Data Collection Report - Flood Control District of Maricopa County

C. Archaeological AssessmentAt first glance, the study area appears to be a quiet, mostly rural sectionof Phoenix, located west of the hustle-bustle of downtown and theintensity of suburban areas to the north and east. Its seeming quietness,however, belies the many facets of Arizona history that have passedthrough the area. The roughly 68-square mile area witnessed the earliestAmerican surveyors to visit the area, delivered water for irrigated farmsboth large and small, sheltered homesteaders, provided flat terrain topromote the construction of railways and highways, and hosted bothWorld War I-era cotton production and World War II-era defense plants(Figure V-3). Today, the agricultural fields are dotted with developers’signs announcing new housing construction.Surveying the LandThe study area stretches across three townships in the western half of theSalt River Valley, Township 1 North, Range 1 East, Range 1 West, andTownship 1 North, Range 2 East. Those names and numbers bythemselves indicate the first Anglo history of the area.After the end of the Civil War in the spring of 1865, John Clark,surveyor general for the territories of Arizona and New Mexico,suggested to the General Land Office that it conduct surveys of suitableagricultural lands in the river valleys of Arizona. That year, however, theArmy sent soldiers rather than surveyors and established military poststo confront Apache hostilities against settlers.By January 1867, Clark had been successful in his requests and hiredsurveyor William Pierce to do a preliminary survey of the Salt RiverValley beginning at the initial monument located on a hillside just southof the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers (today, 115 th Avenue). Inhis notes, Pierce remarked on the appropriateness of the land foragriculture noting its rich soil, generally level surface, lack of heavyvegetation, and availability of water for irrigation. He went so far as tosuggest that the land was “some of the best agricultural land I have yetseen in the Territory and would recommend that it be subdivided at anearly day” (as quoted in Zarbin 1997:6).The subdividing of the townships laid out by Pierce was completed byDeputy Surveyor Wilfred Ingalls in the spring of 1868. The mapaccompanying the 1869 Annual report for the General Land Officeindicates that the territory surveyed from the initial monument at theconfluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers was the first land to be formallysurveyed in the Arizona Territory (General Land Office 1869).The work of Clark, Pierce, and Ingalls determined much of the look ofthe landscape of the study area today. The segmented, straight-lineboundaries of individual properties and fields set the pattern for thestraight roads aligned to the cardinal points of the compass. The designlaid out by the surveyors’ chains can still be seen in the grid systemvisible on the ground today (Hecht and Reeves 1981)The First DitchesAgriculture was the first, and for many decades the most important,economic activity in the Phoenix area. Soon after the Civil War, the firstAmerican settlers noticed the possibilities for irrigated agriculture in theexpansive, flat valley created by the Salt River flood plain. The notoriousJack Swilling and his cohorts first dug canals (or rather, re-dugprehistoric canals first constructed by Hohokam farmers) in the easternportions of the Salt River Valley in 1867 (Township 1 North, Range 3East). They were soon joined by other canal entrepreneurs all along bothbanks of the Salt River. From the late 1860s through the 1870s, manygroups of farmers diverted water from the Salt River for irrigated crops,from the Mormon farmers in Lehi and Mesa to the agriculturalentrepreneurs in the western stretches of the valley, in the study area.The several agricultural entrepreneurs in the Salt River Valley organizedto establish the desert settlement of Phoenix in 1870. The next year, thenew town was named the county seat of the newly created MaricopaCounty, and by 1872, the valley hosted more than 1,000 residents abouthalf Mexicans (Sargent 1988:26).A handful of enterprising farmers oversaw the digging of the first canalin the study area as early as 1869, just two years after Swilling’s firstventures in the Salt River Valley. In 1870, a group of four investorscompleted a ditch that had been begun the previous year. The new ditchheaded off from the river near present-day Fourth Street (extended) andBuckeye Road and extended northwest (into the project area) to waterthe investors’ homesteads, located to the southwest of the futuresettlement of Phoenix. Identified as the Griffin Ditch on the 189- map,the canal was also referred to as the Juan Chiviri Ditch, perhapsreflecting the employment of Maricopa Indians in the ditch digging ortheir settlement at head of the Griffin Ditch in 1880 (Zarbin 1997:23). Atan estimated cost of $10,000, the Griffin Ditch carried about 2,000inches of water (Zarbin 1997:35).In 1871 two companies announced plans to divert water from the northbank of the Salt River between present-day 27 th and 35 th avenues. TheSalt River Farming Ditch Company and the Monterey Ditch Companyincluded experienced irrigators from earlier ventures in the valley, andclaimed a total of 25,000 miner’s inches of water(just over 600 cubic feetDIBBLE & ASSOCIATES 48 DURANGO ADMPDATA COLLECTION REPORT