[67] 
The Water Power of Texas. 
21 
operating a mill, gin and irrigation plant. The water wheel is four and 
one-half feet in diameter, and develops fifteen horse power. 'Five acres 
in peaches, grapes and garden can be irrigated. 
The San Saba is at present almost undeveloped as a water power 
stream. Its capabilities for power or irrigation rank with the best rivers 
of the State. Its reliable flow from Fort McKavat to its mouth marks 
it as as stream of great usefulness. The great irrigation system at Men- 
ardville has been described. In addition to this, there is located four 
miles east of Menardville on the main ditch the water power gin of G-us 
Noyes, where a fall of twenty-three and one-half feet is obtained. The 
energy is developed by a 23-inch Leffel turbine and is used in operating 
a gin of 150 saws and for a corn sheller. The whole flow of the ditch is 
used for power after the irrigation season is over. Forty-two horse pow- 
ers can be developed by a flow of twenty cubic feet per second. 
On Mill creek that skirts the town of San Saba there are two dams. 
This creek is supplied by four springs of constant flow. Their combined 
flow, as measured on December 18, 1901, was ten cubic feet per second. 
The dam is built of masonry, fifteen feet high and four feet wide at top. 
The dam proper is ninety feet lbng, the right wing sixty feet long, the 
left 160. The original dam was built about 1856, but it has been 
repaired several times since its erection. A fall of twenty feet could 
easily be secured here. The plant is used for the water supply system of 
the town. The spring from which the water is pumped has a flow of 
three second-feet, and it is located in the backwater or pond. To prevent 
contamination, the spring is encased in a cement chamber which is 
tapped by the 8-inch suction pipe. 
On the San Saba, eight miles above San Saba near Bakers, the river 
makes a horseshoe bend, across the neck of which is a slough. By replac- 
ing the present dam‘ with one twenty feet high a fall nearly double that 
amount could be secured. The present plant is on the hanks of the 
slough, above high water mark. The original dam was damaged by the 
floods of. 1899, but it has been renewed by a brush dam. The present 
plant develops about thirty horse power bj the use of a 26^ -inch and a 
33^-inch turbine. 
In Mills county, about eleven miles west of Lometa, just below the 
junction of the San Saba and Colorado, Milam Chadwick owns and oper- 
ates a power plant on the Colorado river. The dam was built in 1879, 
oat of stone and cedar logs, is 196 feet long and gives a clear fall or 
head of five feet. The dam is curved, up stream and has on its crest a 
course of burr oak logs to which cedar brush is spiked and bolted. The 
power is developed by a 36-inch Leffel turbine with a vent of 5850 square 
inches, and is usually run one-half open. The mill house is located high 
upon the bank out of reach of high water, and the power is transmitted 
from the turbine shaft to the mill house by a wire rope. The river here 
