Merced County CA Archives History - Books .....Irrigation 1925
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Book Title: History Of Merced County California

CHAPTER XXI

IRRIGATION

   The first irrigation from the Merced River was along the river bottom, where
a number of small ditches were early constructed and water rights obtained.
Several of these ditches are shown on the surveys of the township plats, which
for that region were surveyed for the most part from 1852 to 1854. Peter Fee, in
his diary covering the years 1858 to 1862 inclusive, refers more than once to
working on the ditch, and under date of February 6, 1862, records that a man
named James Morton was shot by Erastus Kelsey, in a quarrel over a ditch
apparently, and speaks of Kelsey's "trial" the following day —doubtless meaning
his examination before a magistrate. Henry Nelson and Mrs. Mary J. Little both
mentioned this episode. Mrs. Little stated expressly that no blame attached to
Kelsey; and nothing more appears to have been done about the matter. It would be
more than useless now to attempt to go into the merits of the quarrel. Fee
records the bare facts of the shooting and the "trial," and as Morton appears to
have been working for Fee (though this is but an inference), it is reasonable to
expect that Fee would do him at least justice. The examining magistrate appears
to have concluded that Kelsey acted in self-defense.

   These early ditches for the irrigation of the river-bottom lands have had a
very important effect upon the use of those lands, but have scarcely affected
any broader extent of the county, beyond leaving a little less water for the
non-river-bottom lands. They and their water rights still exist, and have had to
be taken into account in all subsequent appropriations of water from the river,
but beyond that we may dismiss them from further review. The extent of the water
claimed for them was given some publicity at the time, about ten years ago, when
an attempt was made to form an irrigation district to take over the
Crocker-Huffman Land & Water Company's system and water rights. This statement,
which may be taken as substantially correct, was that the average flow of the
river is approximately 1665 cubic feet of water a second, and that of this the
old Ruddle mill, or Lee Hamlin mill, was entitled to the first forty
second-feet, and of the next 300 second-feet the river-bottom ditches were
entitled to 75 per cent and the Crocker-Huffman Company to the remaining 25 per
cent. The Crocker-Huffman Company claimed the remainder of the river's flow.
These quantities are again being gone into in the trial of the case of the Henry
Cowell Lime & Cement Company et al. vs. the Merced Irrigation District et al.,
the trial of which ran for some ten days during April of this year and was then
continued until June. Something less than one-sixth of the river's average flow
is therefore the maximum which these ditches together with the Hamlin mill
claimed, and this would be subject to be scaled down somewhat, as the river
falls below the 300 or 340 second-feet of flow after midsummer.

   The Merced River naturally was the source of supply which attracted all early
as well as later irrigators or would-be irrigators of the East Side, with the
exception of those near enough to the San Joaquin to draw on its waters. The
first move on a large scale to divert the waters of the Merced was in fact made
by men whose main design was to take the water clear to the San Joaquin, and
whose main place of proposed use was close down to that stream. The moving
spirit in this enterprise was William G. Collier, who was born in Shelby County,
Kentucky, July 17, 1827. Like so many Kentuckians among the Western pioneers of
that time, he came to Missouri and lived there for a time, and made it the
jumping-off place for California. He came to California in 1853 and to Merced
County in 1859. He was an educated man; was a student for three years at the
University of Missouri, and was trained as a surveyor. For a number of years
during the sixties he was county surveyor of Merced County. On March 30, 1870,
together with William P. Sproul and Stephen Baltzley, Collier incorporated the
Robla Canal Company, with a total capital stock of $25,000, consisting of 250
shares of a par value of $100 a share. The corporation's principal place of
business is designated in the articles of incorporation as Collier's Ranch.
Collier was president and manager, and also engineer.

   In organizing this corporation, Collier was putting into effect a dream which
he had had for a number of years, for irrigation on a large scale. He had first
located in Merced County on the north side of the Merced River somewhere about
across from the Stevinson Ranch; but to obtain better water facilities he had
soon abandoned his location there and moved to the south side, where he came to
own about 3000 acres of land, not all, however, at the one place. Almost from
his first location on the Merced he had turned over in his mind plans for
irrigation on a large scale, and the Robla Canal Company was the fruition of
these dreams. The corporation planned to construct a canal from substantially
the diversion point of the main canal now owned by the Merced Irrigation
District, out across the lands south of the river until it struck the north
branch of Bear Creek, thence down that branch to the main stream of Bear Creek
and down that to "the Roblas and the Lone Willow," and thence in a northwesterly
direction to the vicinity of the junction of the Merced with the San Joaquin.
Members of Mr. Collier's family, who were familiar with how this project
originated, believe that in it he promoted and organized the first irrigation
system of a sufficient size and extent to be fairly entitled to be called a
"system" in the State of California, and that as a consequence he is entitled to
be called the father of irrigation in the State.

   In the Merced River at the point of diversion was a dam belonging to three
men named Blunt, Yeiser, and Perrings. Deeds from Thomas Blunt and James
Perrings to the Robla Canal Company conveying respectively three-eighths and
one-eighth of this dam, with its water right, appear of record in May, 1873. The
grantors conveyed rights of way for the canal across their lands; they
stipulated that the corporation was to keep the dam in repair, and it appears
that each one-eighth was to have one foot of water under a four-inch pressure as
part of the consideration. There was also a nominal money consideration ; Blunt,
for his three-eighths, got a dollar in money besides the other considerations
mentioned. One at least of these instruments, besides being signed by the
grantor, is signed also by William G. Collier, President of the Robla Canal
Company, on the grantee's behalf.

  What the size of the Robla Canal was to be does not appear from the articles
of incorporation. Several miles, apparently six or seven, appear to have been
constructed under Collier's direction, and a tunnel on this stretch was regarded
as an innovation in engineering.

   On May 20, 1873, the Farmers' Canal Company was incorporated; and in
November, 1876, we find recorded a number of deeds from the Robla Canal Company
to the Farmers' Canal Company. The latter, which attacked the problem on the
larger scale which three years' increase in population in the country made
possible, was formed by the following men, who subscribed the sums set opposite
their several names, thus raising, in all, the sum of $41,000 for the project:
H. J. Ostrander, 50 shares, $5000; W. W. Gray, 50 shares, $5000; M. D. Atwater,
60 shares, $6000; Thomas Upton, 60 shares, $6000; William P. Fowler, 60 shares,
$6000; Wilson E. Elliott, 60 shares, $6000; Norval Douglass, 30 shares, $3000;
R. H. Morrison, 15 shares, $1500; H. B. Jolley, 20 shares, $2000; Stephen
Fitzgerald, 5 shares, $500.

   The purpose and object were declared in their articles of incorporation to be
"the mutual benefit of its stockholders in agricultural pursuits, by
appropriating 100,000 inches of water of the Merced River . . . for the purpose
of irrigating the lands of the stockholders of this corporation and of others
who may wish to purchase water of this corporation for irrigating purposes." and
"to construct, use, and keep in repair, a canal commencing at a point on the
left bank of the Merced River, in said Merced County, near the line dividing
township ranges fourteen and fifteen east of the Mount Diablo base and meridian,
and between a certain dam on said river, known as the Blunt, Yeiser and Perrings
Dam, and a certain oak tree standing on the left bank . . . above said dam;
which said oak tree is about thirty inches in diameter at this time and is
marked on the westerly side with the letters R. C. C. and B. T., being a bearing
tree marking the head of the Robla Canal Company's canal. From thence running in
a southerly direction to the highest bank attainable on or near the right bank
of the San Joaquin River, as shall hereafter be determined and located by the
engineer of this corporation; said canal to extend in its course across Bear
Creek, Mariposa Creek, and the Chowchilla. Said canal to be of sufficient size
to carry the said 100,000 inches of water." They then go on to claim for
carrying water the channels of all the streams and their branches the canal
shall cross, below the point of crossing to their mouths, and state that their
purpose also includes the construction of branch canals.

   It will be seen that this was an ambitious project. The 100,000 inches of
water claimed, undoubtedly would mean that quantity daily, which would be
equivalent to 2500 cubic feet per second, or about fifty per cent more than the
average flow of the Merced. Nowhere nearly as much of a project was ever
constructed as was here projected; but we must remember that this statement of
the extent of the company's aims and of its claims of water was designed to be
broad enough to cover any possible future growth, up to what the river could
irrigate. The Elliott & Moore history of the county, of 1881, says the canal
from its head to its terminus, following its sinuosities, was about fifty miles
long. It did not go down towards the Chowchilla, however, or even apparently to
Bear Creek, but came down the present course of the canal below the diversion
point to Canal Creek and down to the Livingston country.

   C. D. Martin, who came here in 1884 to work temporarily for C. H. Huffman on
the work this company's successor, the Merced Canal Company, was doing, and who
has been a resident of Merced ever since, says that the Farmers' Canal Company
built a narrow canal about twenty feet wide and about seven miles long, down
through the upper tunnel, which was ten feet wide, and they also built the
Livingston Canal to about two miles north of Livingston and the Colony Branch to
the vicinity of Atwater, to land northeast of Central Camp which was going to be
colonized. This work, according to Mr. Martin's information, was done in 1879.

   In 1882 C. H. Huffman organized the Merced Canal & Irrigation Company, and
they bought out the Farmers' Canal Company. The new company began work in 1883.
  The first year's work was widening the first seven miles of canal and the
tunnel. In 1884 they completed about five miles of the new canal, from the upper
tunnel down to the Carmichael place. In 1885 they started the second tunnel. In
1886 practically all of the canal was completed to the reservoir, now known as
Yosemite Lake, and part of the reservoir. In 1887 the reservoir was completed
and a big celebration held. There were great expectations and a boom in Merced
property.

   Mr. Huffman bought the Farmers' Canal for about $80,000, Mr. Martin thinks.
Huffman had interested William H. Crocker of San Francisco in the project, and
Crocker had financed it. Huffman had a lot of land; he was a big grain-raiser.
He acquired more land, a lot of it out towards Cressey, and in other parts of
the territory served by the canal system. Shortly after the completion of the
system the Crocker-Huffman Land & Water Company was organized, with Huffman and
Crocker the chief owners. Huffman put in his land and retained a little more
than fifty per cent of the stock of the company. The year 1888 is familiar to
all water-users under the Crocker-Huffman system, for the life of the
corporation was fifty years and the water contracts were all drawn to run to 1938.

   But we have run ahead of the construction work on the Merced Canal &
Irrigation Company's works. Charles Barrett was first in charge of the
construction work, and Mr. Martin, when he came here in 1884, as he intended
temporarily, became assistant under Barrett. Martin was afterwards promoted to
the charge of the job. They had about 400 mules, mostly on two-animal scrapers,
and about 200 men at work for three years. Mr. Martin had over 200 men at work
on the Rotterdam Colony when they were developing that.

   Development and colonization followed the construction of the canal and
reservoir. V. C. W. Hooper was about the first colonizer, Mr. Martin states. He
colonized Yosemite Colony. About the same time A. N. Towne, a director of the
Southern Pacific Company, subdivided Bear Creek Colony. The only improved land
when Mr. Martin came here in 1884 was the Buhach Ranch, which raised the buhach
plant, from which an insect powder was made, and also had a vineyard and made
wine and brandy. C. H. Huffman, chief promoter of the Merced Canal & Irrigation
Company, was a grain farmer. W. H. Hartley, one of the other directors of the
concern, was another. Not all the grain-raisers, used as they were to dry
farming, favored the project. This seems to have been among the reasons why the
irrigation was never extended any further south than it was.

   The Crocker-Huffman Land & Water Company grew and lasted. It sold its land
with a water clause in the contracts, the purchasers paying $10 or $20 an acre
for the water right, and $1 or $2 an acre a year usually for the water service.
  There were a few contracts which called for payments of only 62 1/2 cents an
acre a year, and perhaps half a dozen free. It was said during the negotiations
which led up to the purchase of the Crocker-Huffman system by the Merced
Irrigation District in 1921-1922, that the company made no money out of its
dollar or two dollars a year an acre for delivering water. It was a time for
trading talk, but it is probable that it did not make much from that directly.
It had its land sales, and its $10 or $20 an acre in payments for the water
rights; and it had the Bellevue Ranch, which enjoyed water from the system,
including later water than the contracts obliged the company to deliver to the
contract-holders.

At any rate, at the time when the irrigation district bought the system the
Crocker-Huffman Company was serving approximately 50,000 acres with water. This
was distributed over an area which included a lot of other land not under its
water contracts, running from several miles south and east of Merced to
Livingston, and from the edge of the foothills well out towards the San Joaquin
from the State Highway and the Central Pacific Railroad.

   The formation of the Merced Irrigation District did not result from the first
efforts towards that end. There was an effort to form a district which began
late in 1913 or early in 1914; by the spring of 1914 it was well under way.
Horace G. Kelsey was chairman of the committee for the purpose; and Edward
Stanton Ellis, then publishing the Livingston Chronicle and afterwards the
Assemblyman from this district at the 1915 session of the State legislature, was
secretary. The Crocker-Huffman Company was willing to sell out; it employed M.
D. Wood, whose long acquaintance with the section and his high standing in the
community commanded confidence, to promote the district project, and opened and
maintained offices for several months in an effort to carry the plan through. In
May, 1914, S. F. B. Morse, the local manager for the company, appeared before a
gathering of some fifteen large landowners and real estate men interested in the
project, and made an offer to the effect that if the people would within a year
organize a district to include something like 253,000 acres, the Crocker-Huffman
Company would construct storage facilities, extend its canals, and turn the
completed project over to the district at a price amounting to $32 an acre. The
plan contemplated a period of years to pay this off, but that fact was not well
understood by the people generally. There was a good deal of opposition, due to
several causes—the natural unwillingness of men to change 'from the known to the
unknown, the fear of too great a cost and of inability to pay the resulting
heavy assessments, jealousy between the town of Merced and the surrounding
country, and doubt as to whether the system thus offered would be adequate to
supply the full need for late irrigation water for a large district.

   The question of the duty of water thus brought into the light is, with
reference to the streams running down from the Sierras, such a complicated and
difficult one, that the facts will afford pretty good support for arguments on
either side. This matter was one of the factors of the problem then, and again
when the later and successful attempt to organize a district was made, and needs
to be noticed here briefly.

   The Merced River, pretty much like all the other tributaries of the San
Joaquin from the east which rise in the high mountains, is subject to great
variations of flow during the year, and to very material variations from year to
year. Records of its flow have been kept for a considerable number of years, and
the information in pretty reliable shape was available as early as this 1914
attempt on how much water, on an average, the river might be expected to carry.
But there was room for a good deal of difference of opinion as to how much would
be needed for a district such as proposed, and how much storage reservoir
capacity would be required to meet that need. The average annual flow of the
river amounts to about 1,100,000 acre-feet, but this is subject to variations as
wide as from 400,000 in abnormally dry years to about 2,000,000 in abnormally
wet ones. The records showed cases of several abnormally dry years coming in
succession, and the question was thus presented of how much water the district
would have to carry over in its reservoir or reservoirs to be safe for such
periods as these.

   In addition to this, the flow of the river within any one year, as has been
said, varies greatly. The days of greatest flow will be found during December or
January; the greatest day's flow recorded is about 55,000 cubic feet per second,
about thirty times the stream's average flow, which occurred in January a number
of years ago when the ground was well soaked with previous rains, and when a
soft snow had fallen to low down on the foothills, and there then came a warm
rain. The resulting run-off washed out the old power dam at Exchequer, which
proved unable to withstand a flood that ran many feet deep over its crest. The
months of greatest flow, however, come in May or June, when, owing to the
rapidly melting snows in the mountains, the stream runs high every day until the
bulk of the snow is melted, after which it falls very rapidly until there is
scarcely any water at all for a system depending on the mere flow of the river
without storage. The small prior rights for the Ruddle mill and the small
ditches of the Merced River bottom set a somewhat earlier date for the last
water that could be run in the canals, for a point was reached while there was
still some water in the river when these prior rights took practically all of
it. This point came as a general thing about July, and the remaining portion of
the summer was without irrigation water for the farmers under the canal system.
The much greater flow of the time of the melting snows, however, furnished a
surplus of water which could be stored without depriving the irrigators of any
water needed for their spring and early summer needs —which would only run to
waste to the ocean unless it were stored. There was enough water there; the
problem was simply to distribute it over the whole irrigation season instead of
the first part of that season. With these several variations of the river, both
from year to year and from month to month or day to day within a given year, to
reckon with, it is no wonder that the problem was at least complicated enough to
afford plenty of ammunition for argument in support of any view of the
advisability of a district which the viewer chose to take.

   At any rate, the attempt of 1914 came to naught. It remained for the Merced
County Farm Bureau, then quite newly formed, to start the attempt which was at
last carried through to the point where the 300-foot-high Exchequer Dam, to
store about 300,000 acre-feet of water, is now in process of construction on the
river about six miles above Merced Falls, and about thirty above Merced. The
election which resulted in the actual formation of the Merced Irrigation
District took place on November 25, 1919; but as much as two years before this,
on November 10, 1917, we find the irrigation committee of the Merced County Farm
Bureau, consisting of A. H. Poore, E. G. Adams, and Manuel Marshall, reporting
in favor of the formation of an irrigation district "under the Maddux bill." A
conference with Professor Frank Adams of the University of California resulted
in a recommendation from him that the work to be attempted should be confined,
for the time being at least, to the one project on the East Side, the
Crocker-Huffman system. The first discussion had included the West Side as well.
Professor Adams further recommended that as a method of proceeding a committee
of three be appointed to confer with the State engineer and the College of
Agriculture on the subject. Pursuant to this recommendation a committee
consisting of Horace G. Kelsey, C. H. Edwards, and George T. Parr was appointed.
By the December meeting, E. G. Adams reported to the directors that the matter
had been submitted to and approved by every farm center in the county except
Planada, which had not yet had an opportunity to consider it. In January, Adams
reported that data were being gathered on the Crocker-Huffman system. He was
appointed a committee of one to confer with the company to ask them their price
for their system, including the so-called Dry Creek reservoir site, and to
outline approximate boundaries. At the February meeting Mr. Kelsey reported the
conclusion that tentative boundaries should include the existing system and
60,000 acres around it, approximately 100,000 acres east of it, and 10,000 acres
on the north side—briefly, all land commanded by the reservoir site—leaving the
acreage, however, to be determined by the sentiment of the owners.

   The matter proceeded through the summer and fall of 1918, with conferences
with the State engineer and federal engineers. On November 16, 1918, Adams
recommended that the farm bureau accept the State engineer's report and proceed
to form a district of approximately 175,000 acres, about ten per cent of which
consisted or road and railroad rights of way. The scheme at that time was to
exclude the Le Grand section. At this meeting George T. Parr reported that a
finance committee would soon be appointed in the matter. The next month we find
a report that the committee has been enlarged by the addition of (or, as it is
put, a sub-committee has been formed to include) C. H. Edwards, F. E. Crowell,
E. G. Adams, Ward Minturn, and H. E. Carmichael, of Livingston; H. G. Kelsey, of
Merced Falls; George T. Parr, of Atwater; and John R. Graham and J. D. Wood, of
Merced. Community committees were to be created to circulate petitions for the
formation of the district. It was at this meeting, in the language of the
minutes of the farm bureau, that "the project of the Farm Adviser called the
Irrigation Project, covering this plan to form an irrigation district, was
submitted and adopted." The farm adviser, the first man to hold that position in
the new Merced County Farm Bureau, was J. F. Grass, Jr. Acting in strict
accordance with the policy of the extension service, Grass did nothing, either
before or after this, to thrust this project upon the farm bureau in the least
degree; but he had formulated the project, and credit is due him for thus early
doing some of the constructive work on it.

   These activities had not gone this far without opposition. In the minutes of
a meeting of the farm bureau directors on January 3, 1919, we find it recorded
that four representatives of those opposed to the project were present and
stated their objections to it, and that the directors voted to proceed and back
up the project. At this time it was reported that about 300 signatures to the
petition had been obtained.

   At a meeting on February 15, Adams reported a change in the boundaries to
conform more nearly to recommendations of the State engineer, and that new
petitions would be circulated. He also reported that Walter D. Wagner had been
appointed campaign manager and would soon start a wide publicity campaign. On
December 13, 1919, we find a report by Adams that the district is now formed and
the matter out of the hands of the farm bureau. As a matter of fact, it was
practically out of their hands early in the year. The appointment of Wagner as
campaign manager was not made until there had been organized a strong campaign
committee which no longer represented exclusively the farm bureau, although it
was engaged in carrying on the work they had started. The financing of the
campaign, for which George T. Parr had reported the previous November a finance
committee would soon be formed, had drawn other forces into the matter. The
Merced chamber of commerce contributed $300 to a fund for the purpose.
Individual citizens and business men made contributions. The campaign committee
numbered some fifteen members; and C. M. Cross, of Merced, was chosen as its
chairman. To him, more than to any other one man, from this time on until his
defeat as director in February, 1923, is due the credit for carrying on the
work. He gave of his time, his energy, his means—this much others did also—but
more than all he gave of his splendid business ability and experience, and of
his ability to stand firm under fire. He was the target for lies and
vilification; but his hand guided the district through its critical days.

   The opposition to the district held a mass-meeting at the city hall in Merced
and formed an organization called the Merced Protection League, the name
signifying their purpose to protect themselves and those who might become
associated with them from what they believed would prove a too great burden of
assessment. They opened offices and employed a publicity man, and took other
steps to make their opposition to the project effective. There was a hotly waged
campaign throughout the summer and fall of 1919, until the election for voting
on the question of whether the district should be formed, and for electing
officers for it in case it carried.

   It is necessary to add here that the proposed boundaries of the district had
been laid out definitely, and the district divided into five divisions, each to
be represented by a director. At the election the project carried by something
over 1900 votes for to something over 900 against. L. L. Burchell was elected
director for Division One, around Le Grand; C. M. Cross, director of Division
Two, including an easterly portion of the City of Merced and the country out
towards Lingard; C. E. Kocher, director of Division Three, including the
remainder of Merced and the McSwain, Robla, and Franklin neighborhoods; Mrs.
Matie Root Langdon, director of Division Four, including the Atwater country;
and L. D. Love, director of Division Five, including the Livingston country. L.
A. Paine was elected collector; W. D. Snyder, assessor; and C. B. Harrell,
treasurer. The board organized on December 8, 1919, by electing C. M. Cross
chairman, and employed Walter D. Wagner, who had carried the campaign for the
organization of the district to a successful termination, as manager.

   The task which confronts the directors of any newly organized irrigation
district is a heavy one. This one had several complications of its own thrown in
for good measure. There was the strong and active and well-organized opposition.
There was a system of irrigation canals ready constructed, it is true; but they
belonged to the Crocker-Huffman Land & Water Company, who were quite naturally
inclined to get as good a price as they could for them. We may be sure that the
efforts of the farm bureau's committee to get a price from them had not produced
any tangible results; there was no one with authority to deal with them for
their system until the district was organized. One of the problems which hung
over the district board from the beginning was this one of the purchase of the
Crocker-Huffman system.

   Besides this, and in fact constituting the chief difficulty as soon as it
came to be known that the reservoir site at Exchequer was the one to be worked
on, there was the hard and unescapable physical fact that the Yosemite Valley
Railroad Company had its tracks up the Merced River Canyon, within less than a
hundred feet of the water, and the reservoir would necessitate the relocation of
a long section of this railroad—something like seventeen miles, it eventually
proved. Another problem which presented itself as soon as it became definitely
known that the 300-foot-high dam at Exchequer was the one determined upon, was
the disposition of the large quantity of hydro-electric power which would be
developed, and for the sale of which a contract was afterward entered into with
the San Joaquin Light & Power Corporation for twenty years, with an option on
the part of the district to renew it for another twenty, at a price which under
the contract was to be fixed by the Railroad Commission of California, and which
was so fixed at four and one-half mills per kilowatt-hour.

   The railroad and power problems, however, did not immediately present
themselves. Surveys of a sketchy nature previously made had led to the general
conclusion that what had come to be known as the Dry Creek reservoir site would
be the one chosen. This had been the site contemplated when the attempt was made
in 1914 to form a district, and was the one in most people's thoughts now. This
site the Crocker-Huffman Company, when the 1914 plan was in contemplation, had
taken pains to purchase at a price which was considerably higher than its value
as range land, for they had been unable to keep their purpose secret and the
owners had seized the opportunity to get a good price. The site consisted of
some 20,000 acres forming the large shallow basin of Dry Creek, beginning just
over the bluff some two or three miles north of Snelling. Any layman could see
that dams could be built and water impounded in it—a lot of water. No one up to
this time had been in a position or found it worth while to find out how good a
site it was, what its drawbacks might be, beyond the obvious fact that it was
not on the river, or what it would cost, or to find out what other possible
sites there might be and how they compared with this one.

   The board of the new district was now in a position to find out these things
with exactness for the first time, and they proceeded to do so. On February 3,
1920, they employed J. D. Galloway, of San Francisco, to make an engineering
investigation and report on the best water supply for the district, and the cost
of the necessary works to store and deliver it. Mr. Galloway put on a
considerable force of engineers, surveyors, and draftsmen and made a very
complete investigation and report. The report was filed with the board of
directors on January 18, 1921, and consisted of about 500 typewritten pages,
accompanied by maps, tables, and graphs.

   Galloway's investigation of the Dry Creek reservoir site showed him that some
of its defects were very serious. It would necessarily be shallow, and
evaporation would be great. Investigations by Professor Andrew Lawson, geologist
of the University of California, indicated that seepage would also be great. It
would require a large and expensive diverting canal, some seven miles in length,
to bring the water from the river; and when the water was there, it would be on
the wrong side of the river, so that the plans necessarily would include another
canal to run it back to the river at the present diverting dam and across as it
was needed. The type of dam it called for was an earth dam, or rather one large
and several smaller ones. The soil of the site consisted of only a few inches of
earth upon a hard lone formation, and material would have to be scraped from a
prohibitive distance. The low dam would afford no praticable hydroelectric power
development possibilities. To cap all of these, the site was so low that when it
had been drained as low as any canal delivering water across the river at the
diverting dam could drain it, there would remain 80,000 acre-feet of water still
in the reservoir —more than a quarter of the whole contemplated storage. And in
addition to all of these things, or partly because of them, the cost was
prohibitive, or so near so as to indicate that it was desirable to seek another
site if possible.

   With the idea of finding a site suitable for power development as well as
storage, to reduce the total net cost by bringing the district back part of what
it would have to expend, Galloway turned to the Merced River Canyon. Here he had
a deep and narrow gorge, which would mean a high dam and a consequently high
head of water. Moreover, the got away from the expensive canals for diverting
the water several miles from the river and bringing it back across the river
again; but he at once ran hard and fast against the fact that the Yosemite
Valley Railroad occupied the canyon. He did not confine his investigations to
Dry Creek and Exchequer alone. The Dry Creek project included smaller reservoirs
on Burns Creek and another small creek south of the river; and he also
investigated possible sites further up the river, even as far up as Little
Yosemite. Weighing all his facts, he recommended the Exchequer site. He
estimated that the total cost of the project, with this reservoir, including
building the dam and power house, relocating the Yosemite Valley Railroad,
purchasing the Crocker system or paralleling it, and extending and enlarging it
to carry water to the whole district, would be about $14,-500,000, and that from
the sale of the power which could be developed the district should realize
approximately $500,000 a year, enough to capitalize something over $8,000,000 of
the total cost.

   The board submitted Galloway's report to the State Bonding Commission as
required under the law. The State engineer worked over his estimates. Henry
Hawgood was employed by the district at the request of the Bonding Commission
and the State engineer, one of the commission's members, to make a special
investigation and report on the matter of the relocation of the railroad. He
made some reduction in Galloway's estimate of $3,000,000 for this item. The
result of the Bonding Commission's investigation of the matter was that they
recommended that a bond issue of $12,000,000 be what should be submitted to the
people to vote on. The district put on a vigorous campaign for the bonds, and
the $12,000,000 were voted on November 22, 1921, just three days short of two
years after the district had been carried at the first election. A majority was
required; the vote was 2027 for and 1146 against.

   Meanwhile, on May 20, 1921, after a good deal of negotiating back and forth,
the district had entered into a contract with the Crocker-Huffman Company for
the purchase of their system of $2,250,000.

   The job for which Galloway had been hired was finished. He had been paid
$25,000 a year. The board now advertised for an engineer to carry on the
construction work, and on January 3, 1922, employed Rex C. Starr, who had
recently completed the Kerckhoff power dam on the San Joaquin for the San
Joaquin Light & Power Corporation, as chief engineer of the district at a salary
of $15,000 a year. On January 18, 1922, pursuant to the contract made the 20th
of the preceding May, the district purchased the Crocker-Huffman system for
$2,250,000. This included the canals and laterals, the diverting dam on the
river, the small Lake Yosemite Reservoir, and the company's water rights.

   Starr set vigorously to work. There was the canal system to enlarge and to
extend to a region which had suddenly grown from about 50,000 acres to about
173,000, including the entire Planada and Le Grand sections in the new part
besides a lot of land elsewhere. There were the dam and power plant to be
designed. There was the railroad relocation survey to be made in final and
detailed form, for both Galloway's and Hawgood's surveys had purposely been
limited, as a matter of economy, to sufficient work to give such an idea as was
needed for the purpose of the estimates. There were permits to be obtained from
the federal power commission for the construction of the dam, by reason of the
fact that some government land was to be flooded; and there was the approval of
their engineers of the plans for the dam.

   One change that had been made in Galloway's plans involved the canal to
supply the Planada and Le Grand region. Galloway's plans contemplated that the
water for these sections would not be run through the power plant at the foot of
the dam, but would be diverted near the top of the dam and carried through a
high line canal through a cut across a pass in the foothills and around at a
height sufficient to command the whole eastern part of the district by gravity.
During 1921 a committee from the Livingston section, which with the adoption of
the Exchequer site for the reservoir had become hostile to the prosecution of
the plans, appeared before the board of directors and asked that an engineer be
employed to seek further with a view to finding out if some other reservoir site
could not be found. This committee and those it represented had an idea that one
might be found on Canal Creek in the vicinity of Amsterdam. Pursuant to their
request the board employed E. C. Eaton, who had been an assistant of Galloway
during the work of 1920. Eaton, as was to have been expected after the careful
survey of the whole situation which Galloway had made, found no adequate new
reservoir site, but he made a recommendation that the plans be so changed that
the high line canal to the eastern part of the district would be eliminated, all
of the water be run through the power plant, thus increasing the power
developed, and the water for the Le Grand section be carried in the main canal
to Lake Yosemite and thence through a canal as high as practicable, and that the
portions of the land which could not be reached otherwise be supplied with water
by boosting it by large pumping plants situated in the country back of Planada.
This modification was adopted.

   Starr did no construction work on the dam, power house, or railroad—what had
come to be designated as the upper works. He did, however, carry the canal
system practically to completion. This was a big job in itself; but this actual
construction work, part of which was done under contract and part under the
direction of the district's engineers, was perhaps the least trying part of
Starr's job. There was a tremenduous lot of work in the matter of plans for the
dam and power house. There were numerous and difficult negotiations with the
Yosemite Valley Railroad Company with reference to the relocation, both as to
engineering features and as to the compensation which the company was to receive
from the district. The matter of the compensation was finally settled by a board
of three arbitrators.

   In February, 1923, W. D. Wagner resigned as manager of the district and E. V.
Givens was elected director from Division Two in place of C. M. Cross. The
opposition forces had waged a strong fight against Wagner, and among other
things they had raised the cry of economy as to the $500 a month salary he
received. The board, after the election of Givens, consisted of L. L. Burchell
from Division One, who had held from the beginning; Givens from Division Two; C.
E. Kocher from Division Three, who had also served from the beginning; George S.
Bloss, Jr., from Division Four, who had succeeded Mrs. Matie Root Langdon,
resigned; and Dr. C. L. Garvin, the third director from Division Five at
Livingston, L. D. Love having been succeeded by L. E. Danley there, and Danley
having afterwards been recalled and Dr. Garvin elected in his place. The board
determined, in response to the cry for economy, to dispense with a manager, and
Starr assumed the duties of that office for the time being in addition to those
of engineer. The office of secretary, which Wagner had held as well as that of
manager, was filled by the appointment of H. P. Sargent.

   Starr was young and vigorous, and was a worker of the "high pressure" type.
On the Kerckhoff job he had suffered something in the nature of a nervous
breakdown, and the fear of a repetition of this appears to have haunted him now.
He carried on his heavy duties, however, took a part in the civic and social
life of the community, and bucked the difficulties presented by the opposition.
The strain proved too much, and on May 2, 1923, the community was inexpressibly
shocked to learn that his body had been found in the shallow water of one of the
large new canals back of Planada, dead of a shot self-inflicted while he had
been temporarily deranged.

   Meanwhile, on May 3, 1922, pursuant to a clause between the district and the
San Joaquin Light & Power Corporation, at a hearing at the superior court room
in Merced presided over by Commissioners Stanley Benedict and Chester Rowell,
the Railroad Commission had fixed the rate which the company was to pay the
district for the hydroelectric power at four and one-half mills per
kilowatt-hour. While the construction of a dam of only partial height was under
contemplation, later there was an agreement reached that this rate should in
that case be slightly less; but with the full-height dam now being built, the
rate as fixed by the commission stands, for a period of twenty years, with the
option on the part of the district to renew it for twenty more. It may be said
here that forty years is the period at which the last of the district bonds will
be retired, the greater part of them maturing during the second twenty years
after the creation of the district, according to a schedule arranged to equalize
the yearly burden of combined interest and sinking fund as nearly as practicable.

   On May 14, 1923, the board appointed R. C. Starrett, who had been Starr's
assistant, to be chief engineer, and on June 8 employed Thebo, Starr & Anderton,
Starr's firm of construction engineers, as consulting engineers on the upper
works. On July 10, 1923, the surveys of the railroad relocation having been
theretofore completed in detail, and the arbitrators having finished their work,
the district executed an agreement with the railroad company permitting the
relocation to be made and prescribing the terms of settlement.

   The board advertised for bids for the construction of the upper works, to be
opened on August 3. When the bids were received, they were all considered too
high, and the board rejected them all and ordered the work to proceed under the
direction of Thebo, Starr & Anderton. Mr. Thebo and Mr. Anderton, the surviving
members of the firm, were both personally on the job here. But there were
objections raised to this. General Goethals, the builder of the Panama Canal,
was here to look at the project, and there were people who wanted him to build
the upper works. The matter so worked out that the board ordered only enough
work done in the bottom of the river to clean it out to solid bottom and to pour
concrete to a height such that the high water of the coming winter should not
interrupt operations. This work was done along through the fall and early
winter; the winter proved abnormally dry, so that there was no interruption from
high water. With the completion of this start on the dam, Thebo and Anderton
tendered their resignations; and on January 2, 1924, the board appointed R. V.
Meikle chief engineer and A. J. Wiley consulting engineer for the district. They
had worked in the corresponding capacities on the construction of the Don Pedro
project, and their record there inspired confidence.

   The difficulties peculiar to this job had by this time been disposed of one
by one. The Crocker-Huffman Company's system had been bought; the contract had
been made with the San Joaquin Light & Power Corporation for the sale of the
power, and the price the district was to receive for it had been fixed; the
railroad relocation survey had been completed; and the agreement had been
reached with the railroad company as to the settlement between them and the
district.

   One other difficulty which has not been mentioned had been disposed of by the
final definite selection of the Exchequer reservoir site. The Crocker-Huffman
Land & Water Company, as has been said, had some years before the move for the
present district had been started purchased something like 20,000 acres of low
foothill range land constituting what came to be known as the Dry Creek
reservoir site. The price had been high—altogether too high for the value of the
land as cattle range—something like $700,000 in all, it is said. This had not
been included in the purchase which the district had made from the company, for
the Exchequer site had been chosen when that purchase was made. The company was
naturally anxious to sell the Dry Creek site to the district. They did not quit
without a struggle when J. D. Galloway recommended Exchequer; they employed
engineers to make a showing to the board, if possible, in favor of Dry Creek.
The engineer in charge was City Engineer O'Shaughnessy, of San Francisco. His
report, agreeing with Galloway's preference for Exchequer, ended any overt
attempt after that to sell Dry Creek to the district; but the Dry Creek site
still served as a talking point to that phase of the opposition which centered
upon the heavy expense of the railroad relocation at Exchequer.

   Still another difficulty which for a considerable time threatened the peace
at least, if not the further progress of the district, was what came to be known
as the Crocker-Huffman Contract-Holders matter. When the district bought the
Crocker-Huffman system, the company had outstanding, as has been said, contracts
on something like 50,000 acres of land, to supply water until 1938, for which
the holders had paid usually $10 or $20 an acre down, and under which they paid
$1 or $2 an acre a year for the delivery of water through the canals. The
question of what compensation these contract-holders were to receive for their
rights proved one of the most troublesome which the district had to struggle
with. There was no doubt in the minds of practically everybody in the district
that these people had something of some material value, but the difficulty was
to determine how much. The opposition seized upon the matter eagerly as a means
of obstructing the progress of the work. On the other hand, there were a lot of
the contract-holders who expressed a willingness to leave the settlement of the
matter to the board of directors, and some even went so far as to offer to
surrender their contract rights without any compensation. A so-called
"Crocker-Huffman Contract-Holders' Association" was formed, and Attorney Edward
F. Treadwell, of San Francisco, former chief counsel for Miller & Lux, was
retained on a largely contingent basis. A suit was filed against the district.
The matter was later worked out on the basis that the district agree to pay the
contract-holders $70,000 a year for seventeen years in settlement of their
rights, leaving them of course, as was necessary, on the same basis as every
ether landowner in the district as to the payment of district assessments and
rates. With this agreement the contract-holders' matter became quiescent, and
has remained so ever since.

   During some time preceding the employment of Engineers Meikle and Wiley, the
question of the type of dam to be built at Exchequer had presented a good deal
of difficulty. The board at one time decided on a multiple-arch type, but the
federal engineers vetoed this on the ground that no such dam of that type had
ever been built of anywhere near any such height as 300 feet. The gravity-arch
type, similar to that at Don Pedro, was finally adopted and approved.

   When this was accomplished, there remained for the new engineers only one
major difficulty besides the actual engineering and construction. It had been
realized, since the summer of 1923 at least, that the estimate of $12,000,000,
and the bond issue voted on that estimate, were not going to be sufficient to
complete the project. This was the first matter which the new engineers
attacked. On February 1, 1924, they filed a report with the board recommending
an additional bond issue of $3,250,000, thus carrying the total now estimated
slightly over Galloway's original estimate. A petition for the election was
circulated and filed with the board on March 4, 1924, and the election was
called for the 31st of the same month. It was partly a sign of a new harmony
which had been attained after a great deal of discord, that the bonds carried by
between nine and ten for to one against.

   An additional incentive was the fact that the district was by this time too
far committed for even those who had formerly opposed it to see any way to go
except forward. About $5,000,000 of the bonds had already been sold, $3,120,000
in the first block and $1,800,000 in the second, on which in all there had been
received a premium of a little over $100,000. The Crocker-Huffman system had
been purchased for $2,250,000. Approximately $2,750,000 has now been expended on
the lower works and about $328,000 on drainage, most of which was spent before
the election. The point had nearly been reached where the income from the power
would carry the remaining amount estimated to be necessary, and the people at
this election showed no doubt that most of them wished to complete the system.

   The problem of the sale of the remaining $9,010,000 of bonds was now the
chief one before the board. After a good deal of negotiating with a number of
bond houses, the bonds were sold on July 23, 1924, to a syndicate composed of
about a dozen San Francisco and Los Angeles banks and bond houses, at a discount
of four per cent below par; and the board let the contract for the railroad job
to F. Rolandi of San Francisco, and the dam and power house to Bent Brothers of
Los Angeles. The total cost of the railroad relocation, including engineering,
rights of way, bridges, construction and everything else, estimated on the unit
prices of the bid and with estimates for the bridges, is put at $3,836,271.69;
of the dam and reservoir, on the unit bids for the estimated quantities,
$3,878,120.59; and of the power plant, $1,097,613.44. The total cost, as now
estimated or actually known, is put at slightly over $15,000,000.

   The Merced Irrigation District Bond Syndicate, on September 20 and 21, 1924,
sent a body of about 225 salesmen here. They inspected the completed Don Pedro
Dam, as a basis for judging what the Exchequer Dam will look like when
completed, and examined the Exchequer site and the work started there, and also
traveled over the district and made an examination of the territory which
constitutes the security for the bonds. The bonds were then put on the market at
$102.50, and a considerable portion of them has been sold. F. Rolandi now has
several hundred men at work on the railroad job, and the schedule calls for the
completion of the railroad and bridges before the end of 1925. Bent Brothers
have several hundred more at work on the dam and power plant. By the spring of
1926, the work is expected to be completed, and the railroad is to be out of the
way in time to permit the reservoir to be filled during the winter of 1925 and
1926. The summer of 1926 will see storage water in use in the district.

   The board of directors of the district at present consist of T. H. Scandrett,
formerly chairman of the board of supervisors, who has succeeded L. L. Burchell
from Division One by appointment; E. V. Givens, from Division Two; C. E. Kocher,
the only remaining member of the original board, and chairman since the election
of Givens in C. M. Cross's place in February, 1923, from Division Three; George
S. Bloss, Jr., from Division Four; and Dr. C. L. Garvin, from Division Five.

   We have dealt at considerable length with the subject of irrigation from the
Merced River. It would give an entirely wrong impression of the county if one
were to conclude that other irrigation in the county had not been as extensive
or more so than that from the Merced. Irrigation from the San Joaquin has been
more extensive, in the county, than that from the Merced. However, the story of
irrigation from the San Joaquin may fairly be said to lack the abundance of
detail which there is in the story of irrigation from the Merced. It did not
begin as early, although we have seen in the chapter on early days on the West
Side that Henry Miller had completed his lower canal early in the seventies.
Secondly, part of its story lies outside of the county. And thirdly, in no other
irrigation undertaking touching the county has there been any struggle,
involving a large number of Merced County people, to parallel the Merced
Irrigation District story.

   Along about the time that the Crocker-Huffman canal and its Lake Yosemite
reservoir were completed, towards the end of the eighties, all the other large
tracts which are irrigated even to this day may fairly be said to have been also
begun, at least, to be brought under irrigation. The Wright Irrigation Law had
been passed; and on May 28, 1887, the Turlock Irrigation District was organized,
one of the pioneer irrigation districts. It had years of costly litigation ahead
of it, with consequent grievous delays in getting water to the land, but it was
organized. A glance at the map will show that a very large part of that portion
of Merced County between the Merced River and the Stanislaus line and between
the San Joaquin River and the Santa Fe is covered by the canals of this
district. The greater part of the district of course lies in Stanislaus County.
Its headquarters are at Turlock in that county. But the whole of the intensive
settlements of the Hilmar and Irwin, Riverside, and Delhi regions in Merced
County are made possible by the waters which the Turlock Irrigation District
brings from the Tuolumne. The story of the Turlock Irrigation District in detail
belongs rather to Stanislaus than to Merced County, however, for while a very
large acreage in Merced County partakes of its waters, the struggle for its
establishment was broadly speaking a Stanislaus matter.

   While the Turlock District was getting organized, and the Crocker-Huffman
canal system was drawing towards completion, another large irrigation movement
was under way on the East Side of Merced County. On November 30, 1886, James J.
Stevinson filed on 300 cubic feet per second of the water of the San Joaquin
River. His notices stated that he intended to construct a canal to convey this
water to his "present residence on the Merced River. Said canal to begin at a
point where the slough leaves the San Joaquin River, and thence in a northerly
and northwesterly direction along the most feasible route to the terminus. Said
canal to be not less than forty (40) feet wide on the bottom and not less than
four (4) feet deep. Said water to be used for irrigation purposes." There is an
affidavit of John W. Bost attached, that he posted a copy of the notice at the
proposed head of the canal on the San Joaquin on November 27, 1886. On November
30 the notice was recorded at General Bost's request.

   A year later two notices of much larger appropriations were posted, one on
November 3, 1887, by J. J. Stevinson and John W. Bost, claiming 3,456,000 cubic
inches under a pressure of four inches for irrigation, navigation and domestic
and manufacturing purposes. It contemplated a canal sixty feet on the bottom,
seventy-five feet on top, and seven feet deep. The proposed point of diversion
was on the right or east bank of the San Joaquin about six miles below the
bridge at Firebaugh. The third notice, daied November 17, 1887, and recorded on
November 25, was by James J. Stevinson, John W. Bost, and John W. Mitchell. It
was for the appropriation of 3,450,000 inches, under a pressure of four inches,
for the same place of use and the same-sized canal as in the preceding notice.
The point of diversion was on the north or right bank of the San Joaquin near
the head of a large slough and near and above the line dividing Ranges 16 and
17, Township 12 South, M. D. M., and in the County of Fresno.

   It is interesting to consider these quantities of water as here specified.
One cannot escape the conclusion that someone was confused by the various units.
The first notice, with its 300 cubic feet per second, is obviously correct, but
the addition in the notice that it is to be under a six-inch pressure shows that
the person who drew the notice was more familiar with the miner's inch than with
the unit he was here using. The second calls for a flow of 3,456,000 cubic
inches under a pressure of four inches. If this was meant for miner's inches, it
would, since one cubic foot per second is equal to forty miner's inches, be
equal to 83,200 cubic feet per second, rather more water than the average flow
of all the rivers of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys together. The third
notice calls for 3,450,000 inches (it does not say cubic) under a four-inch
pressure. Because of the extremely large number of inches called for, and the
extremely large quantity of water it would mean if we take it to be miner's
inches, and from the further fact that 3,456,000 cubic inches is exactly 2000
cubic feet, and considering further the size of canal designated, there is no
practical doubt that the second and third notices meant cubic inches per second—
as one of the notices says—in short, that the second and third notices called
for exactly or approximately 2000 cubic feet per second.

   In the Merced Express of November 12, 1887, we find the following very
comprehensive summing up of the irrigation projects of the county, for which
clearly we are indebted to the civic pride which led Editor J. A. Norvell to
draw comparisons between Merced and Fresno Counties which were more or less
odious to the latter:

   "Merced County.—Whenever a rise comes in the Merced and San Joaquin rivers,
Merced County will have with the present facilities an area of irrigated land
equal to the actual area of the land under permanent irrigation in Fresno
County. When the contemplated canal on the East Side of the San Joaquin, from
Firebaugh's in Fresno County to the land of Judge C. H. Marks west of Livingston
in Merced County, is completed, then the area of land will exceed any possible
acreage of agricultural land that ever can be placed under permanent cultivation
in either Fresno or Stanislaus counties. Under the direction of General Bost,
the Mitchell and Stevenson (so it was spelled) canal is now about completed.
This canal is intended to water about 45,000 acres of the deep rich soil near
the course of the San Joaquin south of its junction with the Merced. This land
is mostly owned by John Mitchell and Colonel Stevenson, and the canal has been
completed quietly and expeditiously at their expense. The Merced River canal and
reservoir east of Merced will water a very large area of Merced plains in the
vicinity of this town. The main canal of this enterprise is completed. The
reservoir will be finished in a few weeks, and the fortunate owners of water
rights from this source will be able to turn an unlimited supply of water out on
their lands whenever the first storm in the Sierras sends a winter freshet down
the Merced.

   "The West Side Canal has been in successful operation for a number of years.
This carries a large volume of water from the San Joaquin below Firebaugh's
clear through Merced County down to points in Stanislaus below Hill's Ferry.
Except at Badger Flat and Cottonwood, most of the land irrigated is owned by
Miller & Lux. By the agency of this canal this firm has transformed a region
originally affording only a scanty and uncertain pasture into the best grazing
farm and most productive region in the State. The whole of the Merced River
bottom is already watered by numerous canals that carry abundance of water at
all stages of the river.

   "General Bost is authority for the statement that the new East Side Canal
will be commenced forthwith and completed within a year. He surprised the
community by completing his last task before half the folks in town knew there
was a canal building near Dover. We believe the Merced Express is warranted in
stating that within one year from the date of this issue, Merced will have
one-third more land under permanerit irrigation than Fresno has now or ever can
possibly supply with water for agricultural purposes."

   In the "Mitchell and Stevenson canal" which "is now about completed" we
recognize the present East Side Canal & Irrigation Company's canal, more
commonly known as the East Side Canal or the Stevinson Canal. The "new East Side
Canal," the "contemplated canal on the East Side of the San Joaquin, from
Firebaugh's ... to the land of Judge C. H. Marks," on the contrary, was a
project which was fated never to become a reality. What the reasons were which
prevented the carrying out of this undertaking, which when Mr. Norvell wrote the
editorial just quoted, in November, 1887, seems to have been regarded as
something which would be carried out in the immediate future, we cannot inquire
fully here. We know that there has been a long series of water lawsuits between
the Miller & Lux interests on the one hand and the Stevinson interests on the
other, regarding the waters of the San Joaquin River. Whether in these alone we
find the reason why this "new East Side Canal," larger and more ambitious than
the one that was built, was to remain only a canal on paper, or whether other
reasons (difficulties of financing, less favorable results than had been
expected on some of the land from irrigation, or what not) were either wholly or
in part responsible—these are interesting questions, but properly to write the
history of them would require a book in itself; they can only be asked here.

   The greatest irrigation project of all those which touch Merced County is one
which is now in progress of being worked out, and which is accurately described
by its name of San Joaquin River Water Storage District. The history leading up
to this district includes the stories of the Stevinson canal, of the Miller &
Lux canals (including several others besides the San Joaquin & Kings River Canal
& Irrigation Company), and several which came in quite recent years and will be
noticed later. In the chapter on Early Days on the West Side the construction of
the first Miller & Lux canal has been noticed. The second, or so-called upper
canal, was constructed shortly after the Crocker-Huffman canal, and shortly
after the organization of the Turlock District and the work which we have just
read of on the Stevinson canal by General Bost. It was about 1889 that the upper
canal was completed, and with its completion there was somewhere about 200,000
acres under canal on the West Side of Merced County.

   The San Joaquin, unlike the Merced, has a long course through the level
valley lands, and thence arose many complications of water rights. The lawsuits
between the Miller & Lux and Stevinson interests have already been mentioned,
and they were by no means the only ones having the waters of the San Joaquin as
their subject.

   Contemporary with the organization of the Merced Irrigation District in 1919,
the organization of the Madera Irrigation District was effected. They held their
election a short time before Merced held hers. The proposed district was to
embrace about 300,000 acres, and the plan involved the building of an immense
storage reservoir at Friant, where the San Joaquin comes out of the hills into
the plains. Their project called for a bond issue of $28,000,000, in a country
materially less developed than the Merced District territory. They carried the
bond issue by the remarkable vote of 3100 for to 25 votes against. Miller & Lux
had a lot of land in the district, and also of course had large water rights on
the river. They brought suits against the district on the grounds that its
assessments would amount to confiscation of the corporation's lands in the
district, and that the taking of water which the district proposed would deprive
them of their water rights.

   Meanwhile a movement was on foot on the West Side of Merced County, carried
on largely by the farm centers, to organize an irrigation district under the
Wright Act to embrace about 208,000 acres, for the most part in this county, and
to be called the West Joaquin Irrigation District.

   Negotiations between Miller & Lux on the one side and the Madera and West
Joaquin Districts on the other have resulted in the two districts being dropped,
or rather merged with other land in the great San Joaquin River Water Storage
District, to embrace about 540,000 acres in Madera, Fresno, Merced, and
Stanislaus Counties, with a board of directors chosen in part by Miller & Lux
and in part by the people. Included in the district also is the Stevinson land
on the East Side of the river.

   The act under which this great district is proceeding provides for appraisals
of the properties of the various concerns and districts which are to be
included, and for the submission of these estimates and appraisals to the State
engineer and his acceptance or rejection of them within sixty days. The
appraisals were completed during April of the present year.   A summary of them
is as follows:

Miller & Lux, Inc.:
   Physical Properties:
      Canals................................................$   820,900
      Drains...............................................     701,900
   Water Rights:
      Grass Lands............................................ 4,628,000
      Seepage Water........................................     334,000

San Luis Canal Company:
   Physical Properties: Canals.............................   1,362,000

Firebaugh System:
   Canals and Pumping Plants...............................     509,100
   Water Rights............................................     263,000

San Joaquin & Kings River Canal & Irrigation Company:
   Canals.................................................... 2,810,400
   Water Rights.............................................. 2,421,000

Chowchilla Farms, Inc.:
   Blythe Canal:  Physical Property, Water Right..........      172,750

Chowchilla Canal:
   Physical Property......................................      153,500
   Water Rights............................................     289,600

East Side Canal & Irrigation Company:
   Physical Property and Water Rights......................     404,300

Gravelly Ford Canal:
   Inchoate Water Right...................................      157,000

Sullivan's Ditch.........................................        10,700

Damage to Riparian Lands...................................   1,027,000

      Total.................................................$16,065,150

Power Plant...............................................    2,000,000

Dam and Reservoir.........................................    6,450,000

Distribution System and Other Expenses....................    8,484,850

   (This last figure secured by deducting other items from $33,000,000. Detail
to appear in final report.)

   The report shows a total of 548,550 acres, of which 415,300 is intended to be
included in the project for immediate work and 130,200 acres deferred. The total
of 548,500 acres is made up of: Madera, 183,700; River, 46,800; Stevinson,
20,000; Slough, 11,900; Canal, including Central and West Side, 179,000;
Firebaugh, 53,200; Ortigalita, 25,900; Santa Nella, 8400; Quinto, 5300; Outside
Extension, 14,300. There is $4,600,000 included for irrigation works in Madera,
and nearly $1,500,000 for other irrigation works, about half of which is for
outside enlargements, and for drainage, the need of which was one of the main
reasons which led the farm centers of the West Side to move to organize the West
Side District; there is $840,800 for the Central and West Side divisions, and
$104,800 for the Stevinson.

   The directors of the big San Joaquin River Water Storage District are J.
Leroy Nickel Sr., J. Leroy Nickel Jr., D. B. Harris, A. O. Robertson, W. E.
Bunker, J. F. Clyne, Charles G. Murray, George Boles, and W. A. Sutherland.
The attorneys have worked out the priorities of the various water rights, a
matter of no small difficulty. The engineers have worked out an estimate of the
cost per acre to the various sections included in the district, as follows: For
the present West Side irrigated territory, both old and new canal territory,
about $56.25 an acre; for the additional territory outside the canal, northern
section, $93.50; for the Quinto section, $93.70; for the Stevinson district,
$63.75; for the Firebaugh district, $86.00; for the Madera district, $74.25.

   Modifications in the above cost figures made before submission to the
surveyor general call for a total cost of $31,497,561.48, divided into two
parts. In the first part are included property and water rights to be bought:
Water rights, $9,738,350; physical properties, $5,911,100; miscellaneous
properties, $322,610.46. In the second part, for works to be built, are
included: Irrigation works, $6,215,310.31; drainage work, $1,220,354.71; storage
works, $6,073,836; power works, $2,016,000. Total for first part,
$15,972,060.46; second part, $15,525,501.02. Total, $31,497,561.48.

   Within a day or two of the time when this is being written, comes a report
that the surveyor general has disapproved the project as reported to him. How
serious a set-back this may prove, it is impossible to say. It is the purpose of
that portion of the storage district act which provides for this submission to
the surveyor general, to have him pass upon the feasibility of the project from
an engineering and a financial point of view. The fact that there is here a vast
area of land which can benefit from irrigation, and the second fact that there
is in the San Joaquin River a large supply of water to irrigate it with, make it
certain that a way will be worked out to apply the water to the land. After the
long years of litigation which have marked the earlier history of the various
conflicting claims to the water of the river, there is a great deal of hope for
an amicable solution of the matter in the fact that the San Joaquin River Water
Storage District has been formed; it is the first attempt of any magnitude to
work out the problem as a whole. It may be said here that it is not proposed to
attempt to do away with rights which have long existed. The priorities, as
stated above, have been worked out, and the plan contemplates simply providing
new storage water in addition to the old flow of the river water for which the
various rights have attached, keeping the priorities alive and effective when
the water has fallen each season to the flow of the river, or in case of seasons
of unusually light rainfall, if such occur, when no water has been stored.

   This is the up-to-the-minute news of irrigation in the county. By way of
contrast, and bearing somewhat upon the question of claims to be the earliest
irrigator, this quotation from the Merced Express of February 19, 1887, carries
us back more than three-quarters of a century to what must have been one of the
earliest, if not the very earliest, of irrigation projects for the county. The
article does not show the source of Mr. Norvell's information upon a matter
which was already something like ancient history when he wrote. We give it as it
stands:

   "Fremont's Farm.—Colonel Fremont formerly owned several leagues of land in
the vicinity of Plainsburg. Believing the rtiining regions of Mariposa to be
more valuable, he floated his grant up there. While the Pathfinder held forth on
the plains, he had a canal surveyed from the Merced River to his agricultural
domain. If Fremont had carried out his original ideas, all this part of the San
Joaquin Valley would have been populous twenty years ago. The original Fremont
tract is all under cultivation now, producing unfailing crops of the best grain
shipped from Merced County."

   It is interesting to see how from even the beginning of the grain-farming
days men were thinking and planning irrigation—Henry Miller on the West Side,
and on the East Side such grain-farmers as C. H. Huffman and John W. Mitchell,
and such engineers as William G. Collier and John W. Bost. The end of the
grain-farming may be said to have been in sight from its very beginning; and
now, while there is still some grain raised in the county, and a considerable
number of grain-raisers can be named on both the East Side and the West, the
industry is yielding more rapidly to intensive farming than the stock-raising
which the grain, we are accustomed to say off-hand, so thoroughly displaced.   
It did not do away with it, though it did largely displace it from the level
lands, except for the Miller & Lux ranches, and sent it back to the beginning of
the foothills and to the grass lands along the San Joaquin. The county today is
a great cattle county, though it is no longer a great grain county. As of
January 1, 1924, it was credited with 42,000 dairy cattle, 86,000 stock cattle,
72,000 sheep, and thirty odd thousand hogs. In number of dairy cattle it was
exceeded among the counties of the State only by Stanislaus; in number of stock
cattle, only by Kern. This very large cattle industry needs to be emphasized
before we pass on to the newer intensive farming which flourishes, for the most
part, in two broad belts lying adjacent to the railroads on the West and East
Sides, and extending up and down the Merced.

   Notable agricultural products of the county today include figs, grapes,
peaches, apricots and a variety of other fruits, sweet potatoes, tomatoes,
cantaloupes, alfalfa, dairy products, cattle, sheep, and hogs, and their
products, and barley still to a considerable extent. During the present spring
some activity is being set afoot to encourage the raising of cotton in this
county as well as others of the San Joaquin Valley. Along with the growth of
intensive farming, the towns are growing. The county has a farm bureau with
sixteen centers, and the Merced Chamber of Commerce has this spring been
succeeded by the Merced County Chamber of Commerce. It is not inappropriate to
mention these agencies here, for they have grown out of intensive settlement,
and intensive settlement has followed and is following the development of
irrigation.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF
MERCED COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
WITH A
Biographical Review
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
JOHN OUTCALT

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1925


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