The Magnificent Experiment
Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, 1890-1917
Description:... "Reclamation of the arid West began as a magnificent experiment, without precedent in law, economics, or engineering. In the Arizona desert, the Salt River Project set such precedents and, with the observation of Roosevelt Dam's 75th anniversary in 1986, its success has been a clearly visible part of the landscape. Karen Smith's interpretative history of the Project recounts the efforts of the men who brought water to the Salt River Valley's Arid lands. It is a story of partnership between engineers and farmers and of the realization of their common goal to tame the erratic river by building a storage dam to hold floodwaters for dry years. It tells of the relationship formed between local leaders and the Department of Interior, and of how local traditions helped transform national reclamation from a well-publicized social reform into something that more closely resembled an institutionalized water bureaucracy [...]"--
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