300 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Pathfinder Dam Is Finished. 



Government Work Reclaims 400,000 Acres Cost Was $1,200,000 Water 

 Rights $45 Per Acre Labor In Demand. 



The Pathfinder Dam, one of the highest structures of its 

 kind in the world, is completed. Resting on a bed of solid 

 granite, and hewn from the vertical walls of the same for- 

 mation, through which the North Platte River has cut its 

 channel, the massive masonry monolith closes the chasm. It 

 rises 215 feet above its foundations, and is 500 feet long on 

 top. But the real significance of the event is that it marks 

 the most important step in the reclamation of large tracts 

 of the Great Plains area in Wyoming and Nebraska, and their 

 transformation to thickly settled farming communities, with 

 numerous populous and prosperous towns and villages. 



The North Platte River drains an area of 90,000 square 

 miles, carrying the run-off of a large mountainous territory. 

 Fed by the melting snows of spring and early summer, its 

 volume swells to large proportions, but in the late summer it 

 shrinks to a small stream, distributed over a wide stretch of 

 shifting sands. Every drop of the low water flow has long 

 been appropriated, and the conservation of the flood waters 

 of the river was beyond the reach of private capital. It was 

 for the purpose of storing the flood and winter waters and 

 controlling the flow of this irregular river that the great 

 dam just completed was planned. 



Behind the massive wall of masonry a million acre-feet 

 of water will be stored each year, and the destructive floods 

 of the North Platte River, which annually have caused dam- 

 age far in excess of the cost of the dam, will never again 

 visit the valley. The name of the structure is most appro- 

 priatej in that it makes of the dam a fitting monument to 



Dam 



Pathfinder 



Wachusett 



New Croton 



Ashokan 



Masonry 1,000 feet long and earthwork 3,800 feet. 



0900,000 cubic yards of masonry and 7,000,000 of earth. 



commemorate forever the achievements of the nation's daring 

 pioneer and explorer, Captain John C. Fremont, "The Path- 

 finder." 



The North Platte Irrigation Project is one of the largest 

 so far undertaken by the Government. From the Pathfinder 

 Dam at a point on the North Platte River about 50 miles 

 southwest from Casper, Wyoming, to the farthest limits of 

 the irrigable lands in Nebraska, the distance is 500 miles, 

 and it is estimated that 400,000 acres of land in Wyoming and 

 Nebraska, or more than double the total area of land culti- 

 vated in the entire state of Rhode Island, will be divided into 

 small farms and irrigated. 



The comparison afforded by the following table, showing 

 the dimensions, cost and effectiveness of the Pathfinder and 

 three large eastern dams, is most interesting. It is found 

 that the Pathfinder dam, which cost only $1,200,000, has a 

 storage capacity more than ten times that of the New 

 Croton, which cost six times as much. 



One hundred miles below the storage dam a low diversion 

 dam has been thrown across the river, which turns the wa- 

 ters into the Interstate Canal, to supply lands in Wyoming 

 and Nebraska. This canal when completed will be 150 miles 

 long, but at present only 95 miles have been excavated. It 



has a capacity at the headgates of 1,400 second feet. Hun- 

 dreds of miles of laterals have been constructed to distrib- 

 ute the water over the lands. 



Under the terms of the Reclamation Act all of the land 

 under this project which belongs to the public domain is open 

 to entry under the homestead law in farms of about 80 

 acres. Each settler is required to pay his share of the cost 

 of building and irrigation works. This amounts to $45 per 

 acre, payable in ten annual installments without interest. 



Among all the great irrigation works now under con- 

 struction by the Government, none is richer in historical as- 

 sociation than the North Platte project. It occupies more 

 than 250 miles of the old Overland Trail, which was fol- 

 lowed by the California gold seekers, and by the Mormons 

 in their migration westward. The old highway is distin- 

 guishable in scores of places. With an average width of 

 more than one hundred feet, it stretches on mile after mile, 

 now overgrown and only distinguishable from the general 

 surroundings by the difference in vegetation. Its great 

 width is principally due to the fact that the' Mormons trav- 

 eled in great companies, their wagons often moving in a solid 

 phalanx five or more abreast. Beside the trail at numerous 

 points lonely headstones mark the graves of those who per- 

 ished on that western journey. To those who have read 

 "The Adventures of Captain Bonneville," "Astoria," the dis- 

 coveries of Captain Fremont, histories of Mormon emigra- 

 tion and of the Forty-niners, such fiction as "The Virginian," 

 and the adventures of Buffalo Bill, this valley will be familiar 



Storage ca- 



ll eight 

 in ft. 



228 

 297 

 220 



Length 



in. ft. 



500 



971 



1,072 

 *4,800 



Contents 



in cu. yds. 



60,400 



273,000 



833,000 



07,900,000 



Cost 



$1,200,000 



2,226,000 



7,631,000 



12,700,000 



pacity in 

 acre-feet. 

 1,025,000 



192,000 

 92,000 



368,000 



and full of interesting associations. But the greatest change 

 in all the history of the valley has been brought about by 

 the construction of the great irrigation system now well on 

 its way to completion. Already the dreary monotony of 

 plain and sky has been broken, and thousands of homes and 

 fields of green dot the landscape. 



Lands which a few years ago were valued at from $1 to 

 $5 per acre are increasing rapidly in value and now sell 

 readily at from $20 to $50. Most of the land for which 

 water is now available is in private ownership, but many of 

 the farmers who have holdings in excess of that for which 

 the Government will furnish a water right must dispose of 

 part of their lands at reasonable prices. 



A railroad extends the entire length of the project, and 

 the numerous towns along this line have more than doubled 

 in population since the initiation of the Government irriga- 

 tion project. The influx of thousands of farmers to the 

 valley has created a demand for all classes of labor. 



That these opportunities are not being overlooked is evi- 

 denced by the hundreds of letters of inquiry which are being 

 received by the Statistician of the Reclamation Service at 

 Washington. To meet the demands of the homeseekers re- 

 quiring information the Reclamation Service has also estab- 

 lished offices at Denver, Colorado, and at Chicago, 111. 



