Roosevelt Dam

by Kathleen Garcia

Overview

At 5:48 p.m., on March 18, 1911, former president Theodore Roosevelt pushed the button allowing the first waters to be released from the world's highest masonry dam. The dam was one of the first projects authorized under the Newland Reclamation Act of 1902. The act provided federal money for state reclamation projects and established the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which, between 1902 and 1907, began 30 projects within 11 western states. The confident promoters of the Roosevelt Dam began developing the project at the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River five months before receiving formal approval by the newly established bureau in 1903. As a result of a 1992 expansion and renovation project, today's dam stands 357 feet high and bears little resemblance to the dam dedicated by Theodore Roosevelt.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738558615
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	03/09/2009
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	9.26(w) x 6.56(h) x 0.43(d)

About the Author

Author Kathleen Garcia holds a master's degree in Southwest and Arizona history from Arizona State University. For more than 20 years, Garcia worked at the Phoenix Public Library providing assistance for the Arizona Room Collection and helped launch Arizona Images (www.azhistoricalimages.org), which digitized the library's James H. McClintock Collection from the Phoenix Museum of History's collections. Photographs from James H. McClintock Collection, as well as from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, comprise the majority of this book.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 6

Introduction 7

1 The Men Who Built a Dam 9

2 A Place to Live 17

3 "Oh, the Work": Before a Dam Can Be Built 35

4 Building a Dam 59

5 A President Dedicates a Dam 95

6 Roosevelt Dam after 1911 105

7 Safety First 115

8 Theodore Roosevelt Dam Today 123

Bibliography 127