservoir site located 80
miles from Phoenix, where Tonto Creek flowed into the Salt River,
seemed the most practical.

Such a reservoir would cost from $2 to $5 million. As a territory of
the United States, Arizona was prohibited from assuming such a
large-scale debt; private investors could not be induced to take on
the financial risk necessary to construct the dam.

The Salt River Valley Water Users' Association was incorporated on
February 9, 1903, for the purpose of furnishing water, power, and
drainage for the benefit of approximately 4,800 individual landowners.

Power Developments

When Phoenix and the surrounding communities began to grow, patterns
of water distribution were affected. A great impact was also felt on
electrical service provided by the Salt River Project."

-----

Project History
http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/html/saltrive.html

"A government outpost in the new territory, Ft. McDowell, was
established in September 1865. The cavalry's demand for horse feed
established a hay depot at a spot later called Phoenix. Phoenix's
growth, however, was triggered by creation of a private canal company
in December 1867. By the end of the following year, a hundred
residents had settled in vicinity. Other companies dug canals, and,
within twenty years, more than 100,000 acres were under cultivation.
Between 1868 and 1912, a total of 15 canals were dug across the
valley."

[edit]

"With the Reclamation Act in place, the just born United States
Reclamation Service (USRS) stipulated all local differences between
landowners had to be settled. An additional prerequisite was creation
of a landowners association. On Feb. 7, 1903, a 25-member committee
known as the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association was
incorporated. The Association represented 4,800 individual landowners
who pledged their lands as collateral to receive federal funding for a
Salt River reclamation project. The money the government would put
into the project would be paid back by the Association out of water
and power revenues one the system was in operation.t to the great man
for whom (Roosevelt Dam) it is named." Letters of apology were soon
forthcoming from the Arizona Commissioner of Immigration."

[edit]

"The damsite was sixty miles away from the community of Mesa and forty
miles away from the mining town of Globe. The railhead of the Gila
Valley, Globe and Northern Railway ran out of Globe, but the USRS
preferred to build their own supply line to the damsite. The Mesa to
Roosevelt path followed an ancient Indian route known as the Apache
Trail. The trail shadows the southern rim of the Salt River Canyon for
two miles below the damsite. The next thirty miles it runs four miles
south of the canyon, climbing a steep grade. Near Mormon Flat, the
road diverts to the south to Goldfield and then east across the flat
land of the valley into Mesa."

[edited - long article]

*****

THE HISTORY of HYDROPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
http://www.usbr.gov/power/edu/history.htm

Bureau of Reclamation

"Reclamation's first hydroelectric powerplant was built to aid
construction of the Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River about 75
miles northeast of Phoenix, Arizona. Small hydroelectric generators,
installed prior to construction, provided energy for construction and
for equipment to lift stone blocks into place. Surplus power was sold
to the community, and citizens were quick to support expansion of the
dam's hydroelectric capacity. A 4,500 kilowatt powerplant was
constructed and, in 1909, five generators were in operation, supplying
power for pumping irrigation water and furnishing electricity to the
Phoenix area.

Power development, a byproduct of water development, had a tremendous
impact on the area's economy and living conditions. Power was sold to
farms, cities, and industries. Wells pumped by electricity meant more
irrigated land for agriculture, and pumping also lower water tables in
those areas with water logging and alkaline soil problems. By 1916,
nine pumping plants were in operation irrigating more than 10,000
acres. In addition Reclamation supplied all of the residential and
commercial power needs of Phoenix. Cheap hydropower, in abundant
supply, attracted industrial development as well. A private company
was able to build a large smelter and mill nearby to process low-grade
copper ore, using hydroelectric power.

The Theodore Roosevelt Powerplant was one of the first large power
facilities constructed by the Federal Government. Its capacity has
since been increased form 4,500 kW to over 36,000 kW.

Power, first developed for building Theodore Roosevelt Dam and for
pumping irrigation water, also helped pay for construction, enhanced
the lives of farmers and city dwellers, and attracted new industry to
the Phoenix area.

During World War I, Reclamation projects continued to provide water
and hydroelectric power to Western farms and ranches. This helped to
feed and clothe the Nation, and the power revenues were..."

***** 

DESERT LAND ENTRIES
http://www.blm.gov/nhp/landfacts/DesertLand.html

"On March 3, 1877, the Desert Land Act was passed by Congress to
encourage and promote the economic development of the arid and
semiarid public lands of the Western United States. Through the Act,
individuals may apply for a desert-land entry to reclaim, irrigate,
and cultivate arid and semiarid public lands."

=================================================

State History Summaries - Arizona
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1486.html

"The state's first governor was George W.P. Hunt, who served seven
terms. He promoted ranching and mining, dams and irrigation. To create
electrical power and irrigation, the federal government stepped in
with several big dam projects from 1911 to 1935, the largest and most
famous being the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. The tourism
industry got a boost when the federal government began to protect and
develop Arizona's historic and scenic places, such as the Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument at Ajo, Canyon de Chelly National Park and
Monument at Chinle and Tonto National Forest near Phoenix. Visitors
also were attracted by warm temperatures, dry air and clear skies."

=================================================

In Depth History - Arizona
http://www.frommers.com/destinations/arizona/0211020044.html

=================================================

Admission to Statehood: February 14, 1912

The Baby State: For a period of time, Arizona was the "baby" of the
republic. It was the last of the contiguous 48 states to be admitted
to the union in 1912.

Photo of President Taft signing Arizona Statehood Bill
http://www.northland.cc.az.us/Pos221/image2/79-46-1.htm

=================================================

Arizona History/Timeline (from 1860's - 1920's)
http://www.etravelplan.com/category.asp?ObjectID=10018

1863
President Abraham Lincoln creates the Arizona Territory. 

1865
Prescott becomes the capital of the territory, and Charles D. Poston,
who worked to achieve Arizona?s new status, is elected as the
territory?s first delegate to the U.S. Congress.

1867
The capital is moved to Tucson. 

1870s
Copper mining flourishes in the region, and by the Copper Queen
Company at Bisbee begins harvesting one of the area's largest copper
deposits.

1877
Prescott regains its status as capital. 

1880
The Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads extend into Arizona, and
pioneers flock to the territory, attracted to the gold, silver and
copper resources.

1888
Copper surpasses gold and silver in importance as new industrial uses
are found for the metal. Arizona becomes the nation?s leading producer
of copper.

1889
Phoenix becomes the capital. 

1897
The U.S. Forestry Bureau issues grazing permits to protect public land
from depletion.

1911
The Theodore Roosevelt Dam opens on the Salt River, and massive
irrigation projects enable further development of the desert.

1912
Arizona becomes the 48th state. Its constitution creates a storm, with
"radical" political features such as initiative, referendum, and
judicial recall. President Taft signs the statehood bill only after
recall had been deleted, but Arizona restores the recall provision
once it has been admitted to the union.

=================================================

keyword search:

federal government development of Arizona between 1860s and 1920s
Arizona history 1860 - 1920 federal government
arizona water control
early history arizona US government
early history arizona federal government



Best regards,
tlspiegel - (Arizona resident)   :)

Request for Answer Clarification by ppilot-ga on 25 Jul 2004 21:22 PDT
This was a great answer. I deeply appreciate all the effort put into
the question. The only clarification I have is, what is the [Edit]
after every paragraph mean?

Clarification of Answer by tlspiegel-ga on 25 Jul 2004 21:35 PDT
Hi ppilot,

Thank you so much for the 5 star rating, wonderful comments and generous tip!  :)

In answer to what the [edit] means... this was put in by me, only when
I had edited out material that either was not relevant to your
question or redundant.

However, that doesn't mean it would be of no interest.  I tried to
keep all of the article in regards to the periods of time between
1860's and 1920's.

Also, most researchers when quoting large quantities of material will
place something similar to what I used - [edit] - in order to comply
with copyright laws.

When researching, I will read all of the material and then edit out
anything that I feel is not relevant to the answer.  It might appear
as if the editing was done after every paragraph, but it wasn't!  :)

In the future, if you wish to request a specific researcher, all
you'll need to do is to indicate the name of the researcher in the
Subject line.

For ex.,  For researcher tlspiegel - Arizona History.  

Thanks again, and it was my pleasure!

Best regards,
tlspiegel
ppilot-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars and gave an additional tip of: $5.00
He/She did a fantastic job!!! I hope this researcher in the future
will answer all my questions!

Comments  
Subject: Re: Arizona History
From: tlspiegel-ga on 25 Jul 2004 21:37 PDT
 
Hi ppilot,

I'm very much a female.  :)

Thanks again for the 5 stars and generous tip!  

Best regards,
tlspiegel

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