164 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



these as a ready means of watering his own fields. And then, in 

 1867, he organized the company which constructed the first modern 

 canal in Salt River valley. 



Remnants of this old " Swilling ditch " and sections of three ancient 

 Indian canals are still visible in " The Park of Four Waters," wisely 

 preserved by the city of Phoenix. Close by stands the ruin of Pueblo 

 Grande, a huge pile of crumbling walls and pale yellow clay, excava- 

 tion of which was initiated in 1929 by City Archeologist Odd A. 

 Halseth. 



Largest surviving example of the communal dwellings which dotted 

 Salt River valley in prehistoric times, Pueblo Grande marks a former 

 center of population from which industrious Indian farmers trudged 

 forth to their daily toil. From the flat roofs of their earth-walled 

 homes those same farmers saluted the rising and setting sun as the 

 father of all living things. For in olden times, no less than today, the 

 sun meant life to dwellers in Salt River valley. 



Over on the south side, Pioneer Charles T. Hayden camped one 

 day at the foot of Tempe Butte and watched the swollen river race 

 past. Then he constructed a rude ferry to float his wagons across ; 

 remained to transport other early settlers, to build the first local store, 

 walled with mud-plastered willows. More than this, he cleaned out 

 an old Indian canal and drew into it, from the Rio Salado, water with 

 which to turn the wheels of his primitive mill. The new Hayden mill, 

 erected on the same site, is no longer powered by an irrigation ditch 

 but it served, nonetheless, as one of our principal landmarks in the 

 recent aerial survey of Salt River valley. 



Mormon settlers came, in 1878, to found the contented village of 

 Mesa ; to recondition other abandoned Indian canals and thus save 

 their pioneer community an estimated $20,000 in labor alone. Part of 

 one such rebuilt ditch is still in use but, as elsewhere in the valley, 

 increase in population has brought about larger, more serviceable 

 canals with their far-flung network of laterals. 



Inquiry elicits the information that there are no fewer than 1,200 

 miles of these modern watercourses. Most of them measure from 

 18 to 90 feet wide at the top and average about five feet in depth ; sec- 

 tions of them have cost as much as $22,000 a mile to construct. But 

 the prehistoric canal builders, with barefooted helpers instead of 

 caterpillar tractors, with stone hoes as precursors of the steam shovel, 

 unhesitatingly set about the completion of comparable works. I pho- 

 tographed one aboriginal canal north of Mesa that stands today 66 feet 

 wide and 8 feet deep. It led from the Rio Salado far across the valley ; 

 as the river cut its channel below the canal floor, the useless ditch 



