[49] 
The Water Power of Texas. 
3 
WATER POWER OF TEXAS. 
The Texas streams will be considered in order from west to east. In 
addition to the main streams or drainage arteries, there are at least 
twenty streams that arise suddenly in springs and they constitute one of 
the most potential factors in the State’s water supply and power in all 
of that region west of the Colorado river. These springs occur for the 
most part in the Edwards’s Plateau, the most notable exceptions being 
those at Fort Stockton, Santa Lucia, and at the head of Toyah creek in 
Trans-Pecos Texas. 
The water power in many localities is as yet in a very crude state, but 
there are many plants that have been built up, on scientific principles 
where modern machinery is used and where a consequent high efficiency 
is obtained. A large per cent, of the plants in existence at present are 
confined to the Guadalupe, the Colorado, the Brazos and their tributaries. 
The Guadalupe river easily takes rank as the most effective power gen- 
erating stream in the State. 
TOYAH CREEK, TEXAS. 
Toyah .creek rises in natural springs about forty miles southwest of 
Pecos, Texas. These springs are mainly in Section 256, patented by the 
State of Texas to Antonio Ball. They are in a flat valley hemmed in by 
a horseshoe curve of the Davis mountains. About three miles to the 
northwest is Phantom lake. It is stated by close observers that the water 
of this lake is of the same composition and general character as that 
of the Toyah springs, and it is probable that the lake is on the under- 
ground stream that issues from the earth in the springs. The largest of 
the Toyah springs is oval shaped, about one hundred feet long by sixty 
feet broad. Its water level is influenced by the weeds and long grass 
which grow in it, also by the atmosphere. As measured on September 5, 
1900, the entire discharge was forty-six second-feet. A large percentage 
of the water is deflected into the ditch of the Toyah Creek Irrigation 
Company. The flow of the spring is equal to about eight heads ; a head 
being defined as the amount of water flowing through an opening one 
foot square, the upper edge of which is four inches below the water sur- 
face. There is an unverified and hazy tradition that the flow once 
amounted to twelve heads, but this is doubted. The springs are about an 
eighth of a mile east of the postoffice at Toyah vale. India (known as 
Brogado postoffice) is about four miles below the springs, on the right 
bank, while Saragossa is nine miles below the head spring, on the right 
bank of the creek. 
For several miles the creek skirts the foothills of the Davis mountains, 
