The Early History of the Tempe Canal Company

Journal of the Southwest

The Early History of the Tempe Canal CompanyAuthor(s): Christine LewisSource: Arizona and the West, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 227-238Published by: Journal of the SouthwestStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40167406 .

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THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE

TEMPE CANAL COMPANY

by

CHRISTINE LEWIS

This article is drawn from an extended study of irrigation in the Tempe area which the author recently submitted as a master's thesis at Arizona State Uni- versity, Tempe.

In 1892 Judge Joseph H. Kibbey, one of Arizona's illustrious pioneers, described the Salt River Valley before the settlers came as a desert, unin- habited except by jack rabbits, coyotes, and rattlesnakes. Its main vege- tation was sagebrush and cactus. It was a level, fertile valley about fifteen miles wide, through which the Salt River flowed west for forty miles to its junction with the Gila. The Salt River was a fluctuating stream. Sometimes it was a raging torrent which flooded the level land on either side, and sometimes it dwindled to a mere trickle. To the early settlers, stated Judge Kibbey, the water of this unstable river became as essential to the maintenance of human life as the air itself.1

The first homeseekers entering the Salt River Valley following the Civil War were quick to realize that the key to the development of that area was irrigation. Before them lay the remains of ancient waterways

1 M. Wormser et al v. Salt River Valley Canal Company et al, 34. This suit was filed in the Third Judicial District Court, Maricopa County. A manuscript of the case, which is popu- larly known as the Kibbey Decision, is in the State Department of Library and Archives, Phoenix. Cited hereafter as Wormser v. Salt River Canal. See also Richard J. Hinton, The Handbook of Arizona; Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins, Scenery (San Francisco: Payot, Upham and Company, 1878), 42; Dean E. Mann, The Politics of Water in Arizona (U. of Arizona Press, 1963), 35-36; and Hal R. Moore, "The Salt River Project: An Illus- trious Chapter in U. S. Reclamation," Arizona Highways, XXXVII (April, 1961), 2-15.

[227]



228 ARIZONA and the WEST

that stretched for miles along both banks of the Salt, attesting to the fact that in the dim past other civilizations had flourished there.2 They noted, too, that the gradual descent of the river through the valley was so gentle that at almost any point a ditch could be made.3 Encouraged by the prospects, early settlers cut small channels and began raising garden vegetables, as well as hay and grain, finding markets for these

products in the reactivated army posts in the territory.4 In time, however, the agricultural potential of the valley became more apparent, and associations were organized to construct elaborate waterways capable of irri-

gating thousands of acres. Typical of these large-scale ventures was the

Tempe Irrigating Canal Company, which for over fifty years stood as a monument to the efforts and determination of Arizona's desert pioneers to create permanent homes in a semiarid region.5

To Charles Trumbull Hayden,6 a merchant-freighter living in Tucson during the late 1 86o's, must go credit for stimulating much of the early interest in the Tempe area. About 1 868, while on a trip through the Salt River Valley, Hayden was detained by roaring flood waters at a crossing several miles east of the straggling settlement of Phoenix.

Climbing a butte nearby, he looked out over the broad valley below. To the west and north of the river he could see silver threads marking the Swilling Ditch and the Maricopa Canal running toward Phoenix.

Turning to the east and shifting his gaze to the south, he noted mounds of dirt which marked the irrigation works of W. H. Kirkland and W. B.

McKinney. Families were trickling into the valley in increasing num- bers, and Hayden envisioned the immediate need for a store to supply the farmers, a mill to grind their grain, and a ferry to provide trans-

portation across the river. On previous visits to the valley, he had become

acquainted with Jack Swilling, a resident of the area who had promoted the channels north of the Salt, and no doubt had discussed with him

2 Robert H. Forbes, "Irrigation in Arizona," United States Department of Agriculture Experi- ment Station Bulletin 235 (Washington, 1911), 9; Hannah M. Wormington, Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest (Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History, 1951), 118.

3Arthur P. Davis, "Irrigation Near Phoenix, Arizona," United States Department of the Interior Water Supply and Irrigation Paper 2 (Washington, 1897), 49. 4 Alfred J. McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply," University of Arizona Experiment Station Bulletin 43 (Tucson, 1902), 79. 5 Original Minute Book, December 6, 1870, to December 4, 1879, Tempe Irrigating Canal Company, 3-5, in Archives of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association, Phoenix. Cited hereafter as Minute Book. 6 Charles T. Hayden was the father of Senator Carl Hayden of Arizona.



The TEMPE CANAL 229

the possibilities of bringing into cultivation the land south of the river. That Swilling shared Hayden's optimism soon became apparent, for in the months that followed he took steps to organize a new canal

company.7 On December 6, 1870, Swilling and five others met on the south

bank of the Salt to discuss plans for an irrigation company. During the

meeting B. W. Hardy was elected president; J. O. Sherman, secretary; and J. L. Mercer, treasurer. J. Olvany, J. E. Ingersoll, and J. W. Swilling were elected directors. The new company, a cooperative association named the Hardy Irrigation Canal Company, was to open an artificial

waterway to be used for "milling, farming and other purposes/' Its channel would head about five miles upstream from what soon became

Hayden's Ferry, and about seven miles above the "Joint Head" of the

Swilling Ditch and the Maricopa Canal. The company claimed 20,000 miners' inches of water from the Salt River.8

As originally planned, the company would offer for sale two hundred shares of stock at two hundred dollars per share. Each of the six

organizers received two certificates for his efforts in forming the com-

pany; and each, with the exception of Sherman, agreed to buy one more share at two hundred dollars. Thereafter, he was entitled to purchase an additional eight certificates at one hundred dollars apiece. This would furnish the initial cash outlay needed to begin construction. Others could become shareholders by paying two hundred dollars a share, or

by contributing the equivalent in labor on the canal. A day of labor was worth two dollars, while an individual working a horse or mule would receive an additional half-day's credit - all of which was to be taken out in stock. If a person did not complete the one hundred days required to earn one share, he received nothing.9

7 Dean Smith, "Charles Trumbull Hayden," Phoenix Arizona journal, February 25, 1962; McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply," UA Bulletin 43, 77, 79.

8 Minute Book, 3-5; McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply, UA Bulletin 43, 77. The

Swilling Ditch was dug by Jack Swilling and a group of associates in 1867; the following year the Maricopa Canal, which branched off the Swilling Ditch, was completed. By 1870 the majority of settlers on the north side of the river were receiving water for their land

by means of these two canals. The Swilling Ditch, the Maricopa Canal, and the Tempe Canal were constructed by cooperative associations. The two north-side canals operated as such for about eight years, then became corporate organizations. The south-side company, however, retained its status as a voluntary association, unincorporated, for more than fifty years. A miners' inch is equal to 16,291 gallons of water, and twenty miners' inches would be the equivalent of one acre foot of water, or 325,825 gallons. 9 Minute Book, 3-5.




The Hardy Canal Company held three meetings in December of

1870 and two in January of 1871. At the second meeting in January the name was changed to the Tempe Irrigating Canal Company, and Granville H. Oury,10 a Tucson resident and territorial legislator, became

president. Hardy's name disappeared from the minutes. Jack Swilling resigned as a director, and C. A. Carpenter was appointed in his place. Because the organizers were slow in purchasing the eight shares to which they were entitled, the time in which they could buy the stock, before being declared delinquent, was set ahead. Then, in February Swilling moved that anyone who had paid into the company his eight hundred dollars should be allowed to buy additional stock as the directors wished to sell at seventy-five dollars per share. The time for the

original stockholders to pay up was extended to May 1, after which time no more stock would be sold for less than two hundred dollars a share.11

In the early years, much of the Tempe Canal stock became con- centrated in the hands of a few individuals. C. A. Carpenter bought a total of nineteen shares, which he held as late as 1890, but apparently never farmed an acre of ground in the area. Swilling did his bit toward

launching the new company by purchasing twenty-three shares between

January and August of 1871. C. T. Hayden acquired seventeen shares in 1 87 1, and Michael Wormser, who came to the valley three years later and farmed a large amount of land south of Phoenix, bought thir- teen and one-half shares. In September of 1875 one hundred and nine shares were outstanding, and the sale of stock was closed. The original plan to sell two hundred shares was abandoned, for the canal had a

capacity to carry only 1 1 ,000 inches of water, instead of the 20,000 claimed.12

At a meeting in April of 1871, with plans for constructing a dam

10 G. H. Oury, a native of Virginia, had served as delegate from Arizona to the Confederate Congress, and from 1866 to 1873 was Speaker of the House in the Territorial Legislature. See B. Sacks, Be It Enacted (Phoenix: Arizona Historical Foundation, 1964), for scattered references to his activities. 11 Minute Book, 8-9. After 1873 Swilling's name no longer appears in the minutes. 12 Argument of Clark Churchill in Behalf of the Defendants [M. Wormser et al] (Phoenix: Republican Book and Job Print Company, 1890), 15. Cited hereafter as Churchill Argu- ment. See also Minute Book, 9-54, passim. The company, in effect, was now claiming 550 acre feet of water.



CHARLES TRUMBULL HAYDEN (1825-1907). - from Thomas E. Farish's History of Arizona.



5 6

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TheTEMPE CANAL 231

and canal underway, Swilling moved that the company authorize a

special grant of 2,000 inches of water, or seventeen shares of stock, to

any person who would build a grist mill of not less than "two run of stone/' The mill must be built of new material and located where the water would not have more than fourteen feet of fall. Learning that the directors had approved the motion, and encouraged by the generous offer of water, Charles Hayden established himself on the Salt before the end of the year. He built a ferry and general store, and laid the foundations for a mill to be fed water through an extension of the Kirkland and McKinney ditch. Hayden's mill began operation in 1 874.13

During the early spring of 1871 the company established a construction camp on the south bank of the Salt near the diversion site. Business meetings were frequently held here. Settlers in the area inter- ested in bringing land into cultivation gathered in groups to work on an earthen dam and dig a canal. The company furnished all the pro- visions and tools, and appointed James Ingersoll the first foreman.14 At a place where the current was slow and easy and the banks low, a dam was thrown up, stretching over a mile in length. This was approximately at the same location where the ancient Hohokam Indians had taken water for a canal which led southward toward the Gila. In time, the Tempe Canal followed for miles the line of this ancient waterway.15

The first portion of the canal was called the throat, and ran one and one-half miles. Completed in the spring of 1 871 , it was of sufficient capacity to carry 1 1 ,000 inches of water, but during the first year only three hundred inches flowed through it to moisten some three hundred acres of land near the river.18 By 1873 the second section of the channel, twenty feet wide and three feet deep, was built under contract for fifty shares of stock. It extended the irrigation system south

13Minute Book, 15; Smith, "Hayden," Phoenix Arizona Journal, February 25, 1962. Hayden located near the butte in 1871. In 1875 a Mormon croup settled in the vicinity, and seven

years later purchased from Hayden eighty acres that lay between his ferry and the Mexican settlement of San Pablo. As early as 1875 the name Tempe was applied to the general area of Hayden's Ferry and San Pablo. The name was suggested by Darrel Duppa because of the similarity of the countryside to the Vale of Tempe in Greece. The Hayden Mill is still

operating in Tempe, but water power has long since been replaced by electricity. 14 Minute Book, 5-6, 9.

15Omar A. Turney, Prehistoric Irrigation (Phoenix: State of Arizona, c. 1929), 6, 43. 16 Churchill Argument, 9.




to a point near Section 19, TiN, R5E.17 Construction of branch lines

began and continued for two more decades, increasing lands under cultivation in the Tempe area to over 24,000 acres. The Western and Wormser extensions conveyed water to farm lands south of Phoenix, while the Goodwin Ditch and the Southern Extension irrigated land south of Tempe.18

In payment for the labor on the canal, the company issued stock, one or two certificates at a time. For example, Captain Nathaniel Sharp acted as foreman from March until May of 1871, a total of fifty days, and received one share of stock.19 Others acquired stock by hiring some- one to work on the ditch for them. The upkeep and repair of the canal, dam, and ditches was maintained by assessments on the stock in general, as well as on the number of water rights, or shares, used for irrigation in any one month. More often than not, these assessments were met in labor by the shareholders or water users. In August of 1 872 the directors passed a resolution stating that payment for repairs on the dam or canal would be fifty per cent in stock, and fifty per cent in credit on assessments due on the stock. During the late 1870's assessments on each share varied from ten dollars to one hundred dollars, according to the amount required to maintain the system.20

To oversee its irrigation system, the company employed a zanjero, or water master. The zanjero marshalled men and tools for emergency repairs, collected assessments (which paid his salary), and supervised perhaps the most vital obligation of the company - the equitable divi- sion and distribution of the water. The first zanjero was Winchester Miller, who was elected by the members at large in a general meeting in October of 1872 and served to July of 1873. He received a salary of one hundred dollars per month, payable one-fourth monthly and the rest after each harvest. His principal duty was to see that every applicant had a head gate and measuring box, and that each received his due under a two-inch pressure.21

17 Minute Book, 19-20. Today, this is near the intersection of Broadway and Price Road. 18 Churchill Argument, 61, 64.

™lbid., 9-10. 20 Minute Book, 27-90, passim. nibid., 30.



The TEMPE CANAL 233

J. T. Priest was the second zanjero to be employed on the Tempe Canal. Although empowered to shut off the water supply to those not

paying their assessments, either in money or labor, and to start legal proceedings against them, Priest seems to have had trouble in collecting his fees. For example, in 1 874 the stockholders resolved that no person was entitled to vote for officers of the company unless he had properly "worked out" his water dues, and was agreeable to paying his share of the fees of the zanjero. However, in December of 1874, with increasing responsibilities and a reduction in salary to seventy-five dollars per month, Priest resigned.22

With Priest's resignation, Nathaniel Sharp was elected zanjero, and held the position, with a few intermissions, until 1879. Like his

predecessors, Sharp checked the gates on the branch ditches, regulated water rights, and supervised repairs. His salary was reduced to sixty dollars a month, and like Priest he had difficulties collecting it. The

principal reason was that many farmers renting water rights felt the

zanjero fees should be paid by those owning the shares. The problem was resolved in 1 878 when the company decreed that stockholders were

responsible for the zanjero fees, and for labor on the ditch. It was also decided that zanjero fees were to be paid for the entire year on a right used in any part of that year; his salary was set at seventy-five dollars

per month.23 The zanjero s life was not an easy one. In dividing water, he always

found those who felt they were being deprived of their proper share. However, Sharp must have been an able zanjero who managed to keep conflicts to a minimum, because he held the job longer than anyone else during the 1870^. That he made enemies is certain, for at a general meeting in the spring of 1879, a motion was made to dismiss him. It was voted down, and he stayed on until the following fall, then resigned. It was decided that the directors be empowered to hire the zanjero, and

applicants for the job were asked to submit bids. G. F. Kemper applied for seventy-five dollars a month, one Jenks for sixty dollars, and one

*2lbid., 36-53, passim. 2Hbid., 56-94, fassim.




Cummings for fifty-five dollars. Kemper was hired for the following year, or for as long as he gave satisfactory service.24

Other problems arose, too. When Hayden began operating his mill in 1874, he found that the millstones required only 1,100 inches of water, or the equivalent of about ten shares of stock. This left him with some seven shares for farming operations, or to rent to neighboring settlers. At one time, when water was being prorated because of reduced stream flow, Hayden insisted that he be allowed to use all of his water

rights for the mill. At a special meeting of the company, Hayden's request was refused by a vote of twenty-five to seventeen. According to the territorial water code, agriculture had prior use of water in times of scarcity.25 However, sufficient water was allowed to turn Hayden's millstones two days a week until the river had more water. Thereafter, in times of scarcity milling operations were either curtailed or suspended in favor of agricultural needs.26

The Tempe Canal Company was the only medium through which the farming interests in the vicinity could get water to their land. A share of stock meant a water right to a one hundred and nineth part of the 1 1 ,000 miners' inches the canal carried. This was roughly five acre feet of water per acre - which was more than an adequate supply for cultivation of a basic unit of one hundred and sixty acres. Those who used their water rights in farming, especially in raising grain, frequently had a surplus of water at the end of the summer. This they sold to others in the area who were not so fortunate, or who needed more water because of the character of their crops. Michael Wormser, for example, sold his surplus at the rate of six hundred dollars for thirty acre feet. Stock- holders who did not farm rented their water rights, as did Judge E. W.

^Ibid., 94, 105. 25 Mexicans and Indians operating early mission farms in Arizona knew nothing of the common law doctrine of riparian rights, and practiced the idea that the water belonged to the land on which it was used. When Arizona became a territory in 1863, the Mexican laws relating to equity in water were incorporated into the territorial water code - and later into state water law. During the late nineteenth century, the idea that the water was appurtenant to the land became a controversial subject to water users in the Salt River Valley. Forbes, "Irrigation in Arizona," USDA Bulletin 235, 10; Coles Bashford (comp.), Corn- filed Laws of Arizona, 1864-1871 ( Albany, New York: Weed Parsons and Company, 1871), 502; State of Arizona, Ads, Resolutions, and Memorials (1919), ch. 164. Also called Sessions Laws.

2«Minute Book, 104.



The TEMPE CANAL 235

Wells of Prescott, at the rate of four hundred dollars a year per share.27 The stock in the Tempe Canal Company became extremely valu-

able, and in the early decades changed hands many times. It was bought, sold, rented, and broken down into surprisingly small fractions. As settlement increased in the area, a farmer attempted to acquire enough shares to irrigate his acreage, and, as the years passed, used these shares and parts of shares over and over again on the same piece of land. Thus, the water they represented became appurtenant to the land, even though the shareholders did not concede this. In spite of this, however, floating shares of stock, as well as absentee ownership, became characteristic of the Tempe Canal Company.28

The water code enacted in 1 864 by the First Territorial Legislature stated that all "rivers, creeks, and streams of running water in the Terri-

tory of Arizona are hereby declared public/'29 The pioneer irrigators in the Salt River Valley interpreted this to mean that such waters were

public only until they had been diverted and put to a beneficial use. Thereafter, the appropriator, whether individual or company, owned the water, and such water was not appurtenant to any one piece of land.30 They also believed that the first appropriator in point of time was the first in point of right. Accordingly, the two canal companies with a

prior right over the Tempe Canal Company were the Salt River Canal, formerly the Swilling Ditch, and the Maricopa Canal.31

During the early 1880's, as settlement increased and more canals were constructed along the Salt, the Tempe Canal Company viewed with alarm the dwindling of the water supply. Three companies were

operating on the south side of the river: the Tempe, the Mesa, and the Utah; on the north bank were the Salt River, the Maricopa, and the Grand canals. Then, in 1883 the Arizona Canal Company was organized on the north side of the river. It began a diversion dam farther upstream,

27 Interview with Harry Lee Hancock, September 23, 1962, Phoenix. Hancock was born in Phoenix in 1874.

2*Temf>e News, November 7, 1896; Hancock Interview, September 23, 1962; McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply," UA Bulletin 43, 92; and Churchill Argument, 9-10.

29Bashford (comp.), Laws of Arizona, 502. 30 William A. Hancock, Some Papers on the Subject of National Aid in the Storage of Water

for Irrigation of the Arid West (Phoenix: Dunbar Brothers, n. d.), 3. 31 Churchill Argument, 3-4.




above all the other canals, and announced its intention to appropriate 50,000 miners' inches of water. This was as much as the combined claims of the other companies, so they naturally regarded it as a common

enemy. The situation became especially critical during periods of water

shortages.32 In 1887, to protect their "vested interests," Michael Wormser, a

stockholder in the Tempe Canal Company and owner of the San Fran- cisco Canal, which took water from the tail-race of the Hayden Mill,

joined with the other companies in the valley in filing a suit in Maricopa County against the Arizona Canal Company. But in the months that followed the Arizona Canal Company not only gained control over all the north-side canals but influenced the Mesa and Utah canal companies to withdraw from the contest.33

Judge Joseph H. Kibbey presided over this first major attempt to

adjudicate the water rights of the Salt River. In 1 892, after reviewing nearly 6,000 pages of argument, he handed down a verdict in the Wormser case.34 Kibbey focused on the rights of the canal companies to water, rather than on the definition of individual rights of the farmers.35 In the past, the valley irrigators had left the distribution of water to the

managers of the companies. Some had divided the water according to the shares or parts of shares owned by the members, while others had made divisions according to contracts with individuals.

Kibbey now decreed that water rights be determined "in accordance with the quantity of land for which water was from time to time appro- priated by landowners under the various canals of the valley."36 To make the distribution of water more equitable, he caused the court to draw up and publish a table which showed when each parcel of land was brought into cultivation and the amount of land under the various canals entitled

32McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply," UA Bulletin 43, 82-83.

Mlbid. 34 Phoenix Daily Herald, October 3, 1892; Davis, "Irrigation Near Phoenix," Paver 2, 55. 35 The individual rights of each acre of land in the Valley were settled in 1910 with the Kent Decree. See Patrick T. Hurley v. Charles F. Abbott and Four Thousand Eight Hundred Others. This was filed as State Case 4564 in the Third Judicial District, Maricopa County, before Chief Justice Edward Kent, sitting as District Judge, and was published as [Kent's] Decision and Decree (Phoenix: Press of Phoenix Printing Company, 1910), by the Salt River Valley Water Users Association. Cited hereafter as Hurley v. Abbott.

36McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply," UA Bulletin 43, 86.



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The TEMPE CANAL 237

to water each year. The court declared that water rights were perma- nently appurtenant to the land, and there was no such thing as "floating rights/'37

Kibbey's decision established the Tempe Canal Company's prior right to 1 1 ,000 miners' inches of water, and specified that it would receive sixty-four inches "constant flow to each quarter section, meas- ured at the head of the Tempe Canal"38 - a right which the Tempe Canal jealously guarded for many years to come. The rest of Kibbey's decision was ignored, and no provision was made for its enforcement. To a great extent, Kibbey's decree was wasted effort, for even before the decision in the suit brought by Wormser and the Tempe Canal, the other companies in the valley had entered into an agreement of their own for dividing the water of the Salt.39

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the Tempe Canal Com-

pany was operating smoothly and efficiently. Members who had acquired shares during the early years made the rounds as officers in the company.40 The farmers felt a certain security in Kibbey's decision, for during the 1890^, they saw increasing prosperity spread through the Tempe area as more acres were put into cultivation.41 Hopes, aspirations, and optimism were high; but there also were troublesome thoughts. How could water be apportioned equitably in time of drought to all lands needing it? How could the vast quantity of flood water being wasted be caught and used to advantage? What was to be done about the saturation of

37 Phoenix Arizona "Weekly Gazette , April 7, 1892. 38 Hurley v. Abbott, 10. See also Mann, Politics of Water in Arizona, 36-37.

39McClatchie, "Utilizing Our Water Supply," UA Bulletin 43, 88, 90. The Tempe Canal Company existed for two more decades as an independent, privately owned and operated company. However, inadequate drainage of the farm land under the canal caused alkalinity of the soil which, in turn, brought economic pressure too great to be met by the company alone. As a result the Tempe Irrigating Canal Company was absorbed in 1923 into the general system administered by the Salt River Valley Water Users Association. Agreement, May 23, 1923, Tempe Irrigating Canal Company and SRVWUA, SRVWUA Archives. This contract provided for the merging of the two companies. Public Notice, April 6, 1925, Department of Interior, 1-4, SRVWUA Archives. This notice designated the acreage in the Tempe area admitted to the Salt River Project. 40 Tempe News, October 22, 1887. At the annual meeting in 1887, Charles T. Hayden was elected treasurer; Winchester Miller, formerly a zanjero, secretary; Michael Wormser, Neils Peterson, and A. C. Webster, directors; and J. T. Priest, zanjero.

*Hbid., October 22, 1887; February 18, 1888.




good farm land with alkali salts which came from improper or inade-

quate drainage? For the time being, however, the residents in the Tempe area were

lulled by a conviction that in all of the valley, they lived in the best locations. Their farm land was the most extensive and most productive, and their water system was the most stable and efficient.42 They pointed with pride to the self-sufficient, exclusive organization that for over

twenty years had carried life-giving water to make their desert land bloom - the Tempe Irrigating Canal Company.

42 Phoenix Arizona Weekly Gazette, January 14, June 16, 1892.



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The Early History of the Tempe Canal Company

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