they determined to modify the plan of operations previously followed
by substituting rock for the materials that had before been used in
the construction of dams. Practical experience had shown that piling,
brush, sandbags and earth could not be made to support the pressure
of the river in full flood, while a series of rock-fill barrier dams,
of sufficient width and height, might be strong enough to stand even
a flood discharge of 115,000 cubic feet of water per second. In
making this change of plan, Mr. Randolph acted on his own judgment
and in direct opposition to the views and advice of experts who
were acquainted with the situation. Almost all of the engineers who
had visited the break, including many of national and international
reputation, regarded a rock-fill barrier dam as wholly unworthy of
consideration, for at least two reasons. First, the rock would probably
sink into the soft silt bottom, and keep on going down indefinitely.
It might perhaps be supported by a strong brush-mattress foundation,
but even then, the mattress would be likely to break under the weight
of the load and thus fail to answer its purpose. Second, the water
going over a rock-fill dam, while it was in course of construction,
would almost certainly wash away some one rock at the top. This, by
increasing the overflow at that point, would dislodge more rocks, and
finally create a breach that could not be closed. President Randolph
who had used brush-mattresses and rock-fill dams on the Tombigbee River
in Alabama many years before, fully considered these objections but did
not find them convincing and steadfastly adhered to his own plan.
The preparations made for the summer’s work were far more thorough
and comprehensive than any that had ever been made before. Realizing
the importance of adequate transportation, President Randolph and his
engineers immediately began the construction of a branch railroad from
the main line of the Southern Pacific to the scene of operations at
the crevasse, with ample sidings and terminal facilities at both ends.
Then they borrowed from the Union Pacific three hundred of the mammoth
side-dump cars known as “battleships,” which had been used in the
construction of the Lucin cut-off, and which had a carrying capacity
of fifty or sixty tons each. The California Development Company had
three light-draught steamers and a number of barges that could be used
on the river, and the Southern Pacific Company furnished complete
work-trains, from time to time, until a maximum of ten was reached. The
next requisite was material for levees and dams, and this they secured
by drawing upon all the rock quarries within a radius of four hundred
miles, and by opening a new one, with a face of six hundred feet and a
height of forty feet, on the granite ledge at Andrade near the concrete
head-gate. Clay they obtained from a deposit just north of the Mexican
boundary, and gravel they hauled from the Southern Pacific Company’s
“Mammoth Gravel Pit,” which was situated on the main line about
forty miles west of the crevasse spur. From Los Angeles they brought
1100 ninety-foot piles, 19,000 feet of heavy timbers for railway
trestles, and forty miles of steel cable to be used in the weaving of
brush-mattresses. The Southern Pacific Company furnished pile-drivers,
steam shovels for the granite quarry and gravel pit, several carloads
of repair parts, and a large quantity of stores and materials of
various kinds. It also detailed for service on the spur railroad and
at the crevasse as many engineers, mechanics and skilled workmen as
were needed. The chief reason, Mr. Cory says, “for having the railroad
company supply so great a quantity of labor, equipment and supplies,
was that it afforded an opportunity to assemble quickly a thoroughly
organized and efficient force of men; the advantage of obtaining
material and supplies through the purchasing department of the Harriman
systems; immediate shipment of repair parts not kept on hand; and the
ability to increase or decrease rapidly the force and equipment without
confusion.”
The requisite most difficult to obtain, in sufficient amount, was
unskilled labor. An attempt was made to get five hundred peons from
central Mexico; but it did not succeed, and Mr. Cory was finally
compelled to mobilize all the Indian tribes in that part of the
Southwest--Pimas, Papagoes, Maricopas and Yumas from Arizona and
Cocopahs and Diegueños from Mexico. These Indians fraternized and got
along together amicably, and constituted with their families a separate
camp of about two thousand people. The rest of the laborers were
Mexicans from the vicinity, and drifting adventurers from all parts of
the United States who were attracted to the place by the novelty of the
work and the publicity given to it in the newspapers. Arrangements were
made with the Mexican authorities to put the whole region under martial
law and to send a force of rurales with a military commandant to police
the camps.
[Illustration: Situation in June, 1906 (whole river going into Salton
Sink)]
Active work began on the 6th of August, 1906, when the summer flood
had fallen enough to reduce the flow through the crevasse to about
24,000 cubic feet per second. By that time the receding water had left
exposed extensive sand-bars on both sides of the river, which narrowed
the channel to 600 or 700 feet, and President Randolph’s plan was to
dam this channel sufficiently to throw all or most of the water through
the by-pass and the Rockwood head-gate, and then permanently to close
the break. As it was deemed essential to blanket the bed of the river
with a woven brush-mattress, to prevent bottom erosion and to make a
foundation for the rock, two shifts of men were set at this work. In
twenty days and nights, they constructed, with baling-wire, steel cable
and two thousand cords of brush, about 13,000 square feet of mattress,
which was enough to cover the bed of the river from shore to shore
with a double thickness of blanketing about one hundred feet in width.
When this covering had been completed and sunk, a railway trestle ten
feet wide was built across the crevasse, and on the 14th of September
work-trains of “battleships” began running across it and dumping rock
on to the mattress at the bottom of the stream. Meanwhile, the by-pass
to the Rockwood head-gate was completed and enlarged, and in less than
two weeks the dam was high enough to close the crevasse in part and
thus divert water through the by-pass and gate. On the 10th of October,
nearly 13,000 cubic feet of water per second was passing through the
gate, while only one-tenth of that amount was flowing over the dam. The
gate, however, under the pressure to which it was subjected, both by
the water and by great masses of accumulated driftwood, began to show
signs of weakness, and at two o’clock on the following day two-thirds
of it gave way, went out, and floated down stream. The by-pass then
became the main river, while the top of the diversion dam was left
practically dry. Thus ended, in almost complete failure, the fifth
attempt to control the Colorado. The river had been barred in one
channel, but it burst through another, carrying with it a 200-foot
head-gate which represented four months of labor and an expenditure of
$122,000.
Mr. Harriman and the Southern Pacific engineers were disappointed but
not disheartened. The steel-and-concrete head-gate at Andrade had
been ready for use since June, and powerful dredges were set at work
clearing out and enlarging the four miles of silted-up canal south of
it, so that water might be furnished to the Imperial Valley by that
route while another attempt was being made to close completely both the
Rockwood by-pass and the original intake.
An inspection of the rock-fill dam, which had been left exposed by
the diversion of the river, showed that the objections made to a
structure of this kind were not well founded. The brush-mattress had
not been broken by the weight of the rocks; the rocks themselves had
not sunk out of sight in the soft silt of the bottom, and the dam had
not been breached or seriously injured. It leaked a little, but its
good condition in other respects suggested the possibility of quickly
closing the by-pass and the intake with rock barriers of this type.
Additional trestles were built across both waterways; ten trains of
flat cars and “battleships” were set at work bringing rock from three
or four different quarries, and the laboring force was increased to
about a thousand men with seven hundred horses and mules. Operations
were pushed night and day, and in a little more than three weeks, high
rock-fill dams were built across both intake and by-pass, and were
connected by massive levees so as to make a continuous barrier about
half a mile in length. Leakage through the dams was stopped by facing
them with gravel and clay, forced into the interstices and puddled
with streams of water from powerful pumps, and the levees at both ends
were connected with those that had previously been built up and down
the river by the California Development Company. In the course of the
work there were used, first and last, about three thousand carloads of
rock, gravel and clay, while 400,000 cubic yards of earth were moved by
dredges and teams.
[Illustration: First Closure of Crevasse, Nov. 4, 1906]
On the 4th of November, a little more than two years after the cutting
of the lower Mexican intake, the crevasse into which it had grown
was closed, and the river was forced back into its ancient bed. The
danger had apparently been averted and the Imperial Valley was safe;
but where a treacherous river like the Colorado is concerned, danger
is never over and safety can be secured only by incessant watchfulness
and continual labor. On the 7th of December, another sudden flood came
down the Gila and increased the discharge of the Colorado from 9000 to
about 45,000 cubic feet per second. The rock-fill dam of the Southern
Pacific engineers stood fast; but, about midnight, a reconstructed
earthen levee of the California Development Company, twelve or fifteen
hundred feet further south, was undermined, began to leak, and finally
gave way. The breach at first was small; but it was so rapidly deepened
and widened by erosion and caving that it soon became a crevasse, and
in less than three days the whole river was pouring through a break a
thousand feet wide and again rushing down the slope of the basin to the
Salton Sea.
This new crevasse, taken in connection with the history and the
experience of the two preceding years, showed conclusively: 1, that
the tendency of the Colorado to flow into the Salton Sink was
increasing rather than diminishing; 2, that floods of from 180,000,000
to 360,000,000 cubic feet of water per hour were liable to occur
at almost any season of the year; 3, that the defensive dikes of
the California Development Company were everywhere inadequate or
untrustworthy; and 4, that in order to afford certain protection to the
Imperial Valley, it would be necessary not only to close the new break,
but to build a stronger, higher and more massive levee along the west
bank of the river for a distance of at least twenty miles.
These considerations raised of course the question whether it was worth
while for the Southern Pacific Company to continue this work, upon
which it had already spent about $1,500,000. The interests chiefly
imperilled were those of the national Government. It owned all the
irrigable land along the lower Colorado, including even that upon which
the Imperial Valley settlers had filed.[12] It was then constructing
an immense dam at Potholes, twelve miles above Yuma, upon which it
had already expended about $1,000,000 (the Laguna dam) and with the
water to be impounded thereby it expected to irrigate and reclaim about
90,000 acres of fertile land in Arizona and Southern California. If
the uncontrolled river should continue to “cut back,” by means of its
receding waterfalls, it not only would destroy the Laguna dam, and
the irrigation works upon which the Imperial Valley depended for its
very existence, but would eventually turn the whole bed of the lower
Colorado into a gorge, out of which water for irrigation purposes could
never be taken. This would make valueless more than two thousand square
miles of potentially fertile land, which, if intensively cultivated,
would support a quarter of a million people.
The interests of the Southern Pacific Company, on the other hand,
were comparatively unimportant. The traffic of the Imperial Valley,
at that time, amounted to perhaps $1,200,000 a year, from which the
railroad derived a revenue of only $20,000 or $30,000 for freight
transportation.[13] This, in its relation to the whole business of the
company, was so insignificant as hardly to be worth consideration. The
flooding of the valley, moreover, could not injure the road much more
than it had already been injured. A section of new line, about sixty
miles in length, had been surveyed and graded, and the ties and rails
for it were on the ground. At an additional cost therefore of only
$50,000 or $60,000, the imperilled part of the track could be moved to
a higher location where the rising waters of the Salton Sea could not
reach it.
President Randolph, after full investigation reported the existing
state of affairs to Mr. Harriman by telegraph, and informed him that
while the original break might be closed at a cost of from $300,000 to
$350,000, permanent control of the river would require about twenty
miles of muck-ditching[14] and levee reconstruction, and that if he
(Mr. Harriman) decided to proceed with the work, he might have to spend
$1,500,000 more. In view of this possibility, Mr. Randolph suggested
that the Government, or the State of California, be called upon to
render aid.
Mr. Harriman, who had implicit confidence in the sound business
judgment as well as the engineering ability of Mr. Epes Randolph,
accepted the latter’s view of the situation. He did not doubt that the
Colorado River might ultimately be controlled; but as the expense would
be very great, and as the chief interests imperilled were those of the
nation, he did not think that the Southern Pacific Company, of which he
was President, was equitably or morally bound to do the work alone and
at its own expense. In a long telegram to President Roosevelt, dated
New York December 13th, he fully set forth the state of affairs, but
did not comment upon it further than by saying: “In view of the above,
it does not seem fair that we should be called to do more than join in
to help the settlers.”
The following telegraphic correspondence then ensued:
Washington, December 15, 1906.
MR. E. H. HARRIMAN,
New York.
Referring to your telegram of December 13, I assume you are planning
to continue work immediately on closing break in Colorado River. I
should be fully informed as to how far you intend to proceed in the
matter.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
New York, December 19, 1906.
THE PRESIDENT,
Washington.
Further referring to your telegram of the 15th inst. our engineers
advise that closing the break and restoring the levees can be most
quickly and cheaply done, if the work is undertaken immediately,
at a cost of $300,000 to $350,000. The Southern Pacific Company,
having been at an expense of about $2,000,000 already, does not
feel warranted in assuming this responsibility and the additional
expenditure which is likely to follow to make the work permanent,
besides the expenditure which the company is already undergoing to put
its tracks above danger line. We are willing to coöperate with the
Government, contributing train service, use of tracks and switches,
use of rock quarries, train crews etc., and the California Development
Company will contribute its engineers and organization, the whole work
to be done under the Reclamation Service. Can you bring this about?
E. H. HARRIMAN.
Washington, December 20, 1906.
E. H. HARRIMAN,
New York.
Replying to yours of 19th, Reclamation Service cannot enter upon work
without authority of Congress and suitable convention with Mexico.
Congress adjourns today for holidays. Impossible to secure action at
present. It is incumbent upon you to close break again. Question
of future permanent maintenance can then be taken up. Reclamation
engineers available for consultation. That is all the aid that there
is in the power of the Government to render, and it seems to me clear
that it is the imperative duty of the California Development Company
to close this break at once.
The danger is ultimately due only to the action of that company in
the past in making heading completed in October, 1904, in Mexican
territory. The present crisis can at this moment only be met by the
action of the company which is ultimately responsible for it, and that
action should be taken without an hour’s delay. Through the Department
of State I am endeavoring to secure such action by the Mexican
Government as will enable Congress in its turn to act. But at present
Congress can do nothing without such action by the Mexican Government.
This is a matter of such vital importance that I wish to repeat that
there is not the slightest excuse for the California Development
Company waiting an hour for the action of the Government. It is its
duty to meet the present danger immediately, and then this Government
will take up with it, as it has already taken up with Mexico, the
question of providing in permanent shape against the recurrence of the
danger.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Seldom, if ever before, in our country, had material and financial
interests of such tremendous importance been dependent upon the
decision of a single man. If Mr. Harriman should order a continuance
of the work, he would put at hazard a million and a half dollars of
his own money, or the money of the Southern Pacific stockholders, in
addition to the million and a half or two millions already spent.
He would have to do this, moreover, mainly for the benefit of the
Imperial Valley and the nation, without any assurance of reimbursement
or compensation, and without any certainty of success. If, on the
other hand, he should decline to sink any more capital in the effort
to retrieve a disaster for which neither he nor the Southern Pacific
Company was in the slightest degree responsible, the Laguna dam and the
Imperial Valley would both be destroyed; twelve thousand ruined and
impoverished people would be driven out into the desert, and 1,600,000
acres of Government land would be lost to the nation forever.
Mr. Harriman, at that time, was being prosecuted by the Interstate
Commerce Commission as presumably a malefactor, and President
Roosevelt, only a few weeks before, had characterized him as an
“undesirable citizen;” but in the supreme test of character to which
he was subjected, he showed magnanimity, courage and public spirit.
On the same day that he received the President’s telegram of December
20th, he replied in the following words:
“You seem to be under the impression that the California Development
Company is a Southern Pacific enterprise. This is erroneous. It had
nothing to do with its work, or the opening of the canal. We are not
interested in its stock and in no way control it. We have loaned it
some money to assist in dealing with the situation. What the Southern
Pacific has done was for the protection of the settlers as well as of
its own tracks, but we have determined to remove the tracks onto high
ground anyway. However, in view of your message, I am giving authority
to the Southern Pacific officers in the West to proceed at once with
efforts to repair the break, trusting that the Government, as soon as
you can procure the necessary Congressional action, will assist us
with the burden.”
The contention of the Government was that inasmuch as the Southern
Pacific Company loaned $200,000 to the California Development Company
in June, 1905, and assumed temporary control of the latter’s affairs
for the purpose of safeguarding its loan, the lending company thereby
made itself responsible for all the unforeseen consequences of a ditch
dug by the borrowing company almost a year earlier. This contention
will not bear a moment’s scrutiny. The Southern Pacific Company did
not, at any time, own any of the Development Company’s stock. The
shares pledged as collateral for the loan were in the hands of a
trustee. The Southern Pacific Company did not even elect the president
and three directors of the Development Company. They were elected by
the latter’s stockholders under the terms of the loan agreement.[15]
The Southern Pacific was a creditor of the Development Company, but in
no sense a “successor in interest” by virtue of ownership.
The lower Mexican intake, which admitted the river to the Valley and
caused the disaster, was dug long before the Southern Pacific Company
had any control whatever over the Development Company, and it would be
a violation of the most elementary principles of equity if a lender
were held responsible for all previous transactions of a borrower,
merely because the latter had voluntarily agreed to share control of
his business in order to obtain the loan. If a farmer goes to a bank,
gives a mortgage on his farm as security for a loan, and agrees that a
representative of the bank shall supervise his agricultural operations
until the loan is repaid, the bank does not become responsible for
a dam across a stream on the farmer’s property built by the farmer
himself a year before he had any relations with the bank. The bank
might be responsible for a dam built under the direction of its
representative, but not for a dam built by the farmer a year before
such representative was appointed.
When President Roosevelt received Mr. Harriman’s telegram of December
20th, saying that orders had been given to proceed with the work, he
replied in the following words:
“Am delighted to receive your telegram. Have at once directed the
Reclamation Service to get into touch with you, so that as soon as
Congress reassembles I can recommend legislation which will provide
against a repetition of the disaster and make provision for the
equitable distribution of the burden.”
[Illustration: Last Break in Defences, December 1906]
While the negotiations between President Roosevelt and Mr. Harriman
were in progress, the river-fighting organization on the lower Colorado
was kept intact. The rock quarry at Andrade was further developed;
sidings just across the Mexican boundary were lengthened to seven
thousand feet, and material and equipment of all possible kinds which
might be needed were gathered and held in readiness. When, therefore,
on the 20th of December, an order was received from Mr. Harriman to
go ahead and close the break, President Randolph, backed by all the
resources of the Southern Pacific, began a last supreme effort to
control the river and save the Imperial Valley. The crevasse, at that
time, was 1100 feet wide, with a maximum depth of forty feet, and the
whole current of the Colorado was rushing through it and discharging
into the basin of the Sink about 160,000,000 cubic feet of water
every hour. There was not time enough for the construction of another
brush-mattress, so the Southern Pacific engineers determined to build
two railway trestles of ninety-foot piles across the break, and then,
with a thousand flat cars and “battleships,” bring rocks and dump
them into the river faster than they could possibly be swallowed up
by the silt or carried down stream. Three times, within a month, the
ninety-foot piles were ripped out and swept away and the trestles
partly or wholly destroyed; but the pile-drivers kept at work, and on
the 27th of January the first trestle was finished for the fourth time
and the dumping of rock from it began.
Mr. F. H. Newell, Director of the U. S. Reclamation Service, in a
description of the final closure of the crevasse, says: