Land of the Underground Rain: Irrigation on the Texas High Plains, 1910-1970 9780292772304

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L A N D OF T H E U N D E R G R O U N D

RAIN

Irrigation on the Texas H igh Plains, 1910-1970

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Land of the Underground Rain IRRIGATION

ON T H E

TEXAS

HIGH

PLAINS,

1910-1970

by DONALD E. GREEN

UNIVERSITY

OF

TEXAS

PRESS,

AUSTIN

AND

LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Green, Donald Edward, 1936Land of the underground rain. Bibliography: p. 1. Irrigation— Texas— History. 2. Irrigation— Great Plains— History. 3. Water, Underground— Texas. I. Title. II. Texas High Plains, 1910-1970. S616.U6G73 627'.52'097648 ISBN 0 -2 9 2 -7 4 6 0 4 -0

72-7589

Copyright © 1973 by Donald E. Green All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Typesetting and printing by The University of Texas Printing Division, Austin Bound by Universal Bookbindery, Inc., San Antonio

For Lewis and Christene, who gave love and encouragement

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments . ..................................................................... I n tr o d u c tio n ............................................................................... 1. The Barrier to S e t t l e m e n t ................................................. 2. The Western Irrigation Movement and the Great P l a i n s ........................................................... 3. Water Resources of the Southern High Plains . 4. The Adaptation of Pump Irrigation Technology to the Great P l a i n s ....................................... 5. Land Speculators and the Beginnings of Irrigation on the Texas High Plains, 1900-1910 6. The Land Speculator as a Promoter and Developer of Irrigation on the Texas High Plains..................................................................... 7. Early Failure of Pump Irrigation, 1910-1920 . 8. Dust Bowl, New Deal, and the Revival of Irrigation . . . . 9. The Expansion of Irrigation, 1940-1960 . 10. The Problem of Ground-Water Conservation . 11. The Contemporary High P l a i n s ....................................... C o n c l u s i o n ............................................................................... Appendix........................................................................................ B ib lio g r a p h y .............................................................................. Index

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xi xv 3 15 30 38 62

81 101

119 145 165 190 232 239 241 277

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IL L U S T R A T IO N S

Photographs [following page 110) The "Shallow Water Belt” Land Prospectors on the Plains First Irrigation Well on the Texas High Plains John H. Slaton Well, Plainview Earnhart Well, Lubbock Graham Well, Plainview A McDonald Pumping Plant Irrigated Alfalfa Irrigated Kafir Corn Turning Kafir Corn into Ensilage Layne "Pit-Less” Pump Lubbock Irrigation Company Well Edwards-McDonald Well, Hereford Remains of the Vaughn Pumping Unit, Tulia A Dust Bowl Irrigation Unit D. L. McDonald Artemus "Artie” Baker Frederick Stark Pearson An Early Gear-Head Built by George E. Green Irrigated Grain Sorghum Modern Pumping Plant Unit Powered by Electric Motor Sprinkler System

X

Illustrations

Figure Horizontal and Vertical Centrifugal Pumping Plants

44

Maps Physiography of the Texas High P la in s .......................................... Counties of the Texas High P l a i n s .......................................... The Great Plains . . . . . . . .

4 7 39

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to many individuals who were kind enough to furnish valuable assistance in my research and writing. The personnel of several archival collections were extremely helpful. Jack Haley of the Division of Manuscripts and Mrs. Alice Timmons of the Phillips Collection, both of the University of Oklahoma, opened their facilities to me. Mrs. Faye Bell Crain pointed me to some useful collec­ tions and works in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum at Canyon, Texas. Without the excellent help furnished by Roy Sylvan Dunn, David B. Gracy II, and Jimmy R. Skaggs of the Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, research for this work would have been far more difficult. Staffs in county clerks’ offices of several of the Texas High Plains counties were also helpful in making their public records easily accessible and in furnishing work space. Among them were offices in Bailey, Deaf Smith, Floyd, Hale, Lamb, Lubbock, and Swisher counties. Many persons also furnished valuable aid in making available private and company files, in supplying rare photographs, and in sharing techno­ logical knowledge with me. Among them were Carl H. Gelin of Layne Pumps, Inc., Lubbock, Texas; John and Bill McDonald, McDonald Drill­ ing Company, Amarillo, Texas; Jerry Thomas and George Seay, Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee; Miss Winnie Karrh, Bill Carter, Wendell Green, and other members of the Green family associ­ ated with the concern of Green Machinery Company, Plainview, Texas; Roland I. Cross, agricultural agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, Amarillo, Texas; Mrs. Mary Louise Loyd of the Bivins Memorial Library, Amarillo, Texas; Mrs. Tom Suits, Petersburg, Texas; R. S. Charles, Jr., of the Layne

xii

Acknowledgments

and Bowler Company, Los Angeles, California; and Frank A. Rayner, general manager of High Plains Underground Water Conservation Dis­ trict No. 1, Lubbock, Texas. In addition, I must acknowledge my gratitude to several others who share my interest in the history of irrigation. The staff of the new Irri­ gation Age, including publisher Palmer Norton, former editor John Mette, and business manager Hoyt E. West, called my attention to certain materials and individuals long associated with irrigation on the Texas High Plains, Garry Nall of West Texas State University uncovered and made available to me helpful materials during the course of his own re­ search on the agricultural history of the Texas Panhandle. David B. Gracy II, archivist of the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech University, not only shared with me his knowledge of primary source materials relat­ ing to the early twentieth-century history of the Texas High Plains, but also put at my disposal the Littlefield Lands Company Papers in his private possession. I am also indebted to W. Eugene Hollon of the University of Toledo, who was among the first to suggest to me the need for such a study, and to Arrell M. Gibson of Oklahoma University and Donald J. Berthrong of Purdue University, who read the manuscript and offered helpful sugges­ tions. I am grateful to James Rogers of the Geography Department of Central State University for the maps and to Justin Wells of Edmond, Oklahoma, for the sketches of early pumping units appearing in this work. Thanks are also in order for my very capable typists, Rita Payne and Lenora Piekarsky. Research for Chapter 11 was made possible by a grant from the Research Committee of Central State University. Much of the credit for this work must go to Gilbert C. Fite, formerly George Lynn Cross Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma, and now President of Eastern Illinois University, who directed this study initially as a doctoral dissertation. His encouragement, criticism, and patience were invaluable. Finally, the understanding of my wife, Ozella, about restrictions upon family life caused by the semimonastic existence of a researcher and writer has been the most important factor in the completion of this study.

Acknowledgm ents

xiii

I am grateful to the publishers of the following works for permission to quote from these sources: The Great Plains in Transition, by Carl Frederick Kraenzel. Copyright 195 5 by the University of Oklahoma Press. "Call the Law!” by Tom Milligan in Irrigation Age (June 1971). Copyright 1971 by Irrigation Age, Inc. "Irrigation in Crosby County,” by John Mitchell in Southwestern Crop and Stock (February 1949). Copyright 1949 by Southwestern Crop and Stock, Inc. "Farm Quiz,” by Garland Smith in Amarillo Sunday News-Globe (May 28,1950). Copyright 1950 by The Globe-News Publishing Company.

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INTRODUCTION

Walter Prescott Webb, in his classic, The Great Plains, relates a hu­ morous anecdote which illustrates the historical economic quandary of the region. A new settler observed of the Plains, 'This would be a fine coun­ try if we just had water.” A farmer who was retreating from the area in his eastward-bound wagon responded, "'Yes, so would hell.” 1 Water has been the most important natural resource of the American West. Inhabi­ tants of the arid and mountainous West ultimately harnessed their great rivers to supply irrigation water for their parched lands. But the Great Plainsman’s "search for water,” as Webb has referred to the quest, re­ quired water resources other than mighty surface streams. With the ex­ ception of the Arkansas, the Platte, and the upper Missouri, the plains had no great rivers. And even the waters of those streams were, for the most part, appropriated by irrigators near the mountains of their origin, leaving little irrigation water for their eastern neighbors. The scarcity of surface water which has so marked the Great Plains is even more characteristic of its subdivision— the Texas High Plains. Span­ iards referred to this region, which stretches into eastern New Mexico, as the Llano Estacado (the Staked Plains), and early travelers avoided the plateau because of the almost total absence of streams flowing across its surface. Consequently, settlers were forced to use pump technology to tap the vast ground-water resources beneath its flat surface. The evolution from windmills, which could deliver a few hundred gal­ lons of water per day for livestock and human consumption, to the mod­ ern high-speed irrigation pump capable of spewing out six hundred to 1 Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 320.

xvi

Introduction

one thousand gallons or more per minute took place over approximately half a century. Spurred on by periodic drouths and made possible by tech­ nological developments in pumps, power sources, and well-drilling tech­ niques, irrigation gradually emerged as economic conditions and the ap­ pearance of cash crops suitable to the unstable climate of the High Plains appeared on the scene. Moreover, national developments at one time con­ tributed to retarding irrigation, but during a later period important factors on the national scene significantly aided the movement. Irrigation development on the Texas High Plains may be divided into three phases. In the first phase, the period 1910-1920, large-scale pumpirrigation plants first appeared in the region primarily through the efforts of land speculators. The prospects for pump irrigation appeared to be so promising that one local booster from Plainview referred to the area as "the land of the underground rain.”2 But due to national and regional circumstances, the movement was abortive. The second phase began about 1934 and continued into the 1950’s, aided by a complex of favorable con­ ditions. During this period the Texas High Plains became one of the most extensively irrigated regions in the United States. By 1959, 5,039,348 acres, an area of land larger than the state of New Jersey, were under ir­ rigation.3 Finally, the decade of the 1960’s witnessed a growing alarm over the falling ground-water table and an effort to attract government aid to the cause of importing water from such distant sources as the Mis­ sissippi River. The irrigation frontier of the High Plains resembled the mining fron­ tier of the American West in at least two ways. First, like the miner’s frontier which began in the West and worked its way back toward the East, the High Plains irrigation frontier adapted pump irrigation from its western neighbor, New Mexico. Second, and more important, High Plainsmen looked upon ground water as a resource to be exploited rather than to be conserved. Like the westerner who viewed gold and silver as mineral commodities to be taken from the earth rather than to be con­ 2 Zenas E. Black, “The Land of the Underground Rain,” The Earth 11 (April 1 914): 13-14. 3 Paul T. Gillett and I. G. Janca, Inventory of Texas Irrigation, 1958 and 1964, Texas Water Commission Bulletin, no. 6515, pp. 13-25.

Introduction

xvii

served, the plainsman was more interested in mining his liquid wealth than in conserving it. The conscience of the plains irrigator was somewhat eased in his re­ fusal to adhere to water conservation by a myth which had long been present among High Plainsmen—the myth of the "inexhaustible supply” of ground water. Henry Nash Smith pointed out in his Virgin Land that, when settlers began moving into the Great Plains after the Civil War, the myth of the Great American Desert was supplanted by the "myth of the garden,” a belief that the climate of the region was becoming more hu­ mid.4 High Plainsmen in the twentieth century added to the "myth of the garden” the myth of the "inexhaustible supply,” a belief that ground water in the High Plains flowed underground from distant sources and could not be exhausted by massive irrigation pumping. Consequently, lo­ cal interests became concerned with conservation only when a drastic de­ cline in ground-water levels began to occur in the 1960’s. 4 183.

Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, pp. 174-

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LAND

OF T H E U N D E R G R O U N D

RAIN

Irrigation on the Texas H igh Plains, 1910-1970

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1. The Barrier to Settlement

U p o n viewing the Texas High Plains for the first time, one observer in the early 1880’s responded: "What a clean stretch of land! Why I could start a plowpoint into the soil at the south line and turn a furrow two hundred miles long without a break.”1 During years of sufficient rainfall, one could stand on a slight rise of land in the spring and see thousands of acres of lush green buffalo grass covering the dark, rich sod stretching out in all directions. The absence of stone, trees, and eroded soil must have appeared to many during such years as a farmer’s paradise. But settlers did not rush into the area. The High Plains region itself presented as difficult a barrier to west­ ward settlement as the imposing escarpment which separates it from streams and rolling landscape along much of its eastern edge. Comanche Indians were not the only obstacles to settlement. Even after buffalo hunt­ ers had deprived the Indian of his means of subsistence and the bluecoated soldiers had wrested his land from him, there would be no land 1 J. Evetts Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado, p. 204.

T h e Barrier to Settlement

5

rush into the region for another quarter of a century. Perhaps more im­ portant than the Indian "barrier” were the geographic and hydrological barriers. Lt. Amiel W. Whipple, a member of one of the Pacific railroad survey parties, arrived on the Llano Estacado in 1853. He observed that "the soil seems to be good, and, if it were possible to irrigate it, might be culti­ vated.”2 The scarcity of water and the semiarid nature of the area pre­ sented even more serious obstacles to settlers than the presence of Comanches. It is significant that the first settlers who moved into the region did not settle on the plains.3 Numerous canyons, formed from the head­ waters of such important Texas rivers as the Brazos, the Red, and the Colorado, are carved into the eastern escarpment. In addition, the Ca­ nadian River cuts a wide, jagged valley through the northern Texas High Plains. Stands of cottonwood and cedar grew along the edges of the streams, and water, although somewhat brackish, was sufficient for water­ ing stock and for human consumption. The first trickle of settlers built homes along these streams. Mexican sheepmen led by Casimero Romero drifted down the Canadian River from New Mexico Territory as early as 1876 and established in the valley of the Canadian a village which became known as Tascosa.4 That same year Charles Goodnight drove a herd of cattle up the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River into Palo Duro Canyon.5 Mobeetie, reported to be the first permanent settlement in the Panhandle, was established in 1875 on Sweetwater Creek in Wheeler County. And in 1878 a group of Methodists founded a religious colony at Clarendon on the Salt Fork of Red River.6 The first settler into the South Plains region, the southern part of the Texas High Plains, was 2 Reports of Explorations and Surveys to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, 33d Cong, 2d sess. Sen. Exec. Doc. No. 78, III, 36. 3 This observation was made by George Tyng, an official of the White Deer Lands Company in 1889. Quoted in Lester Fields Sheffy, The Prancklyn Land and Cattle Com­ pany: A Panhandle Enterprise, 1882-1957, pp. 292-293. 4 Ernest R. Archambeau, " 'Spanish Sheepmen on the Canadian at Old Tascosa,’ as told to Ernest R. Archambeau by Jose Ynoncio Romero,” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 19 (1 9 4 6 ): 46-47. 5 Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, p. 40. 6 Rupert N. Richardson, Texas, the Lone Star State, p. 297; J. D. Tinsley, "Agricul­ tural Development of the Texas Panhandle,” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 8 ( 1935) : 56.

6

Land of the U nderground Rain

H. C. "Hank” Smith, who established a ranch in Blanco Canyon along the banks of the White River, an upper fork of the Brazos.7 The fear of the plains shared by early inhabitants is illustrated by the problem faced by Arthur B. Duncan. Arriving in upper Blanco Canyon in June, 1884, Duncan expected to file on school land in the canyon. Upon his arrival he learned that the lands had already been leased to cattlemen. Rather than "file and settle on a dry section” on the plains, he chose a 160-acre "watered homestead claim” in the canyon which had not been leased.8 During the 1880’s cattlemen continued to dominate the region. Al­ though their vast herds grazed upon the High Plains, the ranchers who came to the region in the 1870’s and early 1880’s usually built their head­ quarters below the Cap Rock. The LX Ranch, north of the present site of Amarillo, had its headquarters on Pitcher Creek. George W. Littlefield turned a herd of several thousand cattle loose and constructed his build­ ings and corrals on the Canadian a few miles from Tascosa. Other ranches located along the Canadian east of Tascosa were those belonging to Hank W. Cresswell and Robert Moody. Farther south, L. G. Coleman estab­ lished his ranch in the Tule Canyon. For several years, the only ranch west of Goodnight’s was that of Leigh Dyer, who built a log cabin in the extreme upper end of the Palo Duro.9 It was not until the middle 1880’s that cattlemen began to push their herds farther west upon the High Plains with its few running streams. This expansion was made possible by the erection of windmills over wells and the construction of "tanks,” ponds of rainwater formed by small earthen dams. In 1887 the vast X IT Ranch, which stretched across a large area of the western High Plains, began drilling wells. Two small artesian wells were drilled in Yellow House Canyon. And several wells were dug by hand on the south range. Before windmills were installed, horses sup­ plied the power for an endless chain-bucket pump used on several of the 7 Roger A. Burgess, "Pioneer Quaker Farmers of the South Plains,” 'Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 1 ( 1928) : 116. 8 Claude V. Hall, "The Early History of Floyd County,” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 20 (1 9 4 7 ): 69-70. 9 Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, pp. 40-43.

8

Land of the U nderground Rain

wells.10 In 1882 B. B. Groom began drilling wells and constructing tanks on lands of the Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, located between the Canadian and the Palo Duro.11 Farmers began to settle in the Panhandle first in the area east of the High Plains along small streams and on uplands between the streams in Childress, Wheeler, Collingsworth, Donley, and Hall counties. But a spearhead of the farmers’ frontier pierced the High Plains as early as 1878 when a Quaker named Paris Cox, acting as treasurer for a group of his brethren from Indiana, bought some fifty thousand acres of land in Crosby County for twenty-five cents an acre. Cox paid Hank Smith four hundred dollars to dig a well on the land, and the next year four Quaker families formed the colony of Estacado on the flat, wind-swept High Plains. After the first winter three families returned to Indiana, leaving only Cox, his family, and one hired hand. That spring the hardy Quaker planted a variety of crops. A physician who visited Cox’s farm in the late summer of 1880 later recalled: "The first crops ever planted on the Staked Plains were then growing. I saw— corn, oats, millet, sorghum, melons, Irish potatoes, (fair) sweet potatoes, and garden vegetables— all did well.”12 The successful crop encouraged a number of Cox’s brethren to join him. In 1882 ten families were living in the colony. There were twenty-three farms containing twelve hundred acres around Estacado by 1888.13 By 1890 the Quaker colony contained a population of two hun­ dred.14 Other farmers, encouraged by the more liberal Texas land law of 1883, which tended to favor the farmer more than the cattleman, began moving into the region in greater numbers after the Santa Fe and the Fort Worth and Denver City railroads broke the isolation of the region in 1887 and 1888, respectively.15 The editor of the Tascosa Pioneer noted in the late 10 Ibid., pp. 89-96. 11 Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, pp. 50-54. 12 Reprinted in Texas Almanac (1 8 8 3 ), p. 117; quoted in Burgess, "Pioneer Quaker Farmers of the South Plains,” pp. 118-119. 13 Burgess, "Pioneer Quaker Farmers of the South Plains,” p. 121. 14 Ibid., p. 119. 15 Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, p. 204. The land law of July, 1883, raised the minimum price for school lands from one dollar to two or three dollars per acre, depend­ ing upon the locality, and required that lands be sold by public auction in local land dis­ tricts. Liberal credit was also provided. In addition, the minimum price of public lands

T he Barrier to Settlement

9

spring of 1888: "Wagons and wagons with white tops, rope-bottomed chairs, tow-heads, brindle cows, yellow dogs and a pervading air of rest­ lessness have poured through this week in the direction suggested by Horace Greeley.” By 1889, the manager of the White Deer Lands Com­ pany noted that "numbers” of settlers were now farming "upon the plains/ ”16 Another indication of increased migration was the number of new towns which appeared on the High Plains during the late 1880’s and early 1890’s. Amarillo was established in 1887 and quickly became the most populous town. Plainview appeared that same year. In neighboring Floyd County, Lockney was organized in 1889 and Floydada sprang up the next year. Farther south, Lubbock was established in 1891. By the end of the 1890’s, Canyon City, Hereford, and many other towns, some ephemeral and some permanent, had appeared in the region.17 The winds of change began to sweep across the Great Plains by 1886. Blistering southwesterly winds swept through West Texas signaling the beginning of a disastrous drouth which sucked the little remaining mois­ ture from the soil and shriveled the native short grass almost as soon as its spring shoots had pierced the earth’s crust. Because of overstocking the range, ranchers were forced to throw their herds on an already glutted market, forcing cattle prices to disastrous lows. Moreover, in 1886 and 1887 arctic blizzards left the rigid frozen corpses of thousands of cattle against fence rows.18 By the late 1880’s the range cattleman, like the buf­ falo and the Indian who had preceded him, was vanishing from the plains. Some far-sighted ranchers realized that the cattleman’s frontier was coming to a close. At a cowmen’s meeting in Dallas, in February, 1887, Colonel William E. Hughes, a prominent rancher and businessman, leased by cattlemen was also raised (Richardson, Texas, the Lone Star State, pp. 2 98299). 16 The Tascosa Pioneer, June 9, 1888; quoted in Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, p. 210. Annual report of manager George Tyng, December 1, 1889; quoted in Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, p. 256. 17 Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, pp. 302-303; Jean Alexander Paul, "The Farmer’s Frontier on the South Plains,” M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1959, p. 121. 18 Arrell M. Gibson, "Ranching on the Southern Great Plains,” Journal of the West 6 (January 1 9 67): 149-150.

10

Land of the U nderground Rain

stated: "The ranchman of the plains was not to be a permanence. He never so considered himself. His mission was to precede the agriculturist and stock farmers, and until a changed order to things should make agri­ culture profitable, or possible, it was his to establish and maintain . . . a valuable industry. He represented as it were, an era— an epoch— a step in social progress.”19 To encourage the transition to the next "step in social progress”— the farm— some large ranches set up agricultural demonstration plots. As early as 1885 the X IT turned over the sod on a few acres and planted corn and millet. The success of the crops encouraged the ranch officials to put two hundred acres under cultivation in 1886. The acreage was planted in alfalfa, oats, and grain sorghums as well as corn and millet. At the State Fair in 1887, the ranch exhibited vegetables, such as cabbages, onions, beets, and even a few barrels of pickles, grown on a two-acre truck patch.20 The White Deer Lands Company, formerly the Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, prepared in 1888 to plat much of its land into farms in expectation of a mass movement of settlers into the region. One official wrote in early 1888: "It is the opinion of almost all who are acquainted with the land that it will be sold in small quantities to actual settlers rather than in bulk to speculators. The coming Spring will unquestionably bring to all of the Panhandle counties of Texas a heavy influx of settlers.”21 The Santa Fe Railroad, which crossed White Deer land just south of the Ca­ nadian River, cooperated with the company to bring in "land seekers.” But so many prospective buyers decided not to purchase after seeing the land that one official, George Tyng, suggested that the company put in a demonstration farm located close to the railroad and "in sight of all passers.” Tyng noted that "land seekers . . . require palpable visible dem­ onstration” of water and crops. Subsequently, in late 1888, the company put in an exhibition farm.22 Ranch owners and land companies were not the only parties interested 19 Quoted in Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, p. 259. 20 Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, pp. 207-208. 21 Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, p. 265. 22 Ibid, pp. 267-277.

T he Barrier to Settlement

11

in attracting farmers. Earlier settlers and railroads, as well as that familiar frontier phenomenon— the booster newspaper editor—attempted to at­ tract more settlers. A local organization calling itself the Panhandle Im­ migration Convention met at Canadian in early 1888. The editor of the Tascosa Pioneer in an open letter to the convention stated: "What we want is a development of productive possibilities . . . an attention to those twin industries of farming and live stock raising . . . which would give the Panhandle an unexampled prosperity . . . we want. . . to encourage . . . immigration, not of city people, not of professional men, for they can come afterwards, but our efforts should reach the populous rural dis­ tricts of the states north and east, and we will get the population that we want.”23 The Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad began publicizing the region as good farming country. In the spring of 1888, an immigra­ tion agent for the railroad named R. A. Cameron stated, "We propose to advertise extensively in the east and seek to settle our line by coloniza­ tion.”24 At least one newspaper editor encouraged immigration by classi­ fying the Panhandle-High Plains as a veritable paradise. He wrote: "Come to the Panhandle for cheap lands; come for rich and productive soil; come for health; come for seasonable summers and balmy winters; come and raise cereals, fruits, vegetables, sorghum, grains, grasses and forage; come and raise cattle, horses, mules, sheep, hogs, goats or poultry . . . come prepared to make your home with us and lands, openings and opportunities of one kind and another will not be wanting. For there is no longer such another country as the Panhandle awaiting development, and no such country destined to the same degree and rapidity of develop­ ment.”25 By the end of 1888 farmers were located in Randall, Deaf Smith, Pot­ ter, Parmer, and other counties. Some large ranches began selling some land to farmers. The X IT by 1890 had platted farms out of more than 80,000 acres. In 1888 Hale County had ten farms and over 200 acres under cultivation. Crops were wheat, sorghum, prairie hay, millet, and a 23 The Tascosa Pioneer, December 24, 1887; quoted in Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, p. 209. 24 Quoted in Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, p. 208. 25 Quoted in ibid., pp. 212-213.

12

Land of the U nderground Rain

few vegetables. Crosby County reported twenty-three farms that same year with more than 550 acres under cultivation. Among the crops were corn, oats, potatoes, sorghum, and millet.26 Much of the early crop land was devoted to raising hay crops which farmers either fed to their own livestock or sold to ranchers. Most of the 255 acres under cultivation in Floyd County in 1890 were planted to livestock feed. Forage crops also predominated in Hale, Crosby, and other counties.27 By 1890 there were about 6,900 people living in the High Plains.28 Of this number only about 1,700 lived in the South Plains.29 Hale County was the most populous, although it was certainly not crowded with 721 souls. Floyd and Crosby counties had 529 and 346, re­ spectively.30 The drouth which began in the late 1880’s, however, whittled away many of this small number and severely retarded the growth of farming. The few shallow streams stopped flowing, and settlers experienced the full blast of sandstorms. In September, 1889, it was reported that "the Canadian River has reached the condition where it is not now running at all, and in this condition it has not previously been . . . since April or May of ’83. . . . It is certainly a dry stream now—as dry as a Tascosa citizen would get if starting on a fifty mile journey with no more than a quart.”31 Then in the spring of the next year a sandstorm hit Tascosa during the middle of the night and raked the town for two days. The newspaper re­ ported that it "was the hardest windstorm the oldest inhabitant knows anything of. It just naturally blew and blew and blew, and blowed and blowed and blowed, and swept the country all up in one great big con­ tinuous sweep. . . . It piled dust heaps everywhere, and sent it [dust] through and into the tightest buildings, and rattled the roofs and shook the fences and scattered the loose boards and boxes and barrels and bent 26 Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, pp. 210-211; Paul, "The Farmer s Frontier on the South Plains,” p. 125. 27 Paul, “The Farmer’s Frontier on the South Plains,” pp. 125-126. 28 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890: Population, I, 41-42. 29 Paul, "The Farmer’s Frontier on the South Plains,” p. 112. 30 Ibid, p. 110. 31 Quoted in John L. McCarty, Maverick Town: The Story of Old Tascosa, p. 241.

T h e Barrier to Settlement

13

the trees and roared and howled and shrieked and hissed till nothing else could be heard. It was frightful.”32 Many farmers began to withdraw from the region, especially after 1891. That year Floyd County had 176 farms. By the end of the next year, only 55 farms remained. The drouth also created more mortgages on the remaining farms of the High Plains, as farmers encountered several sea­ sons of crop failures. For example, Crosby County had only four mort­ gages on its 42 farms in 1891, but by the end of the next year ten mort­ gages were recorded.33 The drouth, however, did not altogether stop migration. As many farmers drove their wagons loaded with household goods back to the more humid regions of the east, they passed other wagons driving west toward the Cap Rock. In the period 1890-1894, the number of applica­ tions filed in the Texas General Land Office for school lands in the region exceeded the number of applications of the 1880’s. Floyd County re­ ported 466 applicants, and Hale County had 340. Although more than 90 percent of the land filed on by settlers during the period reverted back to the state, this percentage did not necessarily indicate that 90 per­ cent of those who filed on land left the region. Influenced to some extent by the severe drouth, the Texas legislature in 1895 enacted a more liberal land law—the "Four Section” act— under which a settler could file on four sections of land (2,560 acres) for two dollars per acre for the first section and one dollar per acre for the remaining three. Credit terms were also very favorable for the farmer. A down payment of only one-fortieth of the price was required, and payments extended over a forty-year period at a mere 3 percent interest. In order to take advantage of the provisions of this act, a technicality of the law required those who had filed under earlier laws to relinquish their claims before taking advantage of the new law. Consequently, many of the 90 percent gave up their first claim in exchange for more land. One historian estimates that as high as "forty per cent of the total forfeitures recorded did not reflect a withdrawal of settle­ ment.”34 32 Ibid. 33 Paul, "The Farmer’s Frontier on the South Plains,” p. 127. 34 Ibid., pp. 97-99, 136.

14

Land of the U nderground Rain

Those farmers who remained during the 1890’s existed by raising drouth-resistant grain sorghums to feed to their small herds of beef cattle and milch cows. In addition, it was reported that settlers in Blanco Can­ yon irrigated orchards and gardens through a system of canals from the White River.35 Moreover, there were undoubtedly many farmers who used their windmills to water a few rows of garden crops. Thus, the early farmers who remained did so by concentrating upon stock farming and by irrigating a few rows of vegetables for the family larder. By the middle 1890’s, however, no vast irrigation movement had yet appeared on the Texas High Plains. The few settlers living in the region were primarily stock farmers. The inrush of immigration anticipated by the large ranches had not materialized, because of the drouth. By the middle 1890’s, the escarpment along the eastern edge, topped off with the yellowish-white Cap Rock, continued to symbolize a barrier to permanent farming settlements on the drouth-stricken, semiarid High Plains. 35 Ibid, pp. 126-127.

2. The Western Irrigation Movement and the Great Plains

W hile farmers were struggling to establish perman­ ent settlements on the High Plains of West Texas, a national irrigation movement was developing in the American West. Some attempts had been made earlier to irrigate from the rivers which flowed across the semiarid Great Plains, but most of the effort in the 1880’s and 1890’s centered around building irrigation facilities in the arid West, where ir­ rigation on a small scale had a long history. As late as 1890 few people outside the Great Plains believed that irrigation in the semiarid region was either desirable or possible. Nevertheless, interest in irrigation on the Great Plains was a kind of by-product of the wider campaign to find methods and financial support for enlarged irrigation facilities through­ out the vast region west of the ninety-eighth meridian. More than a thousand years earlier, aborigines had dug ditches to carry the waters of the Salt River of Arizona to parched fields along its banks. In the vicinity of Clear Creek, Arizona, primitive red-skinned farmers may have watered as much as twelve hundred acres from a single stream.

16

Land of the U nderground Rain

The Coronado expedition failed to discover any fabled cities of gold, but its members did find Indian fields of corn, beans, and squashes produced by irrigation.1 When Spanish missionaries carried the gospel to the Southwest, they also brought with them their Iberian irrigation techniques, which the Moors had introduced hundreds of years earlier from North Africa. By the middle of the eighteenth century, missions from El Paso to Los An­ geles were being supported by artificially watered crops. Near San An­ tonio, Spanish engineers erected Persian-type water wheels which lifted water from streams to the benchlands above.2 The Spanish not only intro­ duced advances in irrigation technology; they also inaugurated concepts of water regulation and conservation. By 1841 the Mexicans of the Los Angeles area had empowered a "ditch commissioner” to repair irrigation canals and to enforce rules of water conservation.3 Extensive irrigation works were unknown among the English-speaking peoples of North America before 1847. American settlement had been confined primarily to the humid areas east of the ninety-eighth meridian, where farmers were plagued more often by an overabundance of rainfall than by drouths. But, as American expansion rolled over the Spanish Southwest in the 1840’s, migrating farmers from the East were forced to adapt their agricultural methods to the scarcity of moisture in the arid West. Mormons led the way. While still at Nauvoo, Illinois, they studied the report of John C. Fremont concerning the Great Basin region. Realizing that rainfall in the Great Salt Lake Valley would be insufficient for an agricultural economy, Mormon leaders studied irrigation techniques be­ fore beginning their mass exodus to the West. Upon reaching their prom­ ised land in 1847, the people of Zion planted crops and dug their first irrigation ditches. They developed water engineering techniques and laws 1 John T. Ganoe, "The Beginnings of Irrigation in the United States,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 25 (June 1 9 38): 62-63; Ralph H. Hess, "The Beginnings of Irrigation in the United States,” Journal of Political Economy 20 (October 1912) : 807809, ftn. 809. 2 Ganoe, "Beginnings of Irrigation,” pp. 63-64; Hess, "Beginnings of Irrigation,” pp. 810-811; Edwin P. Arneson, "Early Irrigation in Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 25 (October 1921) : 130. 3 Ganoe, "Beginnings of Irrigation,” p. 63; John Q. Ressler, "Indian and Spanish Water-Control on New Spain’s Northwest Frontier,” Journal of the West 7 (January 1 968): 10-17.

T h e W estern Irrigation M ovem ent

17

through experience rather than through contact with Spanish methods.4 The Saints constructed an elaborate system of canals and diversion dams in the higher elevations of the Wasatch Range in order to channel water to fields by gravity. Plans were drawn up in 1848 to build the first large canal— the Big Cottonwood Creek Canal.5 Obviously the building of complex irrigation works could not be undertaken by individuals. The expenses and labor involved in such projects could only be met by cor­ porate or cooperative action. The Mormons chose the latter course. Church leaders planned irrigation policies for their communities. Brigham Young laid down the basic philosophy for water control when he stated that "there shall be no private ownership of the streams that come out of the canyons___ These belong to the people: all the people.”6 Using that premise— community ownership of water rights— a code of customs and law evolved during the first few years of Mormon experience in the Great Salt Lake Valley. Bishops determined the needs of their wards and supervised the construction of "laterals” and ditches. Each farmer furnished labor for the project in direct proportion to the area of land which he proposed to irrigate. Upon completion of the public work, a "watermaster” for the community was appointed to control the amount of water to which each farmer was entitled.7 The Great Basin settlers demonstrated the complex nature of irrigation problems. Not only was construction of an extensive system of canals too expensive for the individual, but also the need for governmental or com­ munity regulation of water was imperative if the individual farmer was to survive in the arid West. Following the Mormon example, other cooperative enterprises were founded. For example, Nathan C. Meeker of the New York Tribune staff brought a group of settlers to northern Colorado in 1870. With the sup­ port of Horace Greeley, Meeker’s publisher, the little society colonized an area of land at the fork of the Cache la Poudre and Platte rivers. Its success

4 Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints, 1830-1900, p. 41; Ganoe, "Beginnings of Irrigation/' pp. 66-67; Hess, "Be­ ginnings of Irrigation,” pp. 811-812. 5 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p. 51. 6 Quoted in ibid., p. 52. 7 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 52-53.

18

Land of the U nderground Rain

encouraged similar cooperative settlements at Boulder, Loveland, Long­ mont, and Fort Collins, Colorado.8 Individual irrigation was also practiced where water was easily avail­ able and an economic need existed. For example, a demand for fresh foodstuffs existed in mining camps and along the Overland Trail. To meet the need, a few farmers and ex-miners diverted the waters of streams onto small truck patches. In Colorado in 1858, David K. Wall built a crude ditch to channel the waters of Clear Creek into his two-acre vege­ table garden. Miners paid high prices for the fresh produce, and Wall earned a profit of two thousand dollars.9 As early as 1857 similar farming ventures along the Platte River Valley were furnishing foodstuffs for emigrants bound for California and Oregon.10 This type of irrigation enterprise, however, had its limitations. The average farmer lacked the capital to build a reservoir for storing water. When individuals appropriated enough water to cut off the supply for irrigators farther downstream, conflict inevitably resulted between the two groups. The latter problem spurred the irrigation colonies of Colo­ rado into leading the movement for state water regulation, which gave birth to the Colorado Doctrine of water appropriation in 1879. Under this concept the state of Colorado established water districts in individual natural watersheds occupied by irrigation farmers. A water commissioner in each district was empowered to allocate the available water to users ac­ cording to prior usage. That is, the earlier irrigators had first claim.11 The solution to the problem required organization as well as regulation. Cor­ porately owned cmsls attempted to fill this need. The construction of corporate canals began as a response to the Ameri­ can speculative urge as well as to the demand for irrigated farms. Water increased not only the productive capacity of the land, but its value as 8 Hess, "Beginnings of Irrigation,” pp. 820-821; Ganoe, "Beginnings of Irrigation,” pp. 69-70; Elwood Mead, "Rise and Future of Irrigation in the United States,” United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1899, pp. 593-594; Ray Palmer Teele, "The Financing of Nongovernmental Irrigation Enterprises,” The Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 2 (October 1926): 429-430; Robert G. Dunbar, "The Origins of the Colorado System of Water-Right Control,” Colorado Magazine 27 (October 1950): 241-262. 9 Hess, "Beginnings of Irrigation,” pp. 819-820. 10 Ganoe, "Beginnings of Irrigation,” p. 68. 11 Dunbar, "Colorado System of Water-Right Control,” pp. 241-262.

T h e W estern Irrigation M ovem ent

19

well. Businessmen consequently formed water users’ companies during the last half of the nineteenth century to construct diversion dams, storage works, and large canals. Farmers initially paid assessments of from five to five hundred dollars per acre for water rights from such companies. They then continued to pay an annual rental fee. Some canal companies required an exceptionally large outlay of capital. For example, the Wy­ oming Development Company near Laramie built a tunnel which re­ portedly cost more than all the canals of the Greeley Union Colony com­ bined.12 Corporate canal investments were very risky. Elwood Mead, one of America’s foremost irrigation engineers, reported in 1899, "Nearly all [canal companies] have been a success so far as the section interested was concerned, but the benefits have gone to the public and not to the in­ vestors.”13 Why did so many of these enterprises fall into bankruptcy? Mead gave the following reasons: (1) the time lag between constructing the project and settling people on the land, (2) the initial small number of settlers paying for water, (3) "unsuitability of the public-land laws to irrigation development,” (4) speculators who acquired lands near projects without improving them, and (5) expenses of litigation over wa­ ter rights between companies.14 A later irrigation economist noted that "almost without exception . . . such enterprises were failures because of the mistaken idea that the water almost alone created the increase in value, while, as a matter of fact, the development of the farms . . . had as much to do with the new value as did the water supply.”15 Companies also tended to overestimate "the demand for water.”16 Thus, by and large, water users’ companies failed to yield a profit on investments because of the relatively slow progress of land reclamation and because of the lack of effective governmental regulation of water rights. Settlers themselves added to the problem by underesti­ mating the cost of reclaiming land while overestimating the return on their investment. But even in this instance the companies were not blame­ less. Their land agents were not above painting an overly optimistic pic12 Mead, "Rise and Future of Irrigation,” pp. 594-595. 13 Ibid., p. 596. 14 Ibid., pp. 596-597. 15 Teele, "Financing of Nongovernmental Irrigation Enterprises,” p. 430. 16 Ibid.

20

Land of the U nderground Rain

ture of irrigation farming in order to attract farmers to their projects.17 Except for a few irrigation projects along the major rivers flowing through the Great Plains, most of the concern for irrigation had thus far centered in the arid West. Western migration had "jumped over” the Great Plains to settle on lands in Utah, California, Oregon, or along the attractive banks of strong-flowing rivers in the mountains or the arid region because early observers had pronounced the plains area unfit for human habitation. Such explorers of the early nineteenth century as Zebulon Pike and Stephen Long referred to the Great Plains as part of the Great American Desert. They had crossed the region during its drouths, and their impres­ sion remained the dominant American attitude toward the area until settlers began moving into western Kansas and Nebraska. Then public opinion toward the treeless plains changed. Henry Nash Smith pointed out that "as settlement moved up the val­ leys of the Platte and the Kansas rivers, the myth of the desert was de­ stroyed and in its stead the myth of the garden of the world was projected out across the plains.”18 Settlers who moved into the region in the 1870’s and 1880’s insisted that the average annual rainfall was increasing. The myth was further propagated by some contemporary scientists. Ferdinand V. Hayden, who directed one of the great surveys of the West, reported in 1867 that the planting of trees tended to increase rainfall along the area bordering on the Missouri River.19 Samuel Aughey, an associate of Hayden and a professor at the new University of Nebraska, collaborated with a land speculator named Charles Dana Wilber in attempting to prove that rainfall was on the increase. It was Wilber who coined the phrase "rain follows the plough.”20 Most settlers probably felt the same about the weather as did H. C. "Hank” Smith of Crosby County, Texas. He observed that "rain has in­ creased very notably ever since I moved to this place.”21 Whether they thought the increase in rainfall was due to more timber, the plough, or 17 Ibid. 18 Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, p. 17919 Ibid, pp. 180-181. 20 Ibid, p. 181. 21 Quoted in Richard J. Hinton, Irrigation in the United States, 49th Cong, 2d sess. Serial No. 2450, Sen. Misc. Doc. No. 15, p. 119.

T h e W estern Irrigation M ovem ent

21

simply more inhabitants, settlers convinced themselves that the climate pattern had changed and discarded the idea that the Great Plains was an area of only marginal rainfall. Both the "myth of the garden” and the "myth of the desert” were mis­ conceptions of the nature of the Great Plains. The region was neither humid nor arid; it was semiarid. The anomalous nature of its unique climate has been emphasized by Carl Frederick Kraenzel, who stated that the amount of rainfall was not "halfway between humid and arid. They [the Great Plains] are not semiarid in that the climate is halfway be­ tween humid and arid. They are not half dry and half wet; rather, some years they are dry and even arid; other years they are very wet; and still other years they are wet or dry at the wrong times from the standpoint of agricultural production and yields. It is this undefinable aspect of semiaridity that gives the Plains their distinctiveness [italics mine].”22 Settlers were confronted with this "undefinable aspect of semiaridity” when a severe drouth struck the Great Plains in 1886 and extended through the remainder of the 1880’s and early 1890’s. Numerous emi­ grants who had recently settled in the "garden” began migrating back toward the east. In 1891 some eighteen thousand wagons reportedly en­ tered Iowa from Nebraska. Western Kansas lost half its population be­ tween 1888 and 1892. The bitterness of farmers leaving the region was perhaps best expressed by signs painted on the sides of some eastwardmoving wagons which stated, "In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted.”23 From the Texas High Plains to Canada the drouth severely set back population gains of the previous decade. Those who remained were forced to adapt their institutions to the realities of the semiarid Great Plains. In seeking new institutions to meet the problem, some citizens of the region and other interested parties channeled their energies into a new crusade— the cause of irrigation. Foremost among the leaders of this movement was William E. Smythe. Smythe migrated to the West from Massachusetts, settling at Kearney, 22 Carl Frederick Kraenzel, The Great Plains in Transition, p. 12. Copyright 1955 by the University of Oklahoma Press. 23 Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer’s Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897, vol. V of The Economic History of the United States, ed. Henry David et al., pp. 307-308.

22

Land of the U nderground Rain

Nebraska, in 1888. The next year he became acquainted with irrigation by means of a tour through California and New Mexico. In 1890 he be­ came an editorial writer for the Omaha Bee, and the following year he became interested in the utilization of water resources as a solution to the agricultural dilemma of the Great Plains. "I suppose I had heard or read the word 'irrigation,’ ” he wrote, "though I have no recollection of it. Certainly, the word meant nothing to me until the drought struck Ne­ braska.”24 Other leaders in Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas became interested in ir­ rigation and furnished much of the initial stimulus for the movement. Smythe recounted that the irrigation movement actually began with meet­ ings in western Nebraska, which, in turn, led to a state-wide gathering at Lincoln in February, 1891. The Lincoln group, led by Smythe, then ar­ ranged for the first National Irrigation Congress to meet at Salt Lake City on September 15, 1891.25 Joseph L. Bristow, a newspaperman from Kansas, organized the Interstate Irrigation Association at Salina, Kansas, in 1893 and the following year began publishing Irrigation Farmer.26 Men from states which were at least partly in the Great Plains were especially prominent among the leaders of the irrigation movement at the Los Angeles Irrigation Congress of 1893. For example, Bristow attended the conference, Smythe called the congress to order, Judge J. W. Gregory of Garden City, Kansas, introduced the governor of California to the con­ gress, and one of the two speakers on the first day of the session was James S. Emery of Lawrence, Kansas.27 In spite of the enthusiasm shown by men like Bristow, Gregory, and Smythe, the federal government showed little interest in promoting irri­ gation on the Great Plains, Two important investigations into western water resources were conducted before 1890. Neither focused attention on the unique irrigation problems of the plains. The first was conducted in 1886 subsequent to a Senate resolution of 24 William E. Smythe, The Conquest of Arid America, p. 266. There is no biography of Smythe, but a useful biographical article is Martin E. Carlson, "William E. Smythe: Irrigation Crusader,” Journal of the West 7 (January 1 968): 41-47. 25 Smythe, Conquest of Arid America, p. 267; Carlson, "William E. Smythe,” p. 45. 26 A. Bower Sageser, "Joseph L. Bristow: The Editor’s Road to Politics,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 10 (Summer 1964): 158-15927 A. Bower Sageser, "Los Angeles Hosts an International Irrigation Congress,” Jour­ nal of the West 4 (July 1 965): 419-420.

T h e W estern Irrigation M ovem ent

23

that year to the Department of Agriculture. Richard J. Hinton, who was in charge of the survey of existing irrigation facilities, published his find­ ings the next year. In addition to scattered small acreages irrigated by windmills and streams, he found very few irrigation works on the Great Plains except for some canal companies on the Arkansas River in Finney County, Kansas. The bulk of the report was devoted to the arid West.28 The second, and more important, investigation was initiated by a joint resolution of Congress in 1888 to the Secretary of the Interior for the purpose of finding possible reservoir sites in the West.29 The task of con­ ducting the survey fell to John Wesley Powell, director of the U.S. Geo­ logical Survey, who had long been interested in irrigation and land re­ form. Ten years before, the one-armed explorer of the Colorado River had submitted his famous Report on the Lands of the Arid Region o f the United States. In that document he had called for the construction of reservoirs in mountainous areas in order to irrigate farms in the valleys.30 In his survey, Powell concentrated on the arid and mountainous West. But in 1890 he was forced to halt his investigation, partly because of western opposition to his attempt to withdraw public lands from entry near his reservoir sites in order to forestall land speculation schemes, but also because of the reaction of Great Plains congressmen to Powell’s lack of enthusiasm over an investigation of artesian well31 possibilities.32 In June of that year Powell appeared before the House Appropriations Committee, where Sen. Gideon Moody of South Dakota asked him what he thought of the possibilities of developing artesian water for irrigation. The scientist replied that all the flowing wells that could be bored in the Dakotas would be insufficient to irrigate one single county of the area.

28 Hinton, Irrigation in the United States, pp. 3, 18. 29 Everett W . Sterling, "The Powell Irrigation Survey, 1888-1893,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 27 (December 1940): 422. 30 John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, ed. Wallace Stegner, pp. 22-23. 31 Although the word "artesian” is sometimes applied to any deep well in which water tends to rise above the level of its original stratum, the term as used in this study will apply only to those wells in which water flows to the surface under hydrostatic pressure, unaided by pumping devices. 32 Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, pp. 300-342; Sterling, "Powell Irrigation Survey,” pp. 421-434. Also see William Culp Darrah, Powell of the Colorado, pp. 299-314.

24

Land of the U nderground Ram

Moody consequently opposed appropriating any more money to the sur­ vey.33 The clash between Powell and Moody was more than a conflict between a scientist and a westerner. The clash represented a cleavage between those whose interests were centered on the arid and mountainous West and those who felt that the Great Plains were being ignored in the irriga­ tion survey. As subsequent investigations would reveal, Powell was un­ doubtedly correct about the rarity of artesian water, but to Moody and other plainsmen, artesian wells seemed to be the last hope for a significant irrigation development on the Great Plains with its few surface-water resources and even fewer reservoir sites.34 Consequently, in 1890 plainsmen gathered enough support in Congress to appropriate seventy thousand dollars for the investigation of "artesian and underflow waters.”35 Significantly, the inquiry was placed in the Department of Agriculture rather than under the supervision of the U.S. Geological Survey. Richard J. Hinton, who had conducted the first irriga­ tion investigation in 1886, headed the project. He launched the inquiry in 1890 after enlisting the assistance of local geologists throughout the West, such as Robert T. Hill of Texas, Lewis E. Hicks of Nebraska, and Garry E. Culver of South Dakota.36 Moreover, Hinton organized an Office of Irrigation Inquiry within the Department of Agriculture in 1891 to facilitate the work.37 The final report of 1892 glowed with the optimism which Hinton exhibited throughout the investigation. He found that there were 13,695 artesian wells west of the ninety-seventh meridian. But it should be noted that of this number, few were located in the large central area of the Great Plains. Most were either along the eastern 33 Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, pp. 329-331. 34 For a discussion of the problems of utilizing water resources of the Great Plains as well as of the Texas High Plains, see Chapter 3. Also see Thomas G. Manning, Govern­ ment in Science: The U.S. Geological Survey, 1867-1894, pp. 182-184. 35 Congress appropriated the sums under acts passed on April 4 and September 30, 1890, and on March 3, 1891. See Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1891, p. 53. 36 [Richard J. Hinton], "Report of the Special Agent in Charge of the Artesian and Underflow Investigations and of the Irrigation Inquiry,” in Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1891, p. 440. 37 Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1891, p. 444. Herbert S. Schell, "Drought and Agriculture in Eastern South Dakota during the Eighteen Nineties,” Agricultural History 5 (October 1931) : 167.

T h e W estern Irrigation M ovement

25

periphery or along the western edge of the plains near the Rocky Moun­ tains. For example, the two largest artesian basins known in the world by 1891— the James River Valley of the Dakotas and the central Texas area south of Fort Worth—were both east of the ninety-eighth meridian.38 Between the Rocky Mountains and the eastern peripheral river valleys there were few artesian wells because the prerequisite geological forma­ tions did not exist. Such formations are usually found in natural basins or in areas adjacent to mountains, foothills, or highlands. The Great Plains would have to depend upon sources other than artesian wells for irrigation water.39 Visionary crusaders continued to keep the issue of irrigation alive. William E. Smythe continued as editor of Irrigation Age until 1896. Essentially a Jeffersonian, he thought that irrigation would lead to the establishment of the small farm of ten to twenty acres as the basic unit of society throughout the West.40 "Tell the people of Nebraska,” he in­ formed a newspaper reporter in 1894, "that we are going to make homes for millions of men; that in these homes irrigation shall guarantee in­ dustrial independence and the small farm unit a reasonable degree of human equality.”41 That same year he wrote, "To make homes where the common people shall realize the highest average prosperity—this is the 36 [Richard J. Hinton], “Report of the Special Agent in Charge of the Artesian and Investigation and of the Irrigation Inquiry, 52d Cong., 1st sess., Serial No. 2899, Sen. Exec. Doc. No. 41, p. 16; Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1891, p. 54. 39 Referring to the movement to put down artesian wells, Willard D. Johnson stated, “No flowing wells were secured from any borings upon the High Plains proper, and only a few, and these of small yield, in the valleys [of the High Plains]" (Willard D. Johnson, “The High Plains and Their Utilization,” in Twenty-first Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, part 4, p. 6 9 8 ). For an account of the artesian-well movement in South Dakota see Schell, “Drought and Agriculture in Eastern South Dakota,” pp. 162-180; Marc M. Cleworth, “Artesian-Well Irrigation: Its History in Brown County, South Dakota, 1889-1900,” Agricultural History 15 (October 1941): 195-201. Texans had been interested in boring artesian wells since the 1850’s. A state geological survey of the late 1880’s under the supervision of Edward T. Dumble had as one of its objectives the discovery of artesian ground-water formations which, in turn, could be used for irrigation purposes (Walter Keene Ferguson, Geology and Politics in Frontier Texas, 1845-1909, pp. 28-29, 9 0 -9 1 ) • 40 Carlson, "William E. Smythe,” pp. 42-43; Smythe, Conquest of Arid America, pp. 45-46. 41 Nebraska State Journal, September 3, 1894; quoted in Carlson, “William E. Smythe,” p. 42.

26

Land of the U nderground Rain

lofty purpose of those who are directing the irrigation movement in Western America.”42 Joseph L. Bristow also remained an important leader in the irrigation movement of the 1890’s. Unlike Smythe, who publicized the need for irrigation throughout the West, Bristow centered his interest on the Great Plains and his native Kansas. In the first issue of his Irrigation Farmer in February, 1894, the Kansas editor stated that his periodical would cham­ pion "irrigation for the Great Plains.”43 For the next two years Bristow attended state, regional, and national irrigation conferences, examined new types of pumping machinery, campaigned to establish a state board of irrigation, and kept farmers informed of the latest developments in irrigation equipment, techniques, and crops.44 He was particularly inter­ ested in possibilities for pump irrigation. For example, Bristow planned the program for the Interstate Irrigation Association meeting at North Platte, Nebraska, in 1893. At the meeting delegates heard reports and viewed exhibits devoted to windmill and gasoline pumps, as well as to artesian wells.45 In 1895 the governor of Kansas, at least partly influenced by his private secretary, Joseph Bristow, was responsible for legislation which established a Board of Irrigation Survey and Experiment primarily to test pumping plants.46 While such irrigation leaders as Bristow and Smythe continued to publicize the cause, farmers began to experiment with irrigating from wells. For example, on the eastern periphery of the Great Plains in South Dakota, some farmers drilled wells in an artesian basin. Before Hinton’s investigation began in 1890, there were more than one hundred artesian wells in the James River Valley. By 1896, in spite of the high cost of three to five thousand dollars for drilling and casing each well for irrigation purposes, some one hundred farms were being irrigated from such wells in eastern South Dakota.47 42 William E. Smythe, "The Progress of Irrigation Thought in the West,” The Re~ view of Reviews 10 (October 1894): 396. 43 Quoted in A. Bower Sageser, Joseph L. Bristow: Kansas Progressive, pp. 15-25. 44 Sageser, Joseph L. Bristow, pp. 15-25. 45 Ibid, p. 18. 46 Ibid, p. 2347 Schell, "Drought and Agriculture in Eastern South Dakota,” pp. 165-170. For a detailed account of the artesian movement in one county, see Cleworth, "Artesian-Well Irrigation,” pp. 195-201.

T h e W estern Irrigation M ovem ent

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A much more important source for the Great Plains was found in its vast resources of nonartesian subsurface water. To utilize these resources, some plains settlers began using windmill-powered pumps to irrigate small acreages. In Nebraska some farmers reportedly made more money from their small irrigated truck patches than from their unwatered field crops. Both homemade and manufactured windmills could be seen whirl­ ing along the Platte, Republican, and Loup river valleys of that state.48 Small earthen reservoirs were usually scooped out near the windmills. Water constantly pumped into the reservoirs was then ditched to the fields. Some windmill irrigation projects were very ambitious. Near Garden City, Kansas, a farmer erected a mill with a wheel some fourteen feet in diameter to provide power for an eight-inch pump. The 4,400 barrels of water per day which the unit provided was enough to fill two large reservoirs. And in 1894 this pump furnished enough water for fifteen acres.49 Interest in ground water was further reflected when in 1895 the Kansas Board of Irrigation Survey and Experiment launched an extensive experimentation program devoted primarily to windmill irrigation.50 Windmill irrigation both stimulated state experiments in pump irriga­ tion and provided the farmer with a means to subsist on the Great Plains during periods of drouth.51 But, like the artesian well, the windmill symbolized the frustration of Great Plains farmers, who were still unable to utilize their subsurface water resources for irrigation purposes on any vast scale. While farmers experimented with artesian wells and windmills, the main thrust of the federal government’s irrigation investigations after the Hinton inquiry continued to be toward the mountainous and arid West. In 1897 Hiram M. Chittenden published his famous report on irrigation-reservoir sites in Wyoming and Colorado. Chittenden called for 48 Erwin H. Barbour, Wells and Windmills in Nebraska, United States Geological Survey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, no. 29, 55th Cong, 3d sess. Serial No. 3815,

H. Doc. No.

229, p. 31. 49 A. Bower Sageser, "Windmill and Pump Irrigation on the Great Plains, 18901910,” Nebraska History 48 (Summer 1967): 111-112. 50 Report of the Board of Irrigation Survey and Experiment for 1895-1896, to the Legislature of Kansas. 51 Sageser, "Windmill and Pump Irrigation on the Great Plains,” p. 114.

28

Land of the U nderground Rain

the direct financing of dams and other irrigation works by the federal government.52 Moreover, an energetic Californian named George W. Maxwell, using the government report, organized the National Irriga­ tion Association in 1897 and began an intensive campaign to publicize the need for acceptance of Chittenden’s plan. Within the next few years Maxwell started a number of journals and set up an office in Washington, D.C., to release articles to the national press. In addition, he remained in communication with numerous national political figures and eventually enlisted the support of railroad officials and eastern business interests.53 The climax to Maxwell’s campaign and the federal government’s in­ terest in the irrigation problems of the arid and mountainous West was the Newlands Act of 1902, which established a national reclamation policy. Under the provisions of the act, the federal government would use money from the sale of public lands to construct dams, reservoirs, and other irrigation works.54 At about the time that Maxwell was reading the Chittenden report, citizens of the Great Plains were losing interest in irrigation. By 1896 rains had once again descended on the plains and people became indif­ ferent to the irrigation movement. Even discussion of artificial watering became unpopular among local promoters. Boosters insisted that their region was not arid, nor did it require irrigation. In 1896 a South Dakota newspaper reported: "We have passed from the drouth period and have entered an era of old time moisture supply. We will now stop talking about irrigation.”55 The next year South Dakota did away with the office of State Engineer of Irrigation. Real-estate brokers who hoped to swell the tide of immigration also insisted that artificial watering was not needed.56 Another South Dakota newspaper summed up the booster at­ titude in declaring that "the 'irrigation papers’ in the state are doing more harm to this country than all the blizzards, mortgages and corrupt poli52 John T. Ganoe, “The Origin of a National Reclamation Policy,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 18 (June 1931) : 40; Hiram M. Chittenden, Preliminary Examination of Reservoir Sites in Wyoming and Colorado, 55th Cong., 2d sess., Serial No. 3666, H. Doc. No. 141. 53 Ganoe, “Origin of a National Reclamation Policy,” pp. 39-42. 54 Ibid., pp. 50-51. 55 Press and Dakotan (Yankton, South Dakota), November 12, 1896; quoted in Schell, “Drought and Agriculture in Eastern South Dakota,” p. 171. 56 Schell, "Drought and Agriculture in Eastern South Dakota,” pp. 172, 174.

T h e W estern Irrigation M ovem ent

29

ticians ever did.”57 In Kansas the Board of Irrigation Survey and Experi­ ment was stripped of any meaningful function in 1896.58 And in the Texas Panhandle the editor of an Amarillo newspaper referred to irriga­ tion as "a humbug. Like the 16 to 1 silver—with the bug under the chip —put there by interested sharpers.”59 Even more significantly, Joseph L. Bristow ceased publication of Irrigation Farmer in November, 1896.60 Summary The Western irrigation movement, which, to a great extent had originated on the Great Plains and for which the region had provided much of the early leadership, was successful in getting a national recla­ mation policy formulated primarily for the benefit of the mountainous and arid West, rather than for the semiarid region. Several factors were responsible for diverting attention from the peculiar irrigation needs of the plains. Scientists like Powell believed that the water resources of the Great Plains could not be effectively utilized on any large scale. More­ over, inhabitants of the semiarid West changed their attitude toward ir­ rigation from enthusiasm to downright opposition as the climate changed from dry to wet. Citizens of the arid region, on the other hand, kept the issue of federal support for irrigation works before the nation after the plainsmen had left the movement. Perhaps the most important reason that irrigation failed to become firmly implanted within the economic and social structures of the Great Plains was because of the nature of water resources in the region. Ar­ tesian wells and windmills simply could not utilize those resources on the scale needed for irrigation. 57 Parkston (South Dakota) Advance, April 23, 1894; quoted in ibid. 58 Sageser, Joseph L. Bristow, pp. 24-25. 59 Amarillo News, February 9, 1895, p. 4. 60 Sageser, Joseph L. Bristow, p. 25.

3. Water Resources of the Southern High Plains

The most important reason the semiarid West failed to derive substantial benefits from the irrigation movement of the late nineteenth century was the nature of its water resources. The most influential government documents on irrigation between 1870 and 1900 were those of John Wesley Powell and Hiram M. Chittenden, both of which focused attention on the importance of reservoir sites. Suitable locations for dams existed primarily in the mountainous and arid regions, rather than on the shallow rivers which snaked across the Great Plains. Streams for reservoir sites required deep canyons to impound a large volume of water; relatively silt-free, continuously flowing waters; and a high elevation so that the impounded water could flow by gravity to farm­ lands on a lower elevation. Few such sites existed in semiarid America. Frederick H. Newell, chief hydrographer of the United States Geological Survey, wrote in 1896: "In the arid regions the arable lands are mainly in the valleys or partly surrounded by mountains from which perennial streams issue with

W ater Resources of the Southern H igh Plains

31

rapid fall. This facilitates the construction of canals built above the level of the fields, furnishing by gravity a relatively large amount of water. On the other hand, on the Great Plains are boundless tracts of fertile soil with no water within sight except at rare intervals after heavy storms.”1 Newell conceded that "a few perennial streams” existed on the plains, but he also recognized that "these attain notable size mainly at points where the conditions are such that the water cannot be diverted and used eco­ nomically or efficiently.”2 The chief hydrographer also cautioned that the streams of the Great Plains which had headwaters in the Rocky Mountains would furnish little water to irrigators on the plains because farmers near the mountains already utilized much of the flow.3 To augment Newell’s position, another official of the U.S. Geological Survey, Willard D. Johnson, warned that the rivers which flowed across the plains were "not strong-flowing rivers.” He agreed with Newell in emphasizing that "there is not water enough from the Rocky Mountains completely to utilize even the extreme western and arid subdivision of the Great Plains.”4 Moreover, Johnson reiterated that large reservoirs were impractical in the region, not only because of the scarcity of suitable sites, but also because the accumulation of silt would shorten the useful­ ness of such storage facilities.5 The primary problem of irrigating the Great Plains from streams or impounded waters was that its surface waters could be utilized to irrigate very little of its land. Early settlers did, however, channel stream water directly upon their acreage in some cases if they had bottom-land fields adjacent to streams. By 1890 some four hundred miles of canals and ditches drawing water from the Arkansas River were in use in the vicinity of Garden City, Kansas. But such instances were not common on the plains. In his survey on irrigation published in 1887, Richard J. Hinton mentioned only the Garden City area as being extensive enough to war­ rant a report. Other areas of the Great Plains, such as Nebraska, the Da1 Frederick H. Newell, "Irrigation on the Great Plains," in United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1896, p. 1692 Ibid, p. 172. 3 Ibid, pp. 175-176. 4 Willard D. Johnson, "The High Plains and Their Utilization," in Twenty-first An­ nual Report of the United States Geological Survey, part 4, p. 694. 5 Ibid, p. 693.

32

Land of the U nderground Rain

kotas, and the Texas High Plains, were represented in the survey only by the accounts of isolated individuals irrigating from small streams or using windmill-powered pumps to irrigate a few acres.6 The lack of surface-water resources, so characteristic of the Great Plains, was even more of a problem in one of its subdivisions— the Texas High Plains. That region, covering some 35,000 square miles of the eastern two-thirds of the Llano Estacado, stretches along the western half of the Texas Panhandle to the Pecos Valley in the southwest and the Cap Rock escarpment on the east. Only the Canadian River cuts across the flat terrain in the northern part of the area. Its course has eroded a valley which in some places reaches a depth of one thousand feet below the rim of the plains and ranges from five to twenty miles wide.7 The Texas High Plains is the southern part of the High Plains plateau which stretches along the western edge of the vast Great Plains region, extending from the Dakotas through Texas.8 Its geological origin began with an extensive fluvial plain laid down in the late Tertiary period, ex­ tending from the mountains on the west to the Central Lowland in the east. Ancient streams flowing from the mountains fanned out across the face of the area, gradually laying down a rich sedimentary deposit in the same way that rivers form deltas at their mouths. Gradually the eastern and western edges of the plain were eroded away, leaving the upraised High Plains.9 The Texas High Plains, like the remainder of the High Plains region, has suffered little water erosion. Very few streams flow in the area, al­ though the headwaters of such important Texas rivers as the Brazos, the Red, and the Colorado are found along the edge of the eastern escarp­ ment. The typical stream is called a "draw.” Its features consist of a tough turf and a flat bottom rather than the V-shaped pattern so characteristic of 6 Richard J. Hinton, Irrigation in the United States, 49th Cong., 2d sess., Serial No. 2450, Sen. Misc. Doc. No. 15, p. 118; [idem], "Report of the Special Agent in Charge of the Artesian and Underflow Investigations and of the Irrigation Inquiry,” in Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1891, pp. 448-449. 7 Nevin M. Fenneman, Physiography of the Western United States, pp. 14-15; E. R. Leggat, Ground Water Development in the Southern High Plains of Texas, 1953, Texas Board of Water Engineers Bulletin, no. 5410, p. 1. 8 Fenneman, Physiography of the Western United States, p. 11. 9 Ibid., pp. 11-12; Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, pp. 10-17.

W ater Resources of the Southern H igh Plains

33

eastern gullies. A few of the draws run a small amount of water, but most are usually dry, serving only to carry away rainwater.10 Although the High Plains region had few surface-water resources, the area at the turn of the century had abundant underground water. The ge­ ological movement which laid down the rich soil of the plateau also inter­ laced the subsurface with deposits of sand and gravel lying on top of the Triassic "red beds,” an impervious layer of clay. The porous, level sod subsequently trapped much of the rainfall which, in turn, percolated down into the formation and lay on top of the "red beds.” Thus, a veri­ table lake of underground water, ranging in some places from two to three hundred feet thick, which geologists later named the Ogallala for­ mation, underlay a large area of the Texas High Plains before the advent of irrigation.11 The Ogallala formation was first tapped by railroads, ranchers, and farmers. As early as 1854 a Swiss geologist named Jules Marcou, who had accompanied a U.S. Army topographical expedition across the region, wrote that underground water "on the Llano Estacado . . . may be found everywhere.”12 The Union Pacific Railroad installed windmills on the northern High Plains to furnish water for its locomotives.13 In 1887 H. C. "Hank” Smith reported: "Water can be got by digging or boring at a depth of 10 to 100 feet. . . . The farther northwest of here the more shallow the wells.”14 That same year the huge X IT Ranch began digging and drilling wells to supply water for livestock. The first pumps consisted of buckets fastened to endless chains which ran from the bottom to the surface of shallow wells. Horses supplied the power. Windmill pumps averaging some 125 feet in depth soon replaced these crude devices. By 10 Fenneman, Physiography of the Western United States, p. 11. 11 Ibid, pp. 13-14; Charles N. Gould, The Geology and Water Resources of the Western Portion of the Panhandle of Texas, United States Geological Survey WaterSupply and Irrigation Paper, no. 191, pp. 37-38; Regional Water Conservation Division of the Soil Conservation Service, "Ground Water and Irrigation in the High Plains of Texas,” mimeographed (Fort Worth: Soil Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1947), p. 7. 12 Marcou was mistaken, however, in assuming that wells drilled in the region would be artesian or self-flowing wells (Jules Marcou, Boston, September 21, 1854, to Capt. John Pope; reprinted in Jules Marcou, Geology of North America, p. 30). 13 Webb, The Great Plains, p. 339. 14 H. C. Smith, Mount Blanco, Texas, ca. 1886 or 1887, to United States Department of Agriculture, in Hinton, Irrigation in the United States, p. 118.

34

Land of the U nderground Rain

1900, 335 wells pumped by windmills pierced the surface of X IT land.15 In 1891 C. C. Perrin of "Tullia [sic]” reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that water in Swisher County, Texas, could be found at depths of 12 to 50 feet.16 The Hinton investigation sponsored by the federal government publi­ cized the existence of thick, nonartesian strata of water which underlay much of the High Plains. In 1890 Hinton stated: "One of the most re­ markable of the series of facts which the investigation has so far brought together relates to the existence of great deposits of drainage water at a moderate depth below the alluvium . . . quite well established at dif­ ferent points within the central division of the Great Plains [the High Plains area].”17 By 1900 the existence of subsurface water resources lying at shallow depths beneath the Texas High Plains was well known. The editor of T h e E a rt h , an agricultural magazine published by the Santa Fe Railroad, stated in 1905: "There is a water-sheet underlying much, if not all, of the Texas Pan-Handle. . . . There are districts already known as 'shallow water districts.’ ”18 The U.S. Geological Survey published investigations of the geology of the Texas Panhandle in 1906 and 1907. Charles N. Gould, eminent ge­ ologist from the University of Oklahoma, directed the surveys. Gould confirmed the existence of the water and noted that the depth to water north of the Canadian River was greater than that south of Amarillo. In the former area the depth varied from fifty to four hundred feet, but in the southern part water was found in many instances as shallow as seventyfive feet or less from the surface. And in Deaf Smith County there were many wells no deeper than sixty feet.19 15 J. Evetts Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado, p. 95. 16 C. C. Perrin, Tullia [j/V], Texas, September 25, 1891, to United States Department of Agriculture, in [Richard J. Hinton], Irrigation: The Final Report of the Artesian and Underflow Investigation and of the Irrigation Inquiry, 52d Cong., 1st sess., Serial No. 2899, Sen. Exec. Doc. No. 41, p. 297. 17 [Richard J. Hinton], "Report of the Special Agent in Charge of the Artesian and Underflow Investigations and of the Irrigation Inquiry,” in Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1890, p. 484. 18 The Earth 2 (August 1905) : 3. 19 Gould, Geology and Water Resources of the Western Portion of the Panhandle of Texas, p. 40.

W ater Resources of the Southern H igh Plains

35

Consequently, the solution to the problem of irrigating the High Plains consisted of finding a cheap method of pumping large volumes of the subsurface water to the surface. At least one leader of the irrigation move­ ment of the 1890’s called for the federal government to carry on experi­ ments to develop suitable irrigation pumps. J. W. Gregory of Garden City, Kansas, in a speech at the Los Angeles Irrigation Congress of 1893, asked for extensive experimentation by the federal government to de­ termine ways of utilizing the "underflow.”20 Meanwhile, a few farfetched schemes were drawing some atten­ tion. For example, in 1896 Eli Newsom, a former immigration agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, delivered before the Nebraska State Irrigation As­ sociation an address entitled "How to Irrigate All the Arible [sic] Lands in the Arid West.” Newsom, who referred to himself as "the Elias Howe of the Irrigation Methods,” outlined a plan to tap the "underflow” waters in massive quantity. Huge underground reservoirs with lateral tunnels would be constructed. The tunnels in turn would drain subsurface water into subterranean receptacles. Discharge tunnels from the reservoirs would then emerge from the ground at a lower elevation to water the thirsty soil. According to Newsom, this system could be used to irrigate the entire West, including the Great Plains.21 Proposals like that of Newsom were based partly on the thinking of some contemporary scientists, including Hinton, who believed that un­ derground water—the "underflow”— was actually a moving body of water which flowed to the sea. But more significantly, such schemes arose to fill a vacuum which technology had not yet filled. The means for pumping large volumes of water cheaply from wells had not yet been perfected. Newsom himself summed up the problem by stating: " . . . to­ day we find the pump too limited and too expensive, too uncertain and troublesome, to practically serve the increasing demand of the practical irrigator. . . . Throw the old pump away and substitute nature’s forces. Gravity. . . like charity, never faileth.”22 20 A. Bower Sageser, "Los Angeles Hosts an International Irrigation Congress,” Jour­ nal of the West 4 (July 1 965): 420. 21 Text of address in X IT Ranch Papers, Miscellaneous West Texas, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas. 22 Ibid, p. 4.

36

Land of the U nderground Rain

The artesian-well boom of the 1890's was a more realistic effort to use the forces of nature as a substitute for an irrigation pump. Artesian water, however, was rare and found primarily in islands along the periphery of the High Plains.23 As the federal government continued to explore the problem of water resources in the 1890’s, several government irrigation experts recognized the problem of utilizing ground water. Hinton understood the complex problems of irrigating the Great Plains better than most of his contempo­ raries. Speaking before the North Dakota Agricultural College in March, 1891, he said: For my purpose I assume . . . that the reclamation of the great plains is not to be accomplished by any great system of water storage. . . . [It] is to be ac­ complished by a multitude of small detailed works, and must in the end be largely the result of neighborhood and individual exertion . . . by the impound­ ing of the little streams, by the utilization of springs, and by the restoration to the surface through artesian drills or by the mechanical lifting from other bored wells, of the waters that are stored below the surface soil in the earth itself [italics mine]. The strata below that soil are for great distances a series of huge sponges, wherein the lost, imbibed, and percolated rainfall will be found to be stored.24 One of Hinton’s assistants in the "underflow” investigation of the 1890’s observed that "the whole question of the occupancy of this arid region [is reduced] to a powerful pump and a properly laid out ditch.”25 In 1896 the irrigation engineer Frederick H. Newell summed up the prob­ lem in this way: The great problem, then, of obtaining water is that of pumping it at a cost so low that this operation can be performed with profit. . . . the question is not simply to lift the water. It must be lifted in large quantities, and, more than this, the cost of so doing must be extremely low—so low that it shall bear but 23 For a discussion of the artesian-well movement, see chapter 2. 24 [Hinton], Irrigation: The Final Report, p. 8. 25 The "arid region” referred to is really the semiarid region of western Kansas and eastern Colorado (Howard Miller, "Preliminary Report on the Possibilities of the Recla­ mation of the Arid Regions of Kansas and Colorado by Utilizing the Underlying W a­ ters,” in [Hinton], Irrigation: The Final Report, p. 305) .

W ater Resources of the Southern H igh Plains

37

a small proportion to the value of the crops produced [italics mine]. This last requirement is really the obstacle to the widespread development of agriculture by irrigation upon the Great Plains.26 By the end of the nineteenth century it was clear that, if the High Plains, resting on a rich subsurface lake of water, was destined to enjoy the blessings of irrigation, new technology in pumping would be essential. 26 Newell, "Irrigation on the Great Plains,” pp. 180-181.

4. The Adaptation of Pump Irrigation Technology to the Great Plains

T h e thesis of Walter Prescott Webb’s The Great Plains is that Americans from the humid East were able to utilize the resources of the semiarid plains through the use of technological innova­ tions adopted from other regions. As some examples Webb cites the Colt revolver, barbed wire, and the windmill. But he fails to discuss man’s usage on the Great Plains of another piece of machinery, more sophisti­ cated than the windmill, which later would have a significant impact upon the economy—the irrigation pumping plant.1 When Webb published his classic in 1931, such pumps had been in use on the High Plains of his native Texas for over twenty years. They were not yet in general use for reasons which will be discussed in a later chapter. It is ironic, however, that the technological innovations for pumping water to the surface in large enough quantities for purposes of irrigation were not mentioned in 1 Walter Prescott Webb mentioned the windmill-powered pump as important in irri­ gating one or two acres of foodstuffs for settlers, but he recognized the limitations of windmills for purposes of irrigation ( The Great Plains, p. 346).

40

Land of the U nderground Rain

the classic interpretation of the Great Plains. Webb himself admitted that "the windmill mitigated the thirst of the Great Plains but did not assuage it. The search for water had to go on.”2 By 1900 the existence of subsurface water on much of the Great Plains was widely known. The "underflow” and artesian investigations by Rich­ ard J. Hinton and the Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers of the U.S. Geological Survey did much in the 1890’s not only to map subsurface water, but also to publicize its existence. The "search for water,” there­ fore, was largely a search for technological means to bring the water to the surface in a large enough quantity for irrigation purposes. There were several technological problems to be solved. Not only was there a need to invent a pump which could pull large volumes of water from wells which were relatively deep, but also a suitable and cheap power plant was necessary. Moreover, that power plant required a cheap source of fuel. Finally, a pump capable of delivering a large volume of water would need a relatively large diameter well. New techniques in water-well drilling had to be devised to meet that challenge. Thus, the problems of technology were complex and interdependent upon one an­ other for solutions. Those solutions would only be reached through years of experimentation and adaptation. Throughout the 1890’s and the first decade of the twentieth century, efforts were made to adapt the windmill to irrigation.3 In 1896 Frederick H. Newell asserted, "O f the devices for operating pumps for irrigation upon the Great Plains, windmills are undoubtedly the most important, and they will always remain so from the fact that the winds blow almost incessantly over this vast country.”4 The overly enthusiastic William E. Smythe noted that windmill irrigation was being practiced in the Arkan­ sas Valley around Garden City, Kansas. "From Canada to Mexico,” he wrote, "the revolution on the Great Plains is now in full tide. It is the most dramatic page in the history of American irrigation. It has saved 2 Ibid, p. 348. 3 For an account of windmill irrigation during the period, see A. Bower Sageser, "Windmill and Pump Irrigation on the Great Plains, 1890-1910,” Nebraska History 48 (Summer 1 9 67): 107-118; and idem, "Editor Bristow and the Great Plains Irrigation Revival of the 1890’s,” Journal of the West 3 (January 1964) : 75-89. 4 Frederick H. Newell, "Irrigation on the Great Plains,” in United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1896, p. 184.

Adaptation of Pum p Irrigation Technology

41

an enormous district [the Garden City area] from lapsing into a condi­ tion of semi-barbarism.”5 Irrigation crusaders like Smythe might overestimate the potential for windmill irrigation, but the windmill of Kansas, like the artesian well of the Dakotas, was an attempt to adapt existing technology, or a lack of it, to the needs of irrigation on the Great Plains. The windmill furnished cheap power for a relatively cheap pump. The almost ever present wind blew through turbine-shaped or paddle-shaped vanes. This revolving motion was converted into reciprocating (up-and-down) motion by means of a direct connection or gearbox connection to a "sucker-rod.” The "sucker-rod” was connected to a piston pump at the bottom of the well. A cylinder with brass check valves and leather rings slid up and down in a ' working-barrel” beneath the water level of the well. Water was forced into the 'working-barrel” and up the pipe surrounding the "sucker-rod” with the up-and-down motion of the piston. The amount of water this type of pump could produce depended upon the size and stroke of the piston, as well as upon the velocity of the wind. Thus, the larger the cylinder and the longer the stroke, the greater the volume of water which could be pumped. Also, the larger pump required a larger-diameter windmill. The windmill pump by itself was not sufficient to irrigate more than a few rows of vegetables or fruit trees. And a reservoir had to be con­ structed in order to conserve all the water which the windmill pumped day and night throughout the year.6 Windmills, however, were cheap. One with a wheel eight feet in diameter, pumping from a depth of from twenty to forty feet, could be purchased and installed in 1896 for a price which ranged from $70 to $125. A unit with a twelve-foot wheel cost from $100 to $200 and a sixteen-foot unit ranged from $175 to $300.7 Some farmers built their own windmills at a fraction of the cost of manufactured units. One observer noted in 1897 that the Platte River Valley of Nebraska was dotted with homemade windmills.8 In 1895 Dr. W. J. Workman of 5 William E. Smythe, The Conquest of Arid America, p. 118. 6 Newell, "Irrigation on the Great Plains,” pp. 187-190, describes the construction of such earthen reservoirs. 7 Ibid., p. 185. 8 Erwin H. Barbour, Wells and Windmills in Nebraska, United States Geological Sur­ vey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, no. 29, 55th Cong., 3d sess., Serial No. 3815, H. Doc. No. 229, pp. 34-35.

42

Land of the U nderground Ram

western Kansas built what he claimed to be "the largest 'Jumbo’ yet at­ tempted.” This Jumbo windmill was twenty-one feet in diameter. He intended to use the mill to power a pump with a cylinder fifteen inches in diameter and a twenty-four-inch stroke to lift water fourteen feet. He expected the unit to deliver eight hundred gallons per minute.9 It is not known if he achieved his expectations. Although windmill pumps were inexpensive, cost very little to operate, and had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of wind for power, there were serious weaknesses to windmill irrigation. First, windmills at that time failed to function satisfactorily if the lift exceeded an estimated seventy or eighty feet. One irrigation expert noted: "As the matter of windmill irrigation is agitated the receptive mind of the progressive farmer seizes the idea. Not having experience and placing too confident reliance in the claim of the local [windmill manufacturer’s} agent, who is not a wholly disinterested party, he undertakes to raise water for irrigation from im­ possible depths.”10 Thus, windmill irrigation in the middle 1890’s had to be confined to the river valleys and relatively shallow ground-water areas of the uplands. The second problem with windmill irrigation was that it could not produce enough water for more than a few acres.11 Finally, the wind was not always dependable, even on the Great Plains. One farmer believed that the wind could be depended upon to run the pump only about onefourth of the time. "I know,” he stated, "that Kansas had the reputation of being a windy state, but I have found, when it comes to making use of that wind, it is not there.”12 The windmill did provide a method for the farmer to remain on the Great Plains. During periods of drouth he could produce enough vege­ tables and fruit to feed his family and perhaps sell some to his neigh­ 9 A. B. Montgomery, "Irrigation Possibilities upon the Higher Lands of Western Kansas,” in Ninth Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, XIV , 337-338. 10 Barbour, Wells and Windmills in Nebraska, p. 30. 11 A. Bower Sageser believes that "estimates on pumping capacity and acres irrigated were often over-optimistic.” Two to five acres is Sageser’s estimate ("Windmill and Pump Irrigation on the Great Plains,” p. 112). 12 C. H. Longstreth, "Fruit and Vegetable Growing under Irrigation,” in Ninth Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, X IV , 370.

Adaptation of Pum p Irrigation Technology

43

bors.13 One historian of windmill irrigation has noted, however, that "the windmill did not bring large scale irrigation/’14 Interest in the possibilities for pump irrigation on the Great Plains remained high through the drouth of the early 1890’s. The Interstate Irrigation Association, which convened at North Platte, Nebraska, in December, 1893, met primarily to investigate various methods of recover­ ing underground water—by artesian flow and by pump. The Omaha Irrigation Convention of 1894 assembled for the same purpose. The Finney County Agricultural Society and Fair of Garden City, Kansas, had a special exhibit of various kinds of pump equipment in 1894. And at the Kansas Irrigation Association meeting of the same year, a representa­ tive of the Fairbanks-Morse Company read a paper on pumping machin­ ery.15 In 1895 the Kansas Board of Irrigation Survey and Experiment made a detailed report of its investigations and experiments with wind­ mill irrigation.16 The widespread interest indicated that farmers of the plains were still groping for economical methods to irrigate their crops. To become a commercial rather than a subsistence irrigation farmer, the irrigator on the Great Plains needed a large-volume pump capable of lifting water from deep wells. Such a pump evolved from several different circumstances. The first step in the process occurred in 1875 when a greatly improved model of a centrifugal pump was patented in England. Centrifugal pumps had been built as early as 1754 but were generally regarded as highly inefficient. Then, in 1875, the impeller was designed with diffusion vanes surrounding it. By 1900 this greatly improved pump was widely used in Europe and in the United States. The centrifugal pump consisted of a revolving impeller of special design housed inside a close-fitting circular chamber. Water entered the chamber at the center and was thrown to the outside by the impeller through the force of cen­ trifugal motion, which, in turn, forced the liquid out through a discharge 13 "The prerequisite [to prevent emigration from the semiarid plains] is the irrigation of one acre on which to raise garden truck for the family, and this the windmill renders possible” (Barbour, Wells and Windmills in Nebraska, p. 31). 14 Sageser, "Windmill and Pump Irrigation on the Great Plains,” p. 114. 15 Sageser, "Editor Bristow and the Great Plains Irrigation Revival of the 1890’s,” pp. 81-82. 16 Report of the Board of Irrigation Survey and Experiment for 1895-1896, to the Legislature of Kansas.

HORIZONTAL CENTRIFUGAL PUMPING PLANT

VERTICAL PUMPING

CENTRIFUGAL PLANT

Adaptation of Pum p Irrigation Technology

45

pipe. This type of pump was capable of delivering a large volume of water— several hundred gallons or more per minute, depending upon the size of the pump— and it contained no valves which could easily become clogged. The pump was much larger in diameter than a pistontype pump, and it had to be set near the water level. Theoretically, water could be sucked from a depth of thirty-three feet at sea level, but practical farmers and pump engineers used twenty feet as a rule of thumb. Thus, the pump could be located no more than twenty feet higher than the water level.17 Consequently, a large-diameter pit had to be dug down to the water level in order to use the centrifugal pump. Two types of centrifugals were in use by 1900 in areas where the ground water was shallow in the West— the horizontal and the vertical pumps. The horizontal centrifugal, designed for relatively shallow wells, had a horizontal impeller-shaft. It was powered either by an electric motor located in the pit and connected directly to the shaft or by a steam or an internal-combustion engine located at the surface and connected to the shaft by means of a long belt and a pulley. In the latter instance, an in­ clined trench for the belt had to be dug from the bottom of the pit to the pump. The vertical centrifugal was identified by its vertical shaft, which reached from the pump to the surface. As on the horizontal centrifugal, a long belt connected an engine on the surface to a pulley on the shaft. A wooden framework complete with shaft-bearings was required for the pump, but the unit needed no trench for the belt. The vertical centrifugal was used in areas in which ground water was more than fifteen or twenty feet from the surface. Its greatest weakness was the difficulty of perfectly aligning its long, vertical shaft in order to prevent undue wear on the bearings located at different elevations within the wooden framework in the pit. By the late nineteenth century the centrifugal pump was being used for irrigation purposes in the West. In 1885 E. F. Hurdle installed a cen­ trifugal pump east of Eaton, Colorado, and powered it with a steam engine.18 In 1896 irrigators in the vicinity of Garden City, Kansas, began 17 E. W . Bennison, Ground Water: Its Development, Uses, and Conservation, pp. 197, 373-376; B. A. Etcheverry, Irrigation Practice and Engineering, I, 182. 18 Alvin T. Steinel, History of Agriculture in Colorado, 1858 to 1926, p. 232.

46

Land of the U nderground Rain

experimenting with centrifugals. Some dug no pits because water was reported to be eight and one-half feet from the surface. Instead, they drove sand points into the ground, and horizontal centrifugals sucked the liquid to the surface. Using steam power, a No. 2 pump delivered 245 gallons per minute through a six-inch pipe, and a No. 3 pump delivered 625 gallons per minute. At Hutchinson, Kansas, a packing company was operating several No. 6 pumps, each of which was reported to be pump­ ing 1,300 gallons per minute.19 As early as 1891, centrifugals were in use in the Sacramento Valley of California, and at least one of these was powered by a steam-traction engine.20 In 1900 S. J. Murphy, after failing to find artesian water on his farm near Mesa, Arizona, installed a large centrifugal capable of delivering 4,000 gallons per minute through a twelve-inch discharge pipe from a lift of twenty-two and one-half feet.21 By 1900 centrifugal pumps were being used for irrigation purposes in many areas of the West, but in a federal report of 1898 entitled New Tests of Certain Pumps and Water Lifts Used in Irrigation, the author makes no mention of centrifugal pumps.22 This type of pump was not yet in general use, because it was too expensive for the average farmer. In 1901 a No. 2 centrifugal pump capable of delivering from 150 to 200 gallons per minute cost from $230 to $3 90.23 This price did not include the power plant, or the cost of digging the well. Frederick H. Newell reported that the cost of centrifugal pump irrigation was "considerably higher than the amount yearly paid for the maintenance of canals and ditches in the arid region, or the amount paid annually to a canal company for delivering water. It is rarely below $2 per acre irrigated, and from this as a minimum, may rise to $5 or even $10 an acre. This method of 19 D. M. Frost, "Underground Water,” in Report of the Board of Irrigation Survey and Experiment for 1895-1896, to the Legislature of Kansas, pp. 187-188. The larger num­ bers designate larger diameter pumps. No uniform numbering system existed among pump manufacturers. 20 C. E. Grunsky, "Methods of Applying Water to Land, As Practiced in the Central Portions of California,” in [Richard J. Hinton], Irrigation: The Final Report of the Artesian and Underflow Investigation and of the Irrigation Inquiry, 52d Cong, 1st sess. Serial No. 2899, Sen. Exec. Doc. No. 41, pp. 319-320, plate 15 opposite p. 320. 21 Elwood Mead, ed. Report of Irrigation Investigations for 1901, U.S. Department of Agriculture Experiment Stations Bulletin, no. 119, p. 65. 22 Ozni Porter Hood, New Tests of Certain Pumps and Water Lifts Used in Irriga­ tion, U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, no. 14. 23 Mead, Irrigation Investigations for 1901, p. 33.

Adaptation of Pum p Irrigation Technology

47

obtaining water will not be profitably employed for general crops, except . . . rice.”24 Aside from the problem of cost, the centrifugal pump did not meet the demands of Great Plains irrigators except in areas of shallow ground water, such as river valleys, because of the necessity of digging a pit down to the water level. This presented no great problem if the water was no more than twenty or thirty feet deep. But in areas where the water was fifty feet or more below the surface, the process of constructing such a pit was not only expensive, but dangerous as well. And installing the pump in the pit was only the beginning of problems for the irrigator. Daily, someone had to climb down into the pit to lubricate the pump and the shaft bearings while the shaft or the belt continued in motion. It was also periodically necessary to repack the bearings of the shaft and im­ peller, and to splice belts. The need for a "pit-less pump” was especially acute around the turn of the century to provide water for Gulf Coast rice and the California fruit and vegetable industry as well as for Great Plains farming. In 1907 it was reported that about 750,000 acres were under pump irrigation. Of this total, California had 200,000 acres and the rice fields of the Louisiana and Texas coastal area had some 400,000 acres. Inventors in both areas were attempting to design a better deep-well pump.25 As early as 1897 an inventor named P. K. Wood, of Los Angeles, California, designed a type of deep-well apparatus known as a propeller or a screw pump. As the name implied, the pump consisted of propeller­ like impellers within a pipe. The impellers were connected to a shaft which was turned by a power plant at the surface. But the Wood pump was very inefficient.26 In 1901 Byron Jackson of San Francisco designed and constructed a special type of deep-well centrifugal pump with the shaft prealigned in its own tubular housing for the Pabst Brewing Com­ 24 Frederick H. Newell, Irrigation in the United States, p. 271. 25 Elwood Mead, "Irrigation Engineering and Practice,” in Cyclopedia of American Agriculture: A Popular Survey of Agricultural Conditions, Practices, and Ideals in the United States and Canada, ed. Liberty Hyde Bailey, I, 425. 26 Everett W . Lundy, "A History of the Deep Well Turbine Pump Industry,” mimeo­ graphed, p. 30; in possession of R. S. Charles, Jr., president of Layne and Bowler Com­ pany, Los Angeles, California. Mr. Lundy assembled this brief history of important pump companies with the help of personnel long associated with each of the companies men­ tioned.

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pany of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was powered by an electric motor connected directly to the vertical shaft of the pump. Elwood Mead, an irrigation engineer who would later become head of the Bureau of Rec­ lamation, acted as consulting engineer. As far as can be determined, however, Jackson did not put this pump into production for several years. (The first pump of this type used in California was installed by the Layne and Bowler Company at Chino in 1907 during a severe drouth which caused a drastic decline in ground-water levels.) 27 The greatest need for this type of pump probably existed in the Gulf rice belt. From 1894 through 1897 the production of American rice in Louisiana alone had fallen from 182 million pounds to 56 million pounds annually. Two factors were responsible for this decrease. First, the Wilson-Gormaft Tariff of 1894 had lowered the import duty on the better qualities of rice to the point that American-grown rice had to compete with Oriental rice. Second, a drouth had struck the lower Mississippi Valley during the same period. Consequently, surface-water supplies from canals and rivers were greatly diminished. But a drastic change in the fortunes of the rice industry set the stage for new developments along the Gulf Coast. The Republicans returned to power as a consequence of the election of 1896. In 1897 the McKinley administration approved the higher Dingley Tariff, which, in turn, raised the rates on rice back to a protective level. And on the international scene, as a result of territorial acquisitions of the Spanish-American War, the prospect of new rice markets in Latin America and in Asia appeared on the horizon. Subsequently, rice produc­ tion began to climb, especially after rice farmers began to tap their reser­ voirs of ground water.28 Greater production increased the need for a "pit-less” pump. 27 Ibid, pp. 8-9 ; W . H. Holcomb, "The Development of the Deep-Well Turbine Pump,” Mechanical 'Engineering 51 (November 1929): 833. Holcomb is mistaken in stating that the pump for Pabst was installed at Chicago. "A type of vertical pump much used in the Louisiana and Texas rice fields has been installed on a few wells near Chino. This pump is placed in a steel-cased shaft or pit less than 30 inches in diameter” (C. E. Tait, The Use of Underground Water for Irrigation at Pomona, California, U.S. De­ partment of Agriculture Experiment Stations Bulletin, no. 236, pp. 4 6 -4 7 ). 28 Joseph Cannon Bailey, Seaman A. Knapp, Schoolmaster of American Agriculture, pp. 127-129; Edward Hake Phillips, "The Gulf Coast Rice Industry,” Agricultural History 25 (April 1951) : 95.

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But the development of a suitable pump was not the only problem of technology to be solved. The problem of drilling a well of large enough diameter for the casing of such a pump loomed large. Such a drill had to be capable of sinking a hole twenty to thirty inches in diameter. The most common form of drill for the small-diameter windmill wells was the "spudder” rig, which punched a relatively small hole by raising and dropping a heavy steel bit into the ground. The "spudder” was unsuitable for drilling large-diameter wells because the larger, heavier bits required larger, heavier, more expensive rigs, which were much less mobile. In other words, "spudder” rigs were impractical for boring such wells. A different type of drill was needed. The artesian-well boom in the Dakotas in the 1880’s and 1890’s had bred a generation of well drillers. Peter Norbeek, who later became governor of and then senator from South Dakota, had made a fortune drilling extremely small-bore artesian wells ranging from one to three inches in diameter. Norbeek greatly improved the "jetting” method in drilling wells, consequently lowering the cost to farmers.29 Mahlon E. Layne, another driller from the same state, developed a different approach to putting down wells in the Dakota sands. He concentrated on drilling shallow nonartesian wells of large diameter—the kind of well later suited to the "pit-less” pump. Layne’s experience began in 1882 near Hurley, South Dakota, when he began drilling small-diameter wells. His work was constantly hindered by the problem of fine sand, which tended to clog up wells, cutting off the water flow. In 1886 he decided to drill larger holes. Subsequently, he purchased an auger capable of drilling wells from eighteen to thirty-six inches in diameter, turned by a horse walking in a circle. He believed that a larger hole would be less likely to "sand up.” Then in 1887, near Parker, South Dakota, Layne designed a unique well screen, which he placed at the bottom of the casing. Earlier well screens had been designed to keep out fine sand, allowing only water to pass into the well. But fine sand had the tendency to pack against the outside of the screen, completely choking off the water supply. Layne’s screen contained larger perfora­ tions, which allowed the fine sand to pass through but held back coarse 29 For an account of Norbeck’s drilling career, see Gilbert C. Fite, Peter Norbeek: Prairie Statesman, The University of Missouri Studies 22 (1 9 4 8 ): 14-27.

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gravel. He contended that, as the sand was pumped out, the coarse gravel would become packed against the screen and would gradually halt the passage of more sand. Confident of his technique, Layne advertised, "No water, no pay.” Throughout the remainder of the 1880’s and 1890’s the driller bored wells for farmers, towns, and railroads in South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. He built improved drilling rigs powered by as many as six horses. In 1896 he converted to steam power. That same year he built a rotary drill of his own design.30 The rotary rig was well suited for boring large-diameter wells. It had first come into use about 1890 in the oil fields of Louisiana.31 Fitted with a rotating drill bit and powered by steam, it was capable of drilling smallor large-diameter holes, depending upon the horsepower of the engine. Thus, Layne had acquired experience with the rotary method even before he moved to the East Texas oil fields, where many rotaries were already in operation.32 In the spring of 1901 Layne went to Texas to observe the Spindle Top oil boom. Deciding that the economic prospects for drillers were very at­ tractive in the area, he moved to Beaumont in 1902, bringing with him a young engineer named O. P. Woodburn. Layne designed and Woodburn built a heavy-duty screen to be placed at the bottom of oil-well casings. The men were particularly successful in extracting petroleum from ge­ ological formations which contained fine sand. Then Layne turned to the problem of rice irrigation.33 During the spring and summer of 1902, Layne and Woodburn dug and drilled four wells near Pierce, Texas, for a rice planter named Milner. They dug pits eight to ten feet in diameter and usually thirty to forty feet deep to water. Then they drilled a hole sixteen to twenty-four inches in diameter at the bottom of each pit, casing it as they drilled, for a hun­ dred or more feet, in order to draw upon deeper strata of water. At the 30 Magner White, "Layne Founded His Business on Seeping Sands,” American Maga­ zine 102 (November 1926): 150-151; Layne Water Facts, pp. 151-152. 31 Bennison, Ground Water, p. 13332 When Layne and O. P. Woodburn arrived in East Texas, they purchased another rotary rig and rented a steam-traction engine for power (Manuscript memoirs of O. P. Woodburn [1944], pages not numbered, Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee [hereafter cited as O. P. Woodburn manuscript memoirs]). 33 O. P. Woodburn manuscript memoirs; Layne Water Facts, p. 152; White, "Layne Founded His Business on Seeping Sands,” p. 152.

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bottom of the well they installed a Layne Keystone Screen in order to obtain water from formations of fine sand.34 Layne installed horizontal centrifugal pumps in three of the wells and a vertical centrifugal in one. The three horizontals were Fairbanks-Morse pumps powered by Fairbanks-Morse oil-burning engines. Rope, used as belting in grooved pulleys, ran from the engine over idlers and down into each pit. Tension was maintained by using several fifty-pound weights, which dangled at the top of the pits. O. P. Woodburn later vividly re­ called the problems of servicing those pumps. "Imagine getting down into the pit to oil the pump with the mess of rope running at the velocity of the outside diameter of the 54" fly wheel with 6 or 8 5 0 # [pound] weights dancing on the tightener above your head, b a d d r e a m s . ” 35 Wood­ burn further recalled that during periods of dry weather the pumps, which could not be easily adjusted to a drop in the water level, would sometimes lose their prime. When it rained, the pits would cave in or fill partly with water, and the rope belts would fray and disintegrate.36 During that summer of 1902 when Layne was climbing in and out of the pits, he conceived the idea of a "pit-less pump.” Woodburn recalled, "One day he got me off to the side of a building, sketched a pit on the wall with a pump at the bottom and shaft running to the top.” Layne’s idea was really a sophistication of the vertical centrifugal. His pump dif­ fered significantly from the earlier type, however, in that its shaft was prealigned and enclosed in a pipe, which was flanged onto the pump. The whole thing was enclosed in a steel casing, which could be installed in a drilled well rather than in a pit, although Layne’s first pumps were simply put into existing pits. But, most importantly, the apparatus did not require a hand-dug well. Bearings were lubricated by oilers at the surface, and the pump could be raised or lowered from the surface. In the spring of 1903 Layne built his first deep-well "pit-less” pump. He bought some turbine pump bowls from a Chicago manufacturer and constructed his first crude model, which he installed in a rice field near El Campo. There were many weaknesses in this first pump. The impeller blades were too short, there were leaks, and the bearings needed considerable modifica­ 34 O. P. Woodburn manuscript memoirs. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid.

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tion. But the apparatus did pump water. Layne then decided to manufac­ ture his own pump.37 In 1904 he formed a partnership with Woodburn and a salesman named P. D. Bowler. Layne continued to improve the pump, and in 1906 he patented it. In 1907 the partners formed the Layne and Bowler Company, with headquarters first located at Houston.38 The company enjoyed a phenomenal growth because of the need for such a pump in the rice belt. Depending upon the supply of water, the Layne pump could easily deliver one thousand gallons or more per minute. One Layne user broke out into verse over the development. R. D. Ratliff of Ganado, Texas, sent the following rhyme to the Layne and Bowler Company in 1908: That old fashion Pump! That old wooden pit, When I dream of them now I most have a fit. But then in my dreams, I realize at last That the old Pumping outfit Is a thing of the past. My soul fills with joy And my heart gives a jump, When I remember with pleasure My *'Layne Pit and Pump.”39 37 Ibid. A different account is given by J. E. Harmon, who began working with the Layne and Bowler Company in 1908 or 1909. Harmon recalled that the first Layne pump was installed on the farm of H. B. Allen Sickel near Louise, Texas, and that he (Har­ mon) bought the second pump (Letter, J. E. Harmon, Columbus, Ohio, December 28, 1943, to A. O. Fabrin, Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee). But Harmon did not install his pump until December, 1905 (Letter, J. E. Harmon, Ganado, Texas, December 15, 1908, to Layne and Bowler Company, in Southern Pacific Irrigation Well Experts [Houston, ca. 1909], p. 37, in Files of Layne and Bowler Company* Memphis, Tennessee). Order Number One in the file of Layne and Bowler Company is dated June, 1905, and made out to R. F. Kreiter, Katy, Texas. Layne and Woodburn undoubtedly built and installed several crude pumps before they began keeping records of pumps purchased. 38 Layne Water Facts, pp. 152-153. 39 Southern Pacific Irrigation Well Experts, p. 21. The twenty-six-inch-diameter tubu­ lar steel housing for the shaft was sometimes referred to as a "steel pit" (W . L. Rockwell, The Water Resources of Texas and Their Utilization, Texas Department of Agriculture Bulletin, no. 43, p. 2 6 ).

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Thus, by 1907, a pump capable of lifting great volumes of water from underneath the Great Plains was in production. By 1909 the Layne and Bowler Company was boasting that more than five hundred of its pumps were being used to irrigate more than 75,000 acres of rice.40 Cost of the pump was approximately five hundred dollars, not including the cost of the well and the power plant.41 The final problem to overcome before pump irrigation could gain a foothold on the Great Plains was that of finding a dependable and cheap power supply. Steam engines were used for the early centrifugal pumps.42 In 1900, near Mesa, Arizona, an eighty-horsepower steam engine was installed to power the centrifugal pump of S. J. Murphy. The Murphy plant required four men to maintain the operation— two engineers, who serviced the engine, and two firemen, who cut wood for fuel. The daily cost for crew, oil, and maintenance parts was $9.25. Cost for the wood, obtained from the property of Murphy’s neighbor, was an added expense. Taking all expenses into consideration, the Murphy plant cost $2.27 for each acre-foot of water produced. Referring to a test run on the unit, an engineer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced, "It will be seen that the expense of raising water by steam power is very great indeed, and that as a general proposition such water is too costly for constant use in ordinary farming operations.”43 By 1910 electricity was being used to drive some pumps. The Northern Colorado Power Company actively solicited irrigation farmers in its area to use electricity. The company recognized that irrigators pumped water primarily through the summer months, when urban customers used a minimum amount of electricity. By increasing its service to irrigation farmers, the company could increase its sales without increasing capitali­ zation for equipment to generate more kilowatts.44 40 Rockwell, Water Resources of Texas, p. 21. 41 J. E. Harmon, Columbus, Ohio, December 28, 1943, to A. O. Fabrin, Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee. 42 See Steinel, History of Agriculture in Colorado, p. 232. 43 Mead, Report of Irrigation Investigations for 1901, pp. 66, 69. 44 E. C. Reybold, Jr., "Electric Irrigation Pumping in Colorado,” Electrical World, April 7, 1910, pp. 863-866; idem, "Irrigation Pumping,” Electrical World, April 28, 1910, pp. 1064-1066; idem, "Electric Irrigation Pumping in Kansas,” Electrical World, June 9, 1910, pp. 1532-1533; C. H. Williams, "Electric Energy from Coal for Irrigation Farming in Colorado,” Electrical World, September 30, 1911, pp. 805-811; Alton D.

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Electric motors connected to irrigation pumps by belt pulleys or by direct shaft connections were found from Texas to the Dakotas and from Kansas to California. At least one federal reclamation project used electric motors to power large centrifugal pumps, located on barges, which sucked water from a reservoir at Williston, North Dakota, and pushed it up to a plateau to water some twelve thousand acres. Power was supplied by a gas-generating plant using locally mined coal for fuel.45 One of the more interesting attempts at using electrical power was carried out near Garden City, Kansas, on the Arkansas River. There the United States Sugar and Land Company built a power plant in 1909 to generate electricity to power fourteen pumps. About fifteen miles of lines were strung, and oil was used to power the plant engines.46 There were at least two advantages in using electric motors. First, there were relatively few repairs on the motors. Second, they required a mini­ mum of attention while in operation. But they also had serious drawbacks. An electric generating plant had to be located nearby. No problem existed near the mountains where new hydroelectric plants were located or near cities which already had electricity. But in 1910 few rural areas on the Great Plains had access to electrical transmission lines. The most impor­ tant difficulty, however, even where electricity was available, was cost. Electric companies not only charged a rate per kilowatt-hour, but also required the farmer to meet other costs. He had to pay for the electrical line to his pump. Sometimes the company required a set fee to offset this cost. At other times the cost was absorbed by requiring the farmer to pay increased rates for the first few seasons. Moreover, power companies usually charged an additional monthly rate for each horsepower of the motor. Finally, expensive rates per kilowatt-hour were charged. In 1908 a motor which powered a five-inch vertical centrifugal pump and which produced an average of 448 gallons per minute from a lift of approxi­ mately seventy-three feet cost about $3.94 per acre-foot. This was figured

Adams, "Electric Pumping for Irrigation,” Electrical World, June 30, 1910, pp. 17091711; idem, "Electric Pumping in California,” Electrical World, July 28, 1910, pp. 20 6 207; "Electricity in Irrigation,” Electrical World, July 21, 1910, pp. 150-152. 45 Adams, "Electric Pumping for Irrigation,” pp. 1709-1711. 46 George Wharton James, Reclaiming the Arid West, pp. 263-270; Reybold, "Elec­ tric Irrigation Pumping in Kansas,” pp. 1532-1533.

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at two and one-half cents per kilowatt-hour.47 Thus, it was more expen­ sive to run pumps with electricity than with steam, which required a four-man crew. Like the pump, the type of power plant which irrigators on the south­ ern Great Plains first depended upon was invented elsewhere. The first practical internal-combustion engine was constructed in I860 by Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir, a French engineer. Sixteen years later a German scientist named Nikolaus August Otto built the first successful four-cycle engine. Both machines used illuminating gas for fuel. By coincidence, that same year George Brayton, a Bostonian, exhibited a four-cycle engine fueled by gasoline at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.48 The gaso­ line engine then became a toy for various inventors and engineers, who improved it and applied it to all kinds of devices, including the earliest automobiles. But gasoline was not an inexpensive fuel at that time. There was a need in industry as well as in irrigation for an engine which would burn the cheapest of fuels. That need was met in 1890 when Herbert Ackroyd-Stuart, an English engineer, built the first low-compression oil-burning engine. Hornsby and Company of England became in­ terested in the engine, worked with Ackroyd-Stuart in improving it, and placed it on the market in 1894. This type of engine became popular in the industrially expanding United States. In 1895 an American concern began to manufacture the engine, which was now called the HornsbyAckroyd.49 Within a few years such companies as Primm, Charter, Bes­ semer, Van Sevrein, Fairbanks-Morse, Herr, and others were manufactur­ ing this type of power plant and selling it to pioneer pump irrigators in the Gulf Coast rice belt, on the Great Plains, and throughout the West.50 There were several desirable qualities in this engine.51 It was extremely 47 Ray Palmer Teele, "Review of Ten Years of Irrigation Investigations,” in Annual Report of the Office of Experiment Stations, 1908, p. 386. 48 Eleanor Allen, "Internal-Combustion Engine,” Encyclopedia Americana, 1958 ed., X V , 225. 49 Diesel Engine Manufacturers Association, "Diesel Engine,” Encyclopedia Ameri­ cana, 1958 ed., IX , 100. 50 This type of engine was common in the rice belt soon after the turn of the century. As early as 1903, Mahlon E. Layne and O. P. Woodburn were using oil engines to power centrifugal pumps in their early rice wells (O. P. Woodburn manuscript memoirs). 51 This type of engine should not be confused with the diesel, which was developed during the 1890’s. The diesel operated on a different principle at very high compression.

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simple in design. It usually consisted of one large cylinder, although some later models had two or more cylinders. Horsepower ranged from five in the small engines to seventy or more in the larger engines. Single or double flywheels made of cast iron and ranging up to four feet or more in diameter augmented its power. The key to this engine was the method in which the fuel oil was ignited. There were no spark plugs or electrical system of any kind. The Hornsby-Ackroyd engine had a "hot bulb” in its head which ignited the oil. The bulb, usually referred to as the "hot ball” or "hot spot” by Americans, protruded from the engine head. In order to start the machine, the bulb was heated with an alcohol or a gasoline torch. Then the flywheel was rotated for two or three revolutions. In the meantime, oil was injected into the cylinder head against a piece of metal called a spoon or lip, which absorbed the heat of the bulb by conduction. When the oil splashed against the hot metal, it vaporized into hydrocarbons, which were then ignited by the heat of the bulb. Small engines could be started by rotating the flywheel by hand, but larger models required the forcing of compressed air into the cylinder chamber, which in turn pushed the piston forward. The engine reheated the "hot ball” with each igni­ tion.52 By standards of the later twentieth century, the "hot-ball” engine was crude. Cold weather made starting difficult. Its efficiency was low. And it was an expensive engine. In 1913 a seventy-horsepower Bessemer en­ gine retailed for $1,540; and costs for the engine foundation, freight, a belt to connect the engine to the pump, drayage, and labor ran the total price up to about $1,900.53 The cost of fuel for the engine, however, was very cheap. A report of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1916 recommended oil-burning engines for pump irrigation because the cost of the fuel ranged from three to seven cents per gallon, or about one-fourth to one-third the cost

For a detailed account of the differences between the two types of engines see Lacey H. Morrison, Oil Engines: Details and Operation, pp. 306-307. 52 Ibid, pp. 306-323. 53 Bill submitted by D. L. McDonald to Double U Company, Hereford, Texas, May 29, 1913, Double U Company Papers, file no. GC 1246, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University.

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of gasoline.54 By 1919 it was reported, "In the oil districts of the South­ west the low-pressure engine is handling pumping plants and is burning the heavy crude oil to the entire satisfaction of all concerned.”55 In the early experimental stage of pump irrigation on the Great Plains, various types of pumping plants appeared in different localities. In river valleys, where water was only ten to twenty feet from the surface, hori­ zontal centrifugal pumps were used. For example, in the Arkansas River Valley of western Kansas, such pumps, in existence before 1910, pulled water from several wells with a single pump. The pump, set in a pit just above water level, was connected to a battery of shallow wells. At the surface an oil or gasoline engine powered the pump by means of a long belt which stretched in a forty-five-degree angle from the bottom of the pit to the power plant.56 One Kansas farmer even used his automobile for power to irrigate. By raising the rear of his car and running a belt from the rear axle, he powered a small vertical centrifugal pump.57 And in Scott County, Kansas, J. W. Lough built his own electric generating plant in 1917 in order to drive a motor which was directly connected to a "pit-less” pump.58 On the Texas High Plains, the irrigation plant evolved from a rela­ tively simple to a more complex and more efficient unit. Aside from a few early test wells, the first irrigation plants, installed in 1910 and 1911 in the vicinities of Hereford and Plainview, were vertical centrifugal pumps powered by gasoline engines and oil engines. D. L. McDonald, who played an important role in irrigation development of the region, installed the first successful unit near Hereford in February, 1910. Lo­ cated in Frio Draw, a vertical centrifugal pump pulled water from a shal­ low pit. Within the year McDonald adopted three significant improve­ ments for subsequent irrigation units which he installed— Layne "pitless” pumps, a rotary drilling rig, and oil engines.59 54 P. E. Fuller, "Pumping for Irrigation on the Farm,” in United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1916, p. 51955 Morrison, Oil Engines, p. 447. 56 J. B. Marcellus, "Selection and Installation of a Pumping Plant for Irrigation,” in Twenty-first Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, X X V I, 114-116. 57 J. L. Pelham, "Irrigating with an Automobile,” in Nineteenth Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, X X IV , 320-322. 58 The Earth 14 (November 1917): 12. 59 See chapter 6 and chapter 5, ftn. 73.

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At Plainview a similar technological pattern evolved. The first well, put down on the farm of banker John H. Slaton, was a pit type with a vertical centrifugal driven by a naphtha-burning engine. George E. Green and his partner, J. N. McNaughton, installed the unit.60 In the next few years, George E. Green, a driller and self-taught engineer, put in many of the pumping plants in Hale County and in other areas of the High Plains. A native of Missouri, Green had migrated to Plainview in 1909 from South Dakota, where he had been a well driller. Before that he had founded the Ideal Pump and Manufacturing Company at Green City, Missouri, which manufactured double-action hand and windmill pumps of Green’s own patent.61 Thus, the driller from Missouri brought a great deal of technological experience to Plainview. His first wells were vertical centrifugals, and most were powered by oil engines.62 Several "pit-less” pumps were in operation near Plainview by 1914. J. Walter Day, a local land agent, first put down a well in early 1912 and installed an ordinary centrifugal pump. In 1914 he replaced the cen­ trifugal with a Layne pump. In a testimonial to the Layne and Bowler Company, he stated: "I am pumping twice as much water as I did with my old pump and do not have one particle of trouble with it. It is simple and efficient and gets the water.”63 The Texas Land and Development Company, which attempted to sell improved irrigation farms, used "pitless” pumps manufactured by Layne and Bowler or by the American Well Works Company of Aurora, Illinois, in all its installations even though its first wells were pits.64 60 Riley E. Baker was unable in his research to discern the type of pump used in the Slaton well. Moreover, he is mistaken in calling that well the "first successful irrigation well in the Texas High Plains” (see his "Water Development as an Important Factor in the Utilization of the High Plains of Texas,” Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 34 [September 1953]: 3 1 -3 2 ). 61 Joseph F. Gordon, "George E. Green,” in Builders of the Southwest, ed. Seymour V. Connor, pp. 95-97. 62 Photograph of E. E. Graham well in files of Green Machinery Company, Plainview, Texas, is a good example of this type of pumping unit. 63 Letter, J. Walter Day, Plainview, May 14, 1914, to Layne and Bowler Company, in Layne Water Facts, p. 46. Also see various other reprinted statements from users of Layne pumps in the Texas High Plains region in Layne Water Facts, pp. 29-47. 64 Notebook containing description of individual wells in Texas Land and Develop­ ment Company Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. Several of these early Texas Land and Development Company pumping units were installed and the wells were dug and drilled by George E. Green and J. N. McNaughton (memorandum agree-

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Irrigation plants were found by 1914 throughout the Texas High Plains between Amarillo and Lubbock. No official count of the number of wells was made between 1910 and 1920, but one observer estimated that in 1914 there were 139 wells in use.65 By 1919 there were 187 wells in operation, irrigating 13,510 acres. But this was undoubtedly a decrease from the total number of wells in operation during that decade. The cen­ sus of 1920 reported that Hale and Floyd counties had a combined total of 116 pumping plants. Yet the Texas Land and Development Company alone had put down 127 wells in those counties. Moreover, the census recorded no wells for Lamb, Lubbock, or Swisher counties, all of which had wells.66 It must be noted, however, that the census reported only those pumping plants which were in operation in 1919. Thus, the number of wells in operation had decreased by 1919. But the total number of irriga­ tion pumping plants installed during the decade was probably between 200 and 250.67 Most of the wells could be identified from a distance by the wooden tower, resembling a squat, miniature oil-field derrick some twenty to thirty feet high, which stood over the pump. It was built originally as an aid in drilling the well. Pulleys were placed at the top of the structure to suspend the drilling-bit cables. The "well man” usually required about ninety days to drill a hole 120 feet deep and thirty inches in diameter with a rotary rig. After completing the hole, the driller used the derrick to lower casing into the well. The tubular casing, made in segments, had to be riveted together as each length was lowered into the well. A work­ man suspended inside the casing above ground level held the rivets while another worker bradded them from the outside. After the casing

ment between Green-McNaughton Drilling and Machinery Company and Texas Land and Development Company, January 27, 1913, in Files of Green Machinery Company, Plainview, Texas). American Well Works began to manufacture a ''pit-less” centrifugal pump in about 1915 (Lundy, "History of the Deep Well Turbine Pump Industry,” p. 6 ). 65 Texas Board of Water Engineers, Progress Report, no. 1 (Lubbock, Texas, 1938), p. 6; cited by Joseph F. Gordon, "The History and Development of Irrigated Cotton on the High Plains of Texas,” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Technological College, 1961, pp. 352-353. 66 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States: State Compendium, Texas, pp. 201-202; B. R. Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company: A Panhandle Promotion, 1912-1956, p. 7967 See appendix.

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was installed, the tower was used to lower the pump and its lengths of shaft and pipe into the well. The derrick then remained above the pump in order to "pull” the unit for repairs. Not only could one locate such a well easily by sight, but the distinctive sound of the huge oil engine— some models weighed several tons— also identified it. Both four-cycle and two-cycle engines were used, although two-cycle engines were more common. Both could be audibly identified by a slow, pulsating, unrhythmic pop-pop-pop. Some models were capa­ ble of blowing extraordinary blue smoke rings out their exhausts and high into the atmosphere. The engine was connected to the pump pulley by a long belt some ten to twelve inches in width, twisted one quarter turn. The pulley on the engine was connected to one of the large twin flywheels by means of a hand clutch. A house was usually built over the pump, belt, and engine to protect the machinery from the weather, and the derrick jutted into the sky above one end of the house.68 Elsewhere on the Great Plains, particularly in southwestern Kansas, the "pit-less” irrigation pumping plant was also emerging at about the same time. In 1911 J. W. Lough of Scott County, Kansas, installed a Layne pump and an oil-burning engine. The plant reportedly delivered an as­ tounding sixteen hundred gallons per minute, which irrigated some two hundred acres.69 J. C. Mohler, assistant secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, after touring several western Kansas counties in 1912, reported, "These large, deep wells, with the centrifugal pumps70 68 Interview with Bill McDonald, son of D. L. McDonald, Amarillo, May 3, 1968; interview with John McDonald, son of D. L. McDonald, Amarillo, August 23, 1968; photographs of early pumps and engines installed by D. L. McDonald, in Files of Mc­ Donald Drilling Company and in private possession of John McDonald; various photo­ graphs in Layne Water Facts; my personal observations upon inspection of the Vaughn well near Tulia, Texas. Remains of this irrigation unit, installed in 1914, including a Layne pump and a Primm engine, were still in existence in 1969 (interview of Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn, son of one of the original owners of the well, Tulia, November 25, 1968). 69 E. H. Epperson, "Pump Irrigation in Scott County, Kansas,” Eighteenth Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, X X III, 79; The Charter Type "R” Oil Engine Catalog, no. 22 (Sterling, Illinois: Charter Gas Engine Company [ca. 1922 p. 49, in Files of Green Machinery Company, Plainview. 70 At this time the "pit-less” pump was often still referred to as a centrifugal pump. It actually was a type of centrifugal— a greatly improved vertical centrifugal. Mohler probably referred to vertical and horizontal centrifugals and to the "pit-less” pump as well. All three were in use in western Kansas at this time (Marcellus, "Selection and Installation of a Pumping Plant for Irrigation” ) ; George S. Knapp, "A Review of Irriga-

]),

Adaptation of Pum p Irrigation Technology

61

and powerful cheap oil-engines, are the means by which the underground waters will be utilized to irrigate the lands of this great territory.”71 Summary Several technological innovations made it possible to tap the extensive subsurface waters of the Texas High Plains for irrigation. Engineers con­ structed a pump capable of delivering large volumes of water from deep wells and invented an engine which could be operated on cheap fuels. Equipment for drilling large-bore wells also came into use on the plains. Zenas E. Black, a booster of Plainview, Texas, expressed the feeling of irrigation enthusiasts in the region when he wrote in 1914: "The cen­ trifugal [pit-less] pump has lifted the shallow water portions of the Texas plains from bondage to the erratic cloud. In this work it has been assisted by the crude oil and distillate burning engine. The perfection of the above agencies has been the greatest boon that inventors have given the world during the past ten years.”72 Limitations to irrigation in the area still existed. A deeper well was not only more expensive to drill and to case, but also more expensive to op­ erate. A larger engine and a more powerful pump required greater con­ sumption of fuel. Ground water had to be available in large enough quantities to be utilized for irrigation purposes. Perhaps most important, the increased profit from crops had to justify the great expense of a pumpirrigation plant. tion in Kansas,” in Twenty-third Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agricul­ ture, X X V II, 217-225. 71 J. C. Mohler, "Irrigation from Driven Weils,” Country Gentleman (February 1912); quoted in The Earth 9 (April 1912): 2. 72 Zenas E. Black, "The Land of the Underground Rain,” The Earth 11 (April 1914): 13. Similar statements about important developments in pump and engine technology may be found in Farm and Ranch (Dallas), June 1, 1912, p. 9, and in Amarillo Daily News, February 17,1912, p. 6.

5. Land Speculators and the Beginnings of Irrigation on the Texas High Plains, 1900-1910

( je o r g e Tyng, manager and land agent for the White Deer Lands Company of the Panhandle, noted in 1901 that "land dealings appear to be daily increasing in number and, gradually, in value per acre.” He correctly predicted, "The speculative craze beginning to pervade the whole country from Wall St. to Texas oil is not likely to cease before touching Texas and Western lands.”1 During the first decade of the twentieth century, land colonizers, agents, and speculators from many areas of the United States, particularly from the Middle West, be­ came interested in the Texas High Plains-Panhandle region. In 1900 large cattle ranches were still the predominant economic units in the area. Herds of the JA, the Matador, the XIT, and other ranches grazed the ranges. But farmers had already emerged on the plains in small 1 George Tyng, Pampa, Texas, May 2, 1901, to Russell Benedict; quoted in Lester Fields Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company: A Panhandle Enterprise, 18821957, p. 342.

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numbers. As mentioned earlier, in 1878 a congregation of Quaker farm­ ers broke the sod of Crosby County and founded the colony of Estacado. Ten years later farming settlements were found west of the 101st me­ ridian in Randall, Deaf Smith, Hale, Floyd, and other counties, and the increased movement of settlers into the High Plains was reported by local sources.2 The newspaper at Tascosa observed in the late spring of 1888 that "a half dozen immigrant wagons, loaded with women, tow­ headed progeny and other plunder, passed through yesterday morning.”3 Before 1900, however, there was no mass movement of farmers into the region. The census returns of 1900 reflected the sparse population. Hale County had only 1,680 people; Floyd County had 2,020; Deaf Smith County inhabitants numbered 1,477; and Lubbock County had a mere 293. The settlement of the region had been retarded by control of the land by larger ranchers, failure of Texas land policy to favor the farmer until after 1883, the lack of surface water, recurrent drouths, the total absence of railroads in the Panhandle,4 and, perhaps most important, little demand by settlers for land in the western, more semiarid part of the Texas Panhandle.

Beginning in the late 1890’s a number of factors served to draw more farmers into the region. First, a series of wet years set in which lasted through much of the first decade of the twentieth century. From 1895 through 1906, the rainfall at Amarillo was above the normal 21.92 inches every year except 1897 and 1904. Rainfall exceeded 20 inches every year except 1897. And in 1905 the precipitation climbed to more than 10 inches above normal. At Plainview during the same period, rainfall was above the annual norm of 20.93 inches six of the years and below average the other six years. But in 1900 the rainfall was more than 13 inches above normal, and in 1905 the annual precipitation reached more than 32 inches. Rainfall in Crosby County was also above average for half of 2 J. Evetts Haley, The X1T Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado, pp. 210-213. 3 Tascosa Pioneer, June 9, 1888; quoted in Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, p. 210. 4 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900: Population, I, pp. liv-lv. For an analysis of factors which retarded, then later aided the settlement of the South Plains, see Jean Alexander Paul, "The Farmer’s Frontier on the South Plains,” M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1959, pp. 8 9 137.

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the period. The precipitation of 40.46 inches in 1905 was almost twice the normal average.5 Second, isolation was broken as railroads pushed into the region, bring­ ing passengers and furnishing the means for transporting farm products to distant markets. In 1887 the Santa Fe Railroad reached Panhandle City, and by the next year the Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad stretched diagonally across the Panhandle from northwest to southeast. But it was not until 1907 that a railroad penetrated the southern Texas High Plains—the region referred to locally as the South Plains. In that year Santa Fe tracks arrived in Plainview. Two years later the same rail­ road reached Lubbock.6 Third, cheap prices for land and liberal credit terms attracted many land buyers. Soon after the turn of the century, leases on Texas public lands held by some large ranchers expired. Under the provisions of the "Four Section” Act of 1895, a settler could file on as much as four sec­ tions of land (2,560 acres). The cost for such a block of land was $3,200 — $2 per acre for the first section and $1 per acre for the remaining three sections. A down payment of only one-fortieth of the price was required, and annual payments were extended over forty years at only 3 percent interest.7 By the end of 1900 practically all of the state-owned lands in the Panhandle had been purchased. George Tyng reported: "Within the past year there has been a feverish demand for land. Every acre of public land has been bought in our vicinity on easy terms granted by the State— good, bad, and indifferent, dry or watered land.”8 Much of the land offered for sale to settlers was owned by ranchers, railroads, and other large economic concerns. Even this land was cheap in comparison with the price of land in the older, improved agricultural 5 From 1894 to 1909 the rainfall in the region was generally sufficient (table of drouths in John T. Carr, J r , Texas Droughts: Causes, Classification, and Prediction, Texas Water Development Board Report, no. 30, p. 47; rainfall charts in Charles L. Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Uano Estacado, University of Texas Bulletin, no. 57, pp. 66, 69, 7 0 ). 6 Haley, The X 1T Ranch of Texas, p. 204; David B. Gracy II, Littlefield Lands: Colo­ nization on the Texas Plains, 1912-1920, pp. 8 -9 ; Mary L. Cox, History of Hale County, Texas, pp. 67-68. 7 Paul, "The Farmer’s Frontier on the South Plains,” p. 136. 8 George Tyng, Pampa, July 22, 1901, to Frederic de P. Foster; quoted in Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, p. 343.

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regions of the United States. For example, in 1904 it was reported that "the remarkable thing about this part of Texas is the cheapness of land— from $4.00 to $8.00 per acre in bodies from 160 acres up, with time from one to five years, and interest at 6 percent.”9 Finally, not only was land relatively cheap, but also, because of certain national trends in agriculture during the first decade of the twentieth cen­ tury, the demand for land increased. As the nation emerged from the de­ pression of the 1890’s, prices of crops and land tended to move upward, making both farming and land speculation more attractive. Between 1900 and 1910 the price index of farm products increased steadily from 69.0 to 105.010 The value of land also tended to rise. In some areas, prices of improved land rose as much as 5 to 10 percent annually. For example, in South Dakota, land values more than tripled between 1900 and 1910. And the valuation of land rose about twofold in Iowa during the same period. By 1908 land in the latter state was being sold at prices ranging from $80 to $125 or more per acre.11 Rising land values throughout the United States encouraged land spec­ ulators, both large and small, to purchase Panhandle-High Plains land. Many farmers were "resident speculators” who bought their farms with the intention of earning a living from their lands until offered a good profit for their improved holdings. Others were "resident speculators” who bought land, then rented the land to tenants. Among this group were such professional men as lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and real estate agents, who subsequently settled in towns near their holdings. Still others were "absentee speculators,” who purchased only a section or thousands of acres, but who continued to live in another region of the United States.12 The demand brought into existence a number of colonization agencies, which purchased large blocks of unimproved land, subdivided it into smaller units, brought "prospectors” to the land by excursion train and 9 The Earth 1 (September 1904): 7. 10 Murray R. Benedict, Farm Policies of the United States, 1790-1950: A Study of Their Origins and Development, pp. 114-115. 11 Ibid., pp. 112-113; John D. Hicks, "The Western Middle West, 1900-1914,” Agri­ cultural History 20 (April 1946): 73. 12 The terms "resident speculator” and "absentee speculator” are used by Paul W . Gates in his classic study, "The Role of the Land Speculator in Western Development, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 66 (July 1942): 315.

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automobile, and sold the lands for a good profit. For example, William P. Soash of Waterloo, Iowa, formed a company and bought a large tract of X IT land in the northwest corner of the Texas High Plains. Trains loaded with prospectors poured into the area. Within a matter of months, Soash sold his lands and turned to other colonization projects on the plains.13 In 1904 the Farm Land Development Company— owned by in­ dividuals living in Chicago; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Salt Lake City— bought large tracts of land in Parmer and Dallam counties at prices ranging from two and one-half to six dollars per acre for colonization purposes. W. W. Ryan of Kansas City bought approximately 176,800 acres from the X IT at $5.00 to $6.00 per acre in 1906. George G. Wright, who had been associated with Ryan in Kansas City, bought land from the X IT and other sources in the region that same year for about $5.00 per acre. Agents who sold Wright’s land for $25.00 per acre re­ ceived commissions of $5.00 to $6.00 per acre. Wright made approxi­ mately a 100 percent return on his investment. One historian has esti­ mated that he netted more than $1 million from his speculation.14 In addition to colonization agencies and land agents, other enterprises also played an important role in attracting speculators and settlers to the region. Railroads set up colonization departments not only to sell their own lands, but also to attract settlers and land buyers into the areas lo­ cated along their lines.15 Some ranch owners colonized their own lands. For example, the wealthy Texas businessman and cattleman George W. Littlefield bought the Yellow House Division of the X IT on the South Plains in 1901. After the Santa Fe Railroad had completed a line through his ranch in 1912, he formed the Littlefield Lands Company for coloniza­ tion purposes.16 A number of smaller speculators who bought land on the Texas High Plains were from the Middle West and undoubtedly had witnessed or profited from the rise in land values in that region. John D. Hicks has 13 For an account of land-colonization activities see David B. Gracy II, "A Preliminary Survey of Land Colonization in the Panhandle-Plains of Texas,” The Museum Journal 11 (1 9 6 9 ): 50-79. 14 Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, pp. 218-221. 15 Ira G. Clark, Then Came the Railroads: The Century from Steam to Diesel in the Southwest, pp. 263-265. 16 Gracy, Littlefield Lands, pp. 43-66; Haley, The X IT Ranch of Texas, p. 218.

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stated that in the period 1900-1914 "the average Middle Western land­ owner . .. made his money, not so much from good farming, as from the unearned increment that came with the ownership of farm lands.”17 By 1906 so many land buyers rushing into the Texas High Plains were from the Middle West that a correspondent for the New York Evening Post reported: "Farmers, chiefly from the North and Middle West, dis­ satisfied with the rigor of the winter climate at home, or attracted by other reasons, are beginning to come here. The possibilities of the land coupled with the moderate cost at which they can obtain a whole section of land, 640 acres, apparently attract them.”18 Stories of profits made from buying and selling land and of rising land values were circulated by land agents, local boosters, and other interested parties. A Panhandle clergyman observed in 1906, "Lands that I saw sell­ ing two years ago at eight dollars an acre are now selling [at] from twelve to twenty.”19 In one case an unnamed man supposedly bought two sections of land for twenty-five cents per acre in 1901. Within a few months he sold the sections for a total of $2,300— almost eight times the original price of the land. A farmer from Illinois purchased some land for $5.50 per acre and made a profit of $12.50 per acre the first year growing kafir corn. But the speculative urge caused him to sell his land at a good profit and to purchase "more raw land.”20 One observer re­ ported meeting a man on a railroad excursion car who was in the process of buying over seventeen thousand acres; he concluded, "I was impressed with the fact that conservative business men in looking over the proposi­ tion were ready to invest largely in the country on looking it over.”21 A newspaper editor from Belle Plaine, Iowa, went to the Panhandle "with no intention of buying land” on one of the special excursion trains for prospectors for the purpose of writing an article about the region. He became so impressed with the High Plains that he borrowed money while on the trip and bought some land for himself.22 The editor also reported that one man from Lenox, Iowa, purchased a four-section ranch for 17 Hicks, "The Western Middle West,” p. 73. 18 Quoted in The Earth 3 (April 1906): 12. 19 Walter H. North, "The Texas Panhandle,” The Earth 3 (November 1906): 10. 2° Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 4 (June 1907): 12.

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$64,000— a little more than $20 per acre—with the expectation of selling it for $84,000.23 A letter which appeared in a Bloomington, Illinois, newspaper in 1906 perhaps summed up the hopes of most speculators who were buying real estate in the Panhandle: "The land is being taken at rapidly increasing prices. At present the prices range from $10 to $24 per acre. The difference in price being determined largely by the distance from the town and the number of acres in the section under cultivation. . .. Generally, the writer believes the price of land will increase 100 per­ cent within the next six to ten years.”24 Such accounts of rising land prices and profits made by speculators were in most cases exaggerated. But there was just enough truth in the rumors circulating wildly on the prairies of the Middle West to continue feeding prospectors into the area. In the period 1900-1910 the popula­ tion of Hale County increased from 1,600 to 7,506; Deaf Smith County grew from 1,477 to 3,942; and Lubbock County increased from 293 to 1,474.25 Several years of sufficient rainfall aided the speculative fever. In addition, the rise of the dry-land system of soil cultivation was a boon to speculators and colonizers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in 1907 that, because there had been a steady increase of rainfall on the Great Plains since 1894, land companies had tended to exploit the idea of dry-land farming.26 This method, known by some as the Campbell system, after its foremost advocate and propagator, Hardy W. Campbell, had become gospel to the new settlers of the region. By 1909 there were three "Campbell dry [demonstration} farm[s]” in the Panhandle, lo­ cated near Amarillo, Bovina, and Plainview, convenient for prospectors to view from train windows.27 Before 1910 boosters and speculators were particularly averse to any suggestion that irrigation was needed. They pointed out that "irrigation 23 ibid. 24 Letter from F. O. Handson in Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois), n.d, quoted in The Earth 3 (August 1906): 4. 25 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910: Population, I, 119-120. 26 E. C. Chilcott, "Dry-Land Farming in the Great Plains Area,” in United States D e­ partment of Agriculture Yearbook, 1907, p. 464. 27 The Earth 5 (May 19 0 8 ): 3; 6 (February 1 9 09): 4. For a description of the dry­ land system and an account of the movement from its rise in one area of the Great Plains, see Mary W . M. Hargreaves, Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains, 1900-1925.

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as it is done in New Mexico, Colorado, and elsewhere is unknown in the Panhandle. There are no irrigation plants and no irrigation ditches. The fruit trees and berry bushes are watered from large tanks near the wind­ mills. As for the crops, there seems to be enough annual rainfall for their nourishment.,,2S One enthusiastic booster clearly jumped the most remote bounds of reason when he boasted: "The bugaboo of too little moisture for the production of crops has almost completely disappeared before the demonstrated fact that the annual rainfall throughout this territory is equal to that in the vicinity of Chicago. . . . Climatically, the Panhandle very nearly approaches perfection.”29 Don H. Biggers, a newspaperman from Lubbock and one of the most persistent boosters of the Texas plains, stated flatly that "it rains more now.”30 Biggers himself admitted during the dry year of 1910, when the total rainfall at Plainview was little more than eleven inches,31 that the vast subsurface water resources of the region could be utilized for irrigation. But he did not want to leave the impression that irrigation would ever be needed. The booster insisted that "irrigation never will be extensive here, for the reason that it is not at all necessary. . . . There never has been a total [crop] failure, even with the most indifferent and primitive farming methods.”32 On another occasion he reiterated that the region "has suffi­ cient water supply to irrigate every acre of land, should that be necessary, but it will not [be].”33 Biggers, whom the editor of The Earth paradoxically called "a prophet of the South Plains,”34 was correct in one respect. Because of the wet years from 1895 through 1907, crop failures even with "indifferent and primi­ tive farming methods” were uncommon. Farmers in the area had become accustomed to sufficient moisture. How well High Plains farmers prac­ 28 The Earth 3 (April 1906): 12. 29 S. G. Tetwiler, "The Productive Panhandle of Texas,” The Earth 4 (July 1907): 5. 30 Don H. Biggers, "Banner Counties of the Plains,” The Earth 7 (January 1910): 12. 31 Rainfall chart in [W . G. Carter], "Plainview Economic Survey, Plainview, Texas, March 16, 1925,” mimeographed (Plainview: Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, 1925), pages not numbered, in Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas. 32 Don H. Biggers, "Two Fine South Plains Counties,” The Earth 7 (November 1910): 7. 33 Biggers, "Banner Counties of the Plains,” p. 13. 34 Ibid, p. 7.

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ticed the principles of dry farming is not known. But sufficient moisture probably made few converts to the newer farming methods. Campbell himself reported in September, 1906, that on one of his Panhandle farms he found enough moisture four feet deep to grow crops. Then in September he reported that the soil five feet deep was moist enough to mold into "mud balls/’35 Optimism soon turned to pessimism when a drouth emerged on the Texas High Plains as early as 1907 in some areas and stretched out over the entire region within the next several years. At Amarillo the annual rainfall fell almost to four inches below normal in 1907. In Crosby County on the South Plains the rainfall was more than three inches be­ low the normal average by 1908. Less than sixteen inches of precipitation fell on Deaf Smith County in 1909. And by 1910 the entire region was gripped in a drouth which covered most of the southern Great Plains. That year Deaf Smith County reported only a little over eleven inches. Amarillo had about the same. Precipitation in Hale County totaled abouf twelve inches. Swisher and Crosby counties were more fortunate, with a total rainfall of approximately fifteen inches in both counties.36 The response of farmers, boosters, colonizers, and speculators to the drouth varied. In at least one instance, citizens attempted to attract that nineteenth-century anachronism of the Great Plains— the rainmaker. In the summer of 1909 citizens of Dawson County advertised for "a Rain­ maker of Experience.” Moreover, they promised a "good commission . . . to right party.”37 Many people left the region, turning their mortgaged real property back to land companies as the pressure of the drouth forced land prices down. By 1910 absentee owners who could afford to keep their farms had difficulty attracting tenants,38 as the flow of prospectors came to a halt. The owner of an abstract and title office in Floyd County made the following observations to three different absentee landowners: 35 The Earth 3 (November 1906): 10. 36 Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Estacado, pp. 66-72. 37 Dawson County News, June 11, 1909; quoted in Leona Marguerite Gelin, "Organi­ zation and Development of Dawson County to 1917,” M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1937, p. 105. 38 Arthur B. Duncan, Floydada, July 13, 1910, to D. M. Burke, Arthur B. Duncan Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University.

Land Speculators and the Beginnings of Irrigation

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We have had another very dry season, and consequently crops are very short. Lands have declined considerably in price, and quite a number of our people are anxious to sell and move away, but there are no buyers coming in.

I am inclined to think that $15.00 per acre would be the top price at which your land could be sold now, and I am not certain that it could be sold even for said figure___ Land is so dull now, and almost no prospectors coming in, that it seems it is hardly worth while to try to sell land at this time.39

The Santa Fe Railroad responded in a more positive way to the drouth, which transcended state boundaries. In 1909 the company appointed Pro­ fessor J. D. Tinsley, an expert on soils at New Mexico College of Agri­ culture and Mechanic Arts (now called New Mexico State University), to the new post of agricultural agent. Tinsley was assigned specifically to eastern New Mexico. The next year, as the drouth worsened, the company appointed Professor Harry M. Bainer of Iowa State Agricultural College to be agricultural agent to the High Plains-Panhandle region.40 The edi­ tor of the railroad company’s agricultural journal, The Earth, announced, "It is a new departure in railroading but in keeping with the spirit of progress maintained by the Santa Fe.”41 Tinsley and Bainer instituted a program aimed at providing the most recent techniques and information on dry farming to farmers. First, a system of demonstration plots scattered throughout the area was inaugu­ rated in 1911. Individual farmers, cooperating with the agents, planted drouth-resistant crops with seed provided by the railroad and used experi­ mental methods of cultivation. By the end of the first year 148 demon­ stration plots had been initiated.42 Second, that same year the company inaugurated a program of sending demonstration trains throughout the region. The purpose, as indicated by the name of the 1913 train referred 39 Arthur B. Duncan, Floydada, August 13, 1910, to W . E. Jones; Arthur B. Duncan, Floydada, September 28, 1910, to Mr. and Mrs. F. P. Baumgardner; Arthur B. Duncan, Floydada, August 13, 1910, to W . A. Tibbets, Arthur B. Duncan Papers. 40 The Earth 1 (July 1910) : 11; (February 1910): 8; Clark, Then Came the Railroads, p. 265. 41 The Earth 7 (February 1910): 8. Some agricultural programs had been carried on by various railroads in conjunction with colonization activities before 1910. In 1905 the Missouri Pacific Railroad created the position of agricultural agent as a separate office from that of colonization agent (Clark, Then Came the Railroads, pp. 2 6 3 -2 6 5 ). 42 Clark, Then Came the Railroads, p. 270.

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to as "The Cow, Sow, and Hen,” was to encourage farmers to diversify their operations.43 Still another significant response to the drouth was a revival of the ir­ rigation movement which had been prevalent on the Great Plains during the late 1880’s and early 1890’s. But the revival differed from the original movement in at least two important ways. First, the new movement was spearheaded primarily by speculators and boosters rather than by crusad­ ing editors, representatives of farmers, and scientists. Second, the revival pragmatically emphasized the tools of the newly developed pump tech­ nology and the use of pumping plants by individuals, rather than the de­ velopment of irrigation through governmental assistance. The idea of irrigation was not new to the High Plains-Panhandle re­ gion in 1910 . In the broken country below the Cap Rock it was possible to utilize the limited waters of streams and springs. As early as the 1870’s small irrigated garden patches could be seen along the banks of the Ca­ nadian River.44 In 1888 R. A. Cameron, emigration agent for the Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad, investigated the possibility of setting up a demonstration farm to utilize the waters of the Canadian, but noth­ ing came of the proposal.45 In 1902 it was reported that one F. H. Rathjen of Mobeetie in Wheeler County was irrigating sixty acres of corn and alfalfa from a quarter-mile ditch running from Williams Creek. The Reynolds Land and Cattle Company in Hartley County watered a fortyacre field of alfalfa, fruit trees, and vegetables from a spring.46 On the High Plains, as in other areas of the Great Plains, windmills were used to irrigate small plots of orchards and gardens before 1900 in spite of at least one antiirrigation newspaper editor in Amarillo, who re­ ferred to such experiments as "the fakir of irrigation wells,”47 In Hale County there were at least three windmill systems in operation in 1901 irrigating from five to ten acres each. And one citizen of the county

,

43 Ibid, p. 269. 44 Ernest R. Archambeau, " 'Spanish Sheepmen on the Canadian at Old Tascosa,’ as told to Ernest R. Archambeau by Jose Ynoncio Romero,” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 19 (1 9 4 6 ): 49. 45 Clark, Then Came the Railroads, pp. 263-264. 46 Thomas U. Taylor, Irrigation Systems of Texas, United States Geological Survey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, no. 71, p. 79. 47 Amarillo News, February 9, 1895, p. 4.

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boasted that fifty such systems existed and could be utilized "if the season renders irrigation necessary.”48 The advent of pumping plants designed specifically for delivering huge volumes of water for irrigation increased the possibilities for irri­ gating large areas of the High Plains.49 In 1904 the editor of The Earth stated, "It is the consensus of opinion . . . that with the development of irrigation by gasoline engines, the inexhaustible underflow, or watersheet, is available to make the virgin plains the wheat and fruit belt of the United States.”50 Two years later the same editor reported that pumps could now successfully water the farmlands of the Llano Estacado.51 In early 1905 S. A. Fuller, an irrigation farmer from Longmont, Colorado, who was visiting his brother at Hereford in Deaf Smith County, stated that steam- and gasoline-powered pumps coming into general use in the West would be feasible in the Hereford area.52 The summer before Fuller’s visit, a test irrigation well had been drilled on the ranch of G. R. Jowell east of Hereford. The well was one hundred feet deep, with the water level only forty feet below the surface. But it had not yet been pumped. Within a few weeks after Fuller’s statement was publicized, Jowell borrowed a small Wood’s propeller-type pump from an irrigation engineer of Roswell, New Mexico Territory, and in­ stalled it in the well. A twenty-five-horsepower steam engine was con­ nected to the pump by a belt and pulley. Then, on Washington’s birthdate, 1905, "at about 2 p.m., a large crowd of citizens having assembled, the pumping was begun. A stream of water five by seven inches came roll­ ing forth and continued for about twenty-five minutes, without any per­ ceptible decrease in the water supply.” The local newspaper editor pre­ maturely boasted that the well, which had furnished only from 188 to 200 gallons per minute, "will doubtless mark the beginning of actual irrigation from wells in West Texas.”53 In the next few years other experimental test wells were probably put down in many areas of the Texas High Plains. For example, in Dallam 48 Taylor, Irrigation Systems of Texas, p. 78. 49 See chapter 4. 50 The Earth 1 (February 1904): 6. 51 Ibid. 3 (August 1906): 6. 52 Hereford Brand, January 13, 1905, p. 6. 53 Ibid., February 24, 1905, p. 1; The Earth 2 (April 1905): 6.

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County, a well seventy feet deep and five feet square was reportedly dug in 1907. A centrifugal pump powered by a steam engine pulled water from the pit, but, like the Jowell well, the unit was never used for irriga­ tion purposes.54 Contrary to local expectations, the Jowell well did not inaugurate an irrigation boom. Rainfall in Deaf Smith County averaged twenty inches or more from 1905 through 1907. Elsewhere on the High Plains 1905 was an exceptionally wet year. Crosby County received more than forty inches, and Amarillo’s rainfall was more than ten inches above normal.55 The demand of High Plainsmen for irrigation tended to rise in direct ratio to the decline of rainfall. By 1909, not only the drouth, but also irrigation developments in the adjacent New Mexico Territory caused some interested parties to consider seriously the possibilities of irrigating the Texas High Plains. In New Mexico the irrigation frontier originated in the more arid western region; then, like the mining frontier of the West, it moved toward the east. The interest of New Mexicans in irrigation dated back to early works built by the Indians, Spanish, and Mexicans long before the United States annexed the region. The tradition was continued during the irrigation movement of the late nineteenth century, when much of the territorial press actively campaigned for private, corporate, and governmentsponsored irrigation works.56 The territorial government established a department of irrigation in 1905.57 After passage of the National Recla­ mation Act in 1902, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation began construc­ tion of dams on the Rio Grande and the Pecos River. The Pecos River project was completed in 1907. Citizens of Carlsbad were so enthusiastic over its completion that they celebrated July Fourth of that year with a "water carnival” rather than with fireworks. Water from the new reser­ 54 Notes made by Laura V. Hamner, Federal Writer’s Project, June 9, 1936, upon interviewing several Dallam County citizens, including J. W . Pigman, who had a photo­ graph of the pumping plant. In William P. Soash Papers, Literary Efforts, Southwest Col­ lection, Texas Tech University. 55 Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Estacado, pp. 66—69* 56 Porter Andrew Stratton, "The Territorial Press of New Mexico, 1834-1912,” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Technological College, 1967, pp. 404-407. 57 H. B. Henning, "Development of Irrigation in New Mexico,” The Earth 7 (July 19 1 0 ): 13.

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voir flowed abundantly through large ditches, into some laterals leading to fields, through canals constructed in downtown Carlsbad, and back into the Pecos below the city. Moreover, a strong artesian basin in the Roswell area already in use for irrigation added to the water resources of the ter­ ritory.58 On the Llano Estacado in eastern New Mexico, irrigation resources were also investigated. At Portales, in the region known locally as Inland Valley, water could be found at depths from two to fifty feet according to a local booster.59 Actually the depth averaged about thirty feet,60 but it was shallow enough to attract interest as a possible source for pump irri­ gation. In August, 1903, a group of businessmen led by Washington Ellsworth Lindsey, later governor of New Mexico, put up money for a local well driller named W. A. Jessup to drill an artesian well. Jessup completed the drilling of a hole one thousand feet deep in May, 1905, but failed to find artesian water.61 Later in 1905, a few months after Jes­ sup completed the well, a Portales business firm put a six-inch test pump into a shallow well which the Santa Fe Railroad had drilled. The pump delivered a six-hundred-gallon-per-minute stream of water,62 but as in the neighboring Texas High Plains, until the drouth struck eastern New Mexico, neither need for nor widespread interest in irrigation existed. Then in 1908 a decrease in rainfall yielded a short crop in the region. By the summer of 1909 searing southwest winds signaled the onslaught of drouth. In the fall of that year Lindsey again took the lead and drilled a fourteen-inch test hole to a depth of one hundred feet on his land. The 58 F. L. Vandegrift, "A Southwest Water Celebration,” The Earth 4 (August 1 907): 2. 59 W . L. Neel, Bethel, Roosevelt County, New Mexico, n.d, to editor of The Earth, quoted in The Earth 4 (August 1907) : 11. 60 George V. Johnson, editor of the Portales Times, reported in 1911 that the depth to water in the Portales area was thirty to thirty-five feet (Johnson, "Irrigation in Por­ tales,” The Earth 8 [May 1911}: 2 1 ). 61 James Elmer Rowan, "Agricultural Land Utilization in the Llano Estacado of East­ ern New Mexico and Western Texas,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nebraska, I960, p. 124; Ira C. Ihde, "Washington Ellsworth Lindsey,” New Mexico Historical Review 26 (October 1951): 182. 62 Rowan, "Agricultural Land Utilization in the Llano Estacado,” pp. 124-125. Joseph F. Gordon, "The History and Development of Irrigated Cotton on the High Plains of Texas,” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Technological College, 1961, p. 82, states that the pump was a "piston pump,” but in my opinion, a six-inch piston pump is incapable of delivering six hundred gallons per minute. The pump must have been some type of early centrifugal pump, possibly a Wood’s propeller pump or a vertical centrifugal pump.

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depth to water was undoubtedly much less. Using a centrifugal pump powered by a gasoline engine, the well reportedly delivered one thousand gallons per minute. More wells were put down that fall, and pit-type centrifugal pumps were installed by other citizens of the area. In the meantime, Portales leaders consulted P. E. Fuller, an irrigation engineer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Fuller encouraged the develop­ ment of pump irrigation in the area by stating that wells like that drilled by Lindsey were capable of irrigating 160 acres each.63 By the end of 1909 a few wells were being pumped and plans were being laid for an exten­ sive irrigation project in the Portales Valley. At some time during the latter part of 1909, D. L. McDonald, an auto­ mobile dealer and a land agent from Hereford, took a Santa Fe train to Portales. The object of the trip was to pay the taxes on some land which McDonald had accepted as payment for a Winton automobile. At Por­ tales, McDonald viewed one of the new irrigation wells. Moses himself could have been no more amazed than McDonald to see so much water spewing forth from a single pipe in the ground. During the trip back to Hereford he began thinking of the four hundred windmills tapping the shallow subsurface water on the Hereford town section. The existence of the water had been known in the area at least since the Jowell well had been tested in 1905, and Jowell, a friend of McDonald’s, still lived at Hereford.64 63 Johnson, "Irrigation in Portales,” p. 21. A different account is found in Rowan, “Agricultural Land Utilization in the Llano Estacado,” p. 125. Rowan, whose sources consisted solely of interviews with early settlers of the area, states that a "Kansas firm” was responsible for exploring the possibilities of pump irrigation in the area. When the firm was satisfied with its test wells, its managers decided to establish a company for the purpose of generating and selling electricity to farmers for powering irrigation pumps. But Johnson’s contemporary account shows that the initial steps were taken by Lindsey and other Portales citizens, who formed an organization and made a contract with a firm to build an electric generating plant for that purpose. Also see The Earth 7 (January 1910 ): 11 . 64 Interview with Bill McDonald, son of D. L. McDonald, Amarillo, May 3, 1968, and with John McDonald, oldest son of D. L. McDonald, Amarillo, August 23, 1968; Wilma Hixson, "The Influence of Water upon the Settlement of the Llano Estacado,” M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1940, p. 68; "Lesson of Windmills on a Townsite,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 13, 1913, reprinted in The Earth 10 (June 1 9 1 3 ): 19. Hixson’s account of the reason for McDonald’s trip to Portales differs from that of John and Bill McDonald. She states that McDonald went to Portales for the spe­ cific purpose of seeing the wells, but both of McDonald’s sons state that their father made the trip for the purpose of paying taxes on a quarter-section of land.

Land Speculators and the Beginnings of Irrigation

11

D. L. McDonald, who would be referred to within the next few years as the "father of irrigation on the Staked Plains,” was representative of the aggressive entrepreneur-speculators who played such a prominent role in the development of irrigation on the Texas High Plains. Born in Con­ cord, Pennsylvania, on November 26, 1872, he grew up in Ohio. After becoming a registered pharmacist he established a drugstore at Van Wert, Ohio. He left that profession upon the advice of his physician, who ad­ vised him to spend more time outdoors. Soon after the turn of the cen­ tury he began selling Winton automobiles. As a fairly successful car dealer he became acquainted with some wealthy owners of a lucrative stone-quarry company located in Ohio. During the High PlainsPanhandle land boom, these wealthy businessmen offered McDonald a one-third interest in a chunk of High Plains land if he would handle the sales. McDonald accepted the offer, possibly with a view toward improv­ ing his health in the southwestern climate. In 1906 he arrived in the small town of Hereford aboard a train, accompanied by several of his Winton automobiles. For the next few years the former druggist combined automobile and real-estate sales. His two businesses went together well. He would catch a train back to the Midwest about once a month and stir up interest in Texas lands among citizens of Ohio and other neighboring states. After gathering some prospectors, he would escort the group by railroad Pull­ man coach to Hereford. Then the potential land buyers would enjoy free automobile rides in the Wintons as they inspected the properties. The lush, green grass growing from the rich, dark brown soil reminded McDonald of Ohio without the natural impediments of trees and rocks. No doubt the area had the same appeal for other midwesterners who sub­ sequently purchased plots on credit terms offered by McDonald. Most of the land was sold, but the boom ended in 1909 with the recurring visit of that old enemy of the Great Plains— drouth. Unable to make payments or to find tenants, most of those who had bought land were forced to al­ low McDonald reluctantly to foreclose on the properties. The population of Hereford dropped from several thousand to a little over one thousand by 1910, and, as in other areas of the Texas High Plains, land values de­ clined.65 65 Interviews with Bill and John McDonald.

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One citizen of Hereford observed: "It is the closest [ j /V} times here I have ever witnessed any time. People keep leaving here and the very ones we would like to see stay, the farmers. The name they will give the coun­ try will stay with it for a long time as they are from every part of the U.S.”66 During this economic crisis McDonald returned from Portales deter­ mined to introduce irrigation as a means for raising land values, attracting settlers, and aiding the economic development of the High Plains. Irri­ gation as a device for increasing land values had been contemplated by speculators on the High Plains before McDonald. In 1886 a New York agent for the newly formed White Deer Lands Company inspected the company's lands located in the north-central area of the Texas Panhandle. On his return journey he stopped at Mobeetie in Wheeler County. There some local boosters— "men of intelligence”— told the agent that the White Deer Creek, a tributary of the Canadian which ran a small stream of water through the lands, was capable of irrigating twenty thousand acres. That estimate was greatly exaggerated, but the agent accepted the estimate at face value and concluded his report by stating, "If so, the land could be worth as much as Kansas land.”67 After the Jowell well was tested, the editor of the Hereford newspaper boasted that land which could be watered by irrigation pump would be worth fifty dollars per acre.68 At Portales in 1903, Washington Ellsworth Lindsey left little doubt about his motives in promoting a project to locate artesian water when he asserted, "Should a sufficient flow be obtained at a depth of even 1,000 fe e t.. . land values within the area of the artesian flow would im­ mediately rise to the value of that in the artesian belt of the adjoining County of Chaves.”69 In the late fall of 1909, the same idea was in the mind of D. L. Mc­ Donald as he began digging a pit in the bottom of Frio Draw south of Hereford. He struck water at twenty-five feet and installed a vertical cen­ 66 C. W . Hunt, Hereford, December 14, 1910, to Arthur B. Duncan, Arthur B. Dun­ can Papers. 67 Russell Benedict, June 22, 1886, to Frederic de P. Foster, trustee of White Deer Lands Company; quoted in Sheffy, The Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, p. 216. 68 Hereford Brand, February 24, 1905, p. 1. 69 Washington Ellsworth Lindsey, director of Portales Trade Association, n.d, to editor of The Earth, The Earth 1 (November 1904): 5.

Land Speculators and the Beginnings of Irrigation

19

trifugal pump in the well. In February, 1910, a long, wide belt from a steam-traction engine was attached to the pump pulley. McDonald en­ gaged the engine clutch and a large stream of water spewed out of the discharge pipe into a weir. In the spring of that year the Ohio land agent planted thirty to forty acres nearby in a variety of crops including po­ tatoes, onions, corn, kafir corn, and celery. The combination of virgin soil and abundant water produced an impressive crop in the very dry summer of 1910.70 McDonald, meanwhile, began digging a second well on a higher eleva­ tion north of Hereford in order to dispel local doubts about obtaining sufficient water above Frio Draw. On March 15, 1910, a Layne and Bowler "pit-less” pump was shipped to McDonald from Houston. This improved pump, powered by a Fairbanks-Morse gasoline engine, was placed at a depth of approximately thirty-eight feet. By the middle of December, McDonald had three irrigation pumping plants in operation.71 The McDonald wells, the first large-volume irrigation wells on the Texas High Plains, impressed local land speculators and promoters. One Hereford real-estate agent wrote: "I have seen it [a pump] with my own eyes after it had been running for hours. Filled an eight inch pipe and came out of it at almost lightning speed. . . . It is a wonderful sight to see.”72 The same correspondent noted that the $6,400 cost of the irriga­ tion plant, including the price for drilling and casing the well, was ex­ pensive. "Still,” he concluded, "the land would be worth many times more than that after it was put to irrigation.”73 70 Interview with John McDonald; Wilma Hixson, "The Influence of Water upon the Settlement of the Llano Estacado,” pp. 68-69; Bessie Patterson, A History of Deaf Smith County, p. 13. Hixson and Patterson state that the first McDonald well was put down in 1910. But according to John McDonald, the digging of the well actually began in late 1909. 71 Interview with John McDonald; Layne and Bowler Company purchase order, shop no. 720, Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee. 72 C. W . Hunt, Hereford, December 14, 1910, to Arthur B. Duncan, Arthur B. Dun­ can Papers. 73 Ibid. The venture was the beginning of another business for McDonald— well drill­ ing. In 1910 he purchased his first rotary well-drilling rig from the Layne and Bowler Company of Houston. The company sent not only the rig, but also a well driller to show McDonald the fine points of the craft. That same year McDonald discontinued the use of gasoline engines for his pumps and began to use the cheaper-operating oil engines. He acquired the franchise for Layne and Bowler pumps and Bessemer oil engines and in­ stalled them in most of the wells he drilled in the next few years on the Texas High

Land of the U nderground Rain

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Summary In the period 1900-1909 land speculators and colonizers were drawn to the Texas High Plains because land values were rising significantly in more settled areas of the United States and the cheap lands of the High Plains-Panhandle region offered prospects for speculative profits. More­ over, rainfall was usually sufficient for farming during this period. But the drouth which appeared in the latter part of the decade dashed the hopes of land investors. Settlers began an exodus. As in the earlier drouth on the Great Plains, some turned their thoughts to possibilities for irriga­ tion. Some test wells had been installed in the earlier part of the decade, but interest in irrigation was not prevalent until drouth showed its need. Encouraged by the recent development of pump irrigation in the neigh­ boring New Mexico Territory, D. L. McDonald, a land agent, put down the first irrigation wells on the Texas High Plains with a view toward increasing depressed land values and attracting settlers. Within a few weeks after the land agent had tested his first well in the Frio Draw, the Texas Department of Agriculture published the results of an investiga­ tion into the economic resources of the High Plains-Panhandle region which had been conducted the previous year. The author, Frederick W. Mally, prophesied: "It is not an idle dream to predict that some day, not so far distant, there will be stretches of miles of the fertile level black loam areas northwesterly from Plainview to Hereford, which will be one grand succession of alfalfa meadows under irrigation.”74 Mally’s dream was similar to the vision of D. L. McDonald and many other land specu­ lators who became active in the next few years. Plains. McDonald installed each pumping plant for approximately six thousand dollars, which included the costs of drilling and casing the well, pump, engine, and derrick. For an account of McDonald’s early drilling activities see Donald E. Green, "D. L. McDonald and the Beginnings of Irrigation on the Texas High Plains,” Irrigation Age 3 (December 1968): 16-G3 through 16-GlO. 74 Frederick W . Mally, The Panhandle and Llano Estacado of Texas, Texas Depart­ ment of Agriculture Bulletin, no. 12, p. 172.

6. The Land Speculator as a Promoter and Developer of Irrigation on the Texas High Plains

C a r l Frederick Kraenzel, in his sociological study of the Great Plains, has observed that "Main Street has sometimes been active in promoting agricultural ventures. One of these ventures is irri­ gation/’1 On the eve of the completion of D. L. McDonald’s first well near Hereford, the Texas Department of Agriculture conducted a study of the High Plains-Panhandle region. The author encouraged landown­ ers of the "shallow-water” area to install centrifugal irrigation pumps and plant their farms to alfalfa because "first class alfalfa lands have such high valuations placed upon them.” In conclusion, he stated, ". . . this is a proposition which should be a very attractive one for the Commercial Clubs and Business Leagues of those districts to develop and exploit.”2 "Main Street” became interested in the proposition in 1910. The irrigation movement on the Texas High Plains from 1910 to 1 Carl Frederick Kraenzel, The Great Plains in Transition, p. 278. 2 Frederick W . Mally, The Panhandle and Llano Estacado of Texas, Texas Department of Agriculture Bulletin, no. 12, pp. 172-173.

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about 1917 was essentially a product of small-town promoters, rather than a demand from farmers. The motives among leaders in such towns as Hereford, Plainview, Hurley, Lubbock, and Amarillo varied. Some wished to stem the exodus which the drouth had produced and to attract another wave of settlers. Others were essentially boosters, who took pride in the growth and economic development of their community. The most significant group, however, became interested in irrigation not only be­ cause of what it would mean to the community as a whole, but primarily because irrigation tended to increase local land values and to make land more attractive to buyers. An irrigation boom would increase profits to land speculators and attract the population needed for prosperous local business. Not all town leaders of the Texas High Plains promoted irrigation. In places where the depth to water was considerably greater than in the "shallow-water belt” and in areas along the eastern edge of the region, which averaged slightly more rainfall than the area farther west, local leaders showed little interest. For example, at Floydada on the eastern edge of the High Plains, where the water lay about 120 feet in depth, J. C. Gaither, secretary of the local Commercial Club, stated, "Owing to the abundant crops maturing with our annual rainfall, the farmers of Floyd [County] have not been interested in any great extent in the ques­ tion of irrigation.” He added, however, that "the water is available here for the use of those who may prefer that method.”3 At Amarillo the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce discussed the possibilities for irrigation in that area, but no further action was taken.4 In the spring of 1911 a Dawson County farmer whose interest had been kindled by irrigation developments at Plainview and Lubbock ad­ vocated putting down a subscription well. "Let us get together,” he wrote, "put in from $1 to $10 each and give it a thorough test.”5 But town 3 J. C. Gaither, "Floyd’s Fertile Soil,” The Earth 8 (May 1 911): 18. Arthur B. Dun­ can, an abstract agent at Floydada, reported to a correspondent that water lay at "about 120 feet here at Floydada” (Arthur B. Duncan, Floydada, June 18, 1914, to Leroy C. Brown, in letterpress book in Arthur B. Duncan Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University). 4 Amarillo Daily News, November 22, 1911, p. 2. 5 S. W . Blackburn, n.d., to the Lamesa News; reprinted in The Earth 8 (May 1 911): 16. Leona Marguerite Gelin, "Organization and Development of Dawson County to 1917,” M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1937, p. 105.

T he Land Speculator as Promoter of Irrigation

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leaders in the county showed little enthusiasm for the project. Not until the late summer of 1912 had enough money been raised to complete the subscription well in the bottom of a draw. The pit was fifty feet deep, al­ most twice the depth of wells at Hereford and Plainview. A centrifugal pump was borrowed and installed in the chasm, but before the well could be tested, a downpour descended upon the draw, caved in the pit, and buried the pump.6 The rain not only furnished some relief for the parched land; it also dampened any enthusiasm for putting down deep irrigation wells. Subsequently, the enthusiasm for irrigation subsided in Dawson County. The plans of some speculative concerns never materialized. For exam­ ple, at Tulia in Swisher County, local promoters J. E. Swepston, who had been observing irrigation developments in New Mexico, and Col. J. Morgan Trummel, a recent settler from Kentucky, managed to attract "an association of Indiana and Kentucky capitalists.” The group established an office in Tulia in 1912 and announced plans to develop several thou­ sand acres in the Vigo Park community by installing an irrigation pump­ ing plant on each 160-acre tract.7 In the northwestern area of the Texas High Plains, out of the "shallow-water” district, a former governor of Washington, M. E. Hay, and his brother announced plans in 1913 to de­ velop part of their 50,000-acre holdings near Texline. But both groups installed at most only a few wells, if any.8 In the "shallow-water belt,” stretching roughly from Hereford south to Lubbock and from Plainview west to Muleshoe, enthusiasm for pump irrigation ran high during the next few years. The relationship between land speculators, town promoters, and irrigation was apparent in the be­ ginning of the irrigation movement at Hereford. The first wells were put down by D. L. McDonald, a land agent, with the backing of the Hereford Commercial Club, which put up three thousand dollars to cover the costs of the first two irrigation units.9 Boosters advertised the irriga­ 6 Gelin, "Organization and Development of Dawson County to 1917,” pp. 105-106. 7 Amarillo Daily News, November 16, 1912, p. 2. 8 Ibid, April 13, 1912, p. 7. I was unable to discover physical traces or information pertaining to the success or failure of these concerns. I believe that had the plans of each materialized, they would have been published in order to attract prospectors. 9 Interview with John McDonald, oldest son of D. L. McDonald, Amarillo, August 23, 1968; Wilma Hixson, "The Influence of Water upon the Settlement of the Llano

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tion possibilities of the region. In a newspaper article which appeared in the Amarillo Daily News in 1912, a Hereford correspondent boasted that underneath Deaf Smith County there existed enough "water to float the navies of the world.” Opportunities for investors and settlers were un­ limited, he said. In conclusion the article stated that "to the poor man and capitalist there is equal opportunity.”10 By July, 1912, McDonald had formed the McDonald Farm Company, which owned 5,000 acres and four irrigation wells.11 The real-estate company of Baskin and Hester had at least one McDonald well on its land.12 And the Walker and Perkins concern began buying land that same year around Hereford. Within a year the latter company owned 14,000 acres and sixteen irrigation wells and was attempting to sell its land as irrigated farms ranging in size from 40 to 320 acres each.13 Charles E. Harding of Chicago, Illinois, who al­ ready owned thirty-five square miles of land near Hereford, in 1913 bought a section which already had an irrigation well for a little more than forty-seven dollars per acre, with the intention of further developing irrigation on that section.14 Later McDonald formed a company with S. B. Edwards, a banker, and developed a unique plan of selling shares in a 160-acre irrigation farm planted in alfalfa. Each share would represent one acre and would be sold for $250. The shareholder had to pay $10 down and $10 per month. In return he would receive a guaranteed 7 percent on his investment per year. In addition, after costs and dividends were deducted, the investor would receive his share of the proceeds from one-half the profits. The Edwards-McDonald Investment Company was to retain control of the farm for the first three years, beginning in January, 1913.15 The Portales wells had an influence on the beginnings of irrigation not only in the Hereford region, but also in other areas of the High Plains. Don H. Biggers, J. C. Burns, and possibly other members of the Lubbock Estacado,” M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1940, pp. 68-69; Bessie Patterson, A History of Deaf Smith County, p. 13. 10 Amarillo Daily News, February 25, 1912, section 2, p. 1. 11 Ibid, July 28, 1912, p. 2. 12 Interview with John McDonald. 13 Amarillo Daily News, July 9, 1912, p. 4; July 28, 1912, p. 2. 14 Ibid, November 9, 1913, p. 1. 15 Ibid, July 28, 1912, p. 2; Facts, Nothing Else, brochure, in Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas.

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Commercial Club went to Portales during a "water carnival” held there in 1910. Enthusiastic at the prospects, Biggers suggested that a central electric power plant like that at Portales be built at Lubbock to supply electricity for irrigation pumps. But the estimated cost of $75,000 dis­ couraged implementation of the idea.16 A member of the Commercial Club, however, put down the first successful irrigation well in Lubbock County. Burton O. McWhorter, a cattleman, real-estate agent, automobile dealer, and entrepreneur, completed a pit-type well in early March, 1911.17 By May there were at least two more wells in the vicinity, a small two-hundred-gallon-per-minute well owned by W. H. Bacon and a larger unit put down by Don H. Biggers, a member of the Commercial Club who had attended the "water carnival.”18

McWhorter sold his irrigation unit and the 160-acre tract surrounding it in early 1913 to a P. Van Rosenburgh of Austin, who had also bought 2,550 additional acres for irrigation development. Van Rosenburgh planned to put down three or four more wells during 1913.19 John L. Wortham and Col. J. S. "Sheb” Williams formed the Lubbock Irrigation Company and acquired a 12,000-acre tract southeast of Lubbock. In 1913 the Layne and Bowler Company drilled a large, highly publicized well on the tract.20 Speculators and town boosters of Muleshoe and Hurley in Bailey County also promoted irrigation. The Coldren Land Company in the Black Water Valley near Muleshoe, owned by three brothers from Kansas City— Clymer, Paul, and Stevens Coldren—purchased about 50,000 acres in 1911 or 1912. By 1914 the company was selling its 160-acre tracts complete with an irrigation unit on each tract for eighty dollars per acre. For one hundred dollars per acre the Coldren concern would supply a 16 Joseph F. Gordon, "The History and Development of Irrigated Cotton on the High Plains of Texas,” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Technological College, 1961, p. 86. 17 Ibid, pp. 86-87; Roy Sylvan Dunn, "B. O. McWhorter,” in Builders of the South­ west, ed. Seymour V. Connor, pp. 156-157. Dunn states that the well was put down in about 1910. Work on the well may have begun that year, but it was not completed until 1911. The local newspaper, the Lubbock Avalanche, reported that the well was Lubbock’s first successful irrigation well on March 2, 1911. See Dunn’s later article, "Agriculture Builds a City,” in A History of Lubbock, ed. Lawrence L. Graves, p. 282. 18 The Earth 8 (May 1911): 17. 19 Amarillo Daily News, February 5, 1913, p. 6. 20 Ibid.; John L. Wortham, Lubbock, October 3, 1913, to Layne and Bowler Com­ pany; reprinted in Layne Water Pacts, p. 31.

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house, outbuildings, and other improvements in addition to the pumping plant.21 Ten irrigation wells were in operation around Hurley in 1912, and most of them had probably been installed by the Coldren Land Company. There is no evidence that any of the wells were put down through sub­ scription by local townsmen, but in March, 1912, the Hurley Commercial Club held a two-day irrigation demonstration. The event was widely ad­ vertised. On the first day automobiles from Hurley met visitors arriving by train at Friona and drove them to the event. Harry M. Bainer and L. L. Johnson, agricultural demonstration agents for the Santa Fe Railroad, spoke. A tour of the irrigation wells climaxed the festivities. There could be no doubt of the objective of the local Commercial Club. L. R. Cox, the secretary, boasted that the slogan of the club was "not to boost, or to boom, but to develop.”22 In early 1913 the Fairview Land and Cattle Company near Hurley an­ nounced that the Hickox-Whyman Engineering Company would begin drilling twenty-five wells on the company’s lands. Irrigation pumping units were to be installed and forty-acre tracts with pumping plants "will be offered to settlers at appealing figures.”23 An excellent example of the relationship between irrigation promotion and land colonization or speculation is found in the Littlefield Lands Company of Lamb and Hockley counties.24 Maj. George W. Littlefield, the well-known Texas cattleman, businessman, and philanthropist, had bought a 312,000-acre block of land known as the Yellow House Divi­ sion of the X IT Ranch from the Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company in 1901 for $2 per acre.25 In 1912 Littlefield contracted with the Santa Fe Railroad to build a road from Lubbock northwest to Texico on the New Mexico border, where the line would connect with the main 21 The first irrigation well in the Muleshoe area was probably put down by Willard Burns in late 1910 (Gordon, "History and Development of Irrigated Cotton on the High Plains,” p. 88; Thelma Walker Stevens, "History of Bailey County,” M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1939, pp. 44-49, 75; Don H. Biggers, "In the Black Water Valley,” The Earth 12 [January 1915]: 1 1). 22 Amarillo Daily News, February 25, 1912, section 2, p. 8. 23 Ibid, January 26, 1913, p. 1. 24 An excellent study of the activities of this company is David B. Gracy II, Littlefield Lands: Colonization on the Texas Plains, 1912-1920. 25 Ibid, p. 7.

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Santa Fe tracks. To entice the railroad into crossing the Yellow House Ranch, Littlefield gave the Santa Fe Company a right-of-way strip of 196 acres and a bonus of $100,000. Then the major organized the Littlefield Lands Company and hired his nephew-by-marriage, Arthur P. Duggan, as the sales manager.26 Daggan informed a correspondent in November, 1912, that the com­ pany intended "development along pumping well irrigation lines.” To make the land more attractive to the prospective buyer, he emphasized that "you will have the advantage of increased values from that [irriga­ tion] source.”27 The next month Duggan began to press Littlefield into putting down a demonstration well on the lands in order to increase the value of the property and to attract more buyers. Duggan emphasized: "My experience so far strongly proves the necessity for one of the irriga­ tion wells on this land.. . . Shallow water is the thing that will make this land sell, and bring a much better price. It will mean many additional dollars for each acre to develop it here.”28 More specifically, Duggan believed that a successful well would in­ crease the value of the land on an average of at least five dollars per acre.29 Moreover, the sales manager insisted that a demonstration of the avail­ ability of irrigation water was necessary to attract settlers. Duggan wrote, "Shallow water is the one thing that is attracting the people to the South Plains now.”30 Littlefield agreed with Duggan, stating that such a well, located near the railroad so that it could be seen from passenger-car windows, "would be a winning card.”31 In February, 1913, Major Little­ field consented to put down a demonstration well.32 Littlefield recognized, however, that there was one important risk in 26 Ibid, pp. 9 - n . 27 Arthur P. Duggan, Lubbock, November 25, 1912, to Ralph E. Huston, Ralph E. Huston Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. 28 Arthur P. Duggan, Lubbock, December 12, 1912, to George W . Littlefield, Little­ field Lands Company Papers, in possession of David B. Gracy II, Lubbock. 29 Arthur P. Duggan, Lubbock, January 17, 1913, to George W . Littlefield, Littlefield Lands Company Papers; Gracy, Littlefield Lands, p. 25. 30 Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, April 24, 1913, to George W . Littlefield, Littlefield Lands Company Papers; Gracy, Littlefield Lands, p. 27. 31 George W . Littlefield, Austin, January 21, 1913, to Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield Lands Company Papers. 32 George W . Littlefield, Austin, February 8, 1913, to Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield Lands Company Papers.

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putting down a test well. What if the well failed to yield enough water for irrigation purposes? The major suggested that "we could put down the test well, if a failure keep it to ourselves. If a success then develope [sic] [the well] to enable us to sell all the land in that water belt for $20.00 to $25.00 per acre.”33 As a well was being drilled north of the new town of Littlefield, the elderly cattleman warned Duggan that it would be unwise to allow the public to see the well "unless you Know it to be a Success.”34 The first two wells which Duggan drilled were not the hoped-for suc­ cesses. Both were put down just outside the geographic confines of the "shallow-water” belt. In April the first test well, a small producer of probably less than two hundred gallons per minute, was completed. De­ termined to make the best of it, Duggan built a reservoir and started a fifteen- to twenty-acre demonstration farm.35 To make the situation more critical for the colonizers, the summer of 1913 was a dry one for that area. Land sales ceased. Having heard of the well at Lubbock which Layne and Bowler had just completed for the Lubbock Irrigation Company, Duggan suggested that the Layne and Bowler Company be given the contract to drill some wells on Littlefield land with its rotary rig.36 The pump company subsequently put down the second well, but it, too, was a small producer of about two hundred gallons per minute.37 After the second failure Duggan decided to drill southeast of town in an area already known to have "shallow water.”38 By early January, 1914, a good well producing some twelve hundred gallons per minute had been brought in.39 There had been some indication by the middle of December that the well would furnish plenty of water. Before completion Little­ field advised Duggan that "you should at once raise the price of all the 33 George W . Littlefield, Austin, February 14, 1913, to Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield Lands Company Papers. 34 George W . Littlefield, Austin, March 14, 1913, to Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield Lands Company Papers. 35 Gracy, Littlefield Lands, p. 27. 36 Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, July 22, 1913, to George W . Littlefield, Littlefield Lands Company Papers. 37 Gracy, Littlefield Lands, pp. 32-33. 38 Ibid., p. 33. See also Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, October 2, 1913, to George W . Littlefield, Littlefield Lands Company Papers. 39 Gracy, Littlefield Lands, p. 35.

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land near that well. When we can sell those Choice tracts up at $50.00 to $75.00 per Acre It will take care of the lands where good wells Can’t be got.” He added enthusiastically, "And there is no estimating hardly what lands are worth where plenty of cheap water can be had on them.”40 With one good well churning an abundance of water to the surface, Duggan began to consider the possibility of selling farms to prospectors with irrigation units installed. "In my judgment,” he stated, "it will be easier to sell the tracts where the water is developed, even at a much higher price than the others.”41 But this idea did not appeal to Major Littlefield. Duggan was allowed, however, to sink four more demonstra­ tion wells in 1914.42 Littlefield wanted wells running and crops growing by the time a new crop of prospectors arrived in the spring. And he stressed to Duggan, "That land under the big well should be put in and crops planted early so it will make a good show.”43 The most active promotion, however, and the best example of the re­ lationship between land speculation and the irrigation movement oc­ curred in the Plainview area. Sometime during 1910 a committee from the Plainview Commercial Club visited the wells at Portales, possibly dur­ ing the "water carnival” of August 28.44 Impressed with the New Mexico project, the group returned and formulated a plan to encourage irrigation in Hale County. The president of the Commercial Club, J. O. Wyckoff, led a movement to put down a pit-type "subscription” well to be financed in a way similar to those which D. L. McDonald had first dug near Here­ ford. The group entered into an agreement with John H. Slaton, a Plain­ view banker, to finance a well and installation of a pumping unit on his farm west of town. But there was a difference between this agreement and the Hereford subscription wells. Whereas McDonald did not repay the 40 George W . Littlefield, Austin, December 18, 1913, to Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield Lands Company Papers. 41 Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, January 12, 1914, to George W . Littlefield, Littlefield Lands Company Papers. 42 These wells were put down by George E. Green of Plainview, who had installed the pumping plant in the John H. Slaton well near Plainview. Two of the wells were not drilled until the summer and fall of 1914 (Gracy, Littlefield Lands, pp. 38, 4 0 ). 43 George W . Littlefield, Austin, March 14, 1914, to Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield Lands Company Papers; Gracy, Littlefield Lands, p. 38. 44 Ira C. Ihde, "Washington Ellsworth Lindsey,” New Mexico Historical Review 26 (October 1951): 183; postcard, Ben Smith, Portales, New Mexico Territory, August 8, [1910], to Arthur B. Duncan, Arthur B. Duncan Papers.

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money, Slaton agreed to pay for the well if it produced a good stream of water. The money would then be used to put down a second well under a similar agreement with some other interested party. The Slaton well, like the first wells at Hereford and Lubbock, was a pit-type well. J. N. McNaughton, a local well man, dug a rectangular pit 6 by 8 feet in diameter and 26 feet deep. Then McNaughton and George E. Green, an inventive mechanic, drilled a smaller hole into the water­ bearing formation to a depth of about 110 more feet. By January, 1911, the well was completed. Green installed a vertical centrifugal pump, simi­ lar to the early McDonald unit, and powered it with a thirty-twohorsepower naphtha-burning engine.45 Within a couple of months two more wells were in operation and sev­ eral more were being drilled. In the meantime, the Plainview Commercial Club hired a "live secretary”— a full-time executive secretary. It also began a concerted effort through its local members to "bring about a better friendship between the farmer and the business man.”46 J. E. Lancaster, the president of the Third National Bank, pleaded, "The time has come for united effort of the farmers, merchants, bankers, and all other business men, to develop this county into one of the finest irrigated districts of the world.”47 Within two years after the first well was sunk in Hale County, Zenas E. Black, secretary of the Plainview Commercial Club, who referred to the irrigation pump as the "rod of Moses,” estimated that some $5 mil­ lion in land had been purchased by buyers coming from other regions of the country. He noted that one large irrigation-development company, 45 Mary L. Cox, History of Hale County, Texas, pp. 48 -4 9 ; interview of Joseph F. Gordon with George E. Green, Plainview, March 13, 1958, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University; Gordon, "The History and Development of Irrigated Cotton on the High Plains of Texas,” pp. 85-86; B. R. Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company: A Panhandle Promotion, 1912-1956, pp. 15-16; Zenas E. Black, "The Magic of the Pump,” Farm and Ranch, September 28, 1912, p. 2; idem, "The Pump in the South Plains,” The Earth 9 (March 1 912): 13-14; idem, "The Land of the Underground Rain,” The Earth 11 (April 1914): 13-14. Black reported in "The Pump in the South Plains” that the well was completed in February, 1911, but W . A. Parker, "New Era for Plain­ view,” The Earth 8 (May 1911): 19, stated that the well was tested in January. Parker, who was the editor of the Plainview News, was probably correct. The well could have been completed in January and tested that same month, but not put into actual operation until February. 46 The Earth 8 (March 1911): 10; W . A. Parker, "New Era for Plainview,” p. 19. 47 Quoted in The Earth 8 (March 1911): 10.

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which planned to develop improved irrigated farms, would sell its lands at $100 to $250 per acre. "This,” he noted paradoxically, "in a country where 10 years ago a man refused to trade a wagon and team for 640 acres of land.”48 No doubt the news of irrigation wells tended to boost the price of land and to attract buyers and investors. The editor of The Earth noted that by the middle of 1912 "improved alfalfa farms in shal­ low water areas” were selling at prices ranging from $25 to $200 per acre.49 A number of business and professional men, many of whom were un­ doubtedly members of the Commercial Club, dug or drilled wells in Hale County. Some were absentee owners, but most appeared to live in the area. Robert Alley, president of the First National Bank of Hale Center, installed a pumping plant to water 160 of his 2,000 acres.50 E. E. Graham, a Plainview lawyer, dug one of the early wells in 1911.51 Dr. R. R. White, of the famous Scott and White clinic located at Temple, Texas, put down a well on his land. The White well reportedly was the largest on the plains by 1913, pumping an incredible three thousand gallons per minute. This well required a large No. 8 Layne pump and a 110-horsepower en­ gine.52 Dr. J. C. Anderson of Plainview put a Layne pump in his well and powered it with an electric motor connected directly to the vertical shaft.53 J. Walter Day, a dealer in lands and securities at Plainview who installed a well in the spring of 1912 near Hale Center, reasoned that "irrigated land, even in isolated irrigated regions, is selling for from $400 to $1,000 per acre. Why will not this land in a few years sell for the same prices, since it is much better in many ways.”54 By November, 1912, twenty pumping plants were operating in the Plainview area. Existence of the irrigation units was widely publicized. Local leaders sponsored "water carnival” Fourth of July holidays in 1911 48 Zenas E. Black, "The Magic of the Pump,” pp. 2-3. 49 The Earth 9 (July 1912): 2. 50 Amarillo Daily News, June 21, 1912, p. 6. 51 The Earth 9 (April 1912): 4; photograph of the pumping unit, Files of Green Machinery Company, Plainview, Texas. 52 Amarillo Daily News, August 17, 1913, p. 1; photograph in Layne Water Facts, p. 44. 53 Layne Water Facts, p. 32. 54 J. Walter Day, "Shallow Water and Pump on the Plains,” The Earth 11 (July 1914): 11; Amarillo Daily News, June 21, 1912, p. 6; J. Walter Day, Plainview, May 14, 1914, to Layne and Bowler Company, reprinted in Layne Water Facts, p. 46.

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and 1912. One booster noted that during the holiday of 1912, "a large number of wells were in action and behaved splendidly.”55 Officials of the Santa Fe Railroad also took an interest in the Plainview developments. In early 1912 C. L. Seagraves, general colonization agent for the Santa Fe, and Harry M. Bainer, its agricultural agent, toured Hale County. During the visit Seagraves gathered statistics, photographs, and data about the wells, with a view toward publicizing the irrigated areas of the High Plains nationwide.56 The next year an irrigation specialist from the Santa Fe arrived in Plainview to measure the flow of the old Slaton well. He reported that the well still flowed its original fifteen hundred gallons per minute.57 This move was intended to publicize the belief that the water could not be exhausted. The publicity given to the abundance of irrigation water by the Santa Fe, local boosters, and various speculators reached many areas of the na­ tion in the same way that stories of cheap land had attracted national in­ terest during earlier years. A man who lived in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and who had not seen the pumps, learned of the wells on the Texas High Plains from "the Santa Fee [ sic] literature.” He was interested in drilling a well on some land which he owned in Floyd County, and he inquired about the prospects for water on his property in view of the fact that "the wells around Plainview have water coming, in some case[s], to within 6 or 8 feet of the top of the ground.”58 Another man, from Claypool, In­ diana, who owned 480 acres of land in Floyd County, inquired of the local abstract agent, "What prospects are there for pumping for irrigation in the vicinity of Floydada?”59 Within the next few years, land in the vicinity of Plainview became increasingly attractive. By the end of 1912 some forty real-estate agencies were operating in Hale County, and sev­ eral of them regularly brought in excursion trains loaded with prospec­ tors.60 55 Amarillo Daily News, July 9,

1912, p. 6. 56 Ibid., January 30, 1912, p. 2. 57 Ibid., March 21, 1913, p. 6. 58 Leroy C. Brown, Council Bluffs, Iowa, June 15, 1914, to Arthur B. Duncan, Arthur B. Duncan Papers. 59 E. H. Kinsey, Claypool, Indiana, July 22, 1913, to Arthur B. Duncan, Arthur B. Duncan Papers. Duncan gave no encouragement for drilling wells in eastern Floyd County because of the depth to water. 60 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, p. 51.

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One land agent who became very important in promoting sales in the Plainview area was Milton Day Henderson. By 1912 Henderson was using stationery which had a map of the "Shallow Water Belt” on its reverse side.61 He conceived the idea of marketing developed and im­ proved irrigation farms, complete with pumping plants. He believed, as did other land agents, that an irrigation pumping plant operating in the area made land more attractive. Moreover, he thought that, with proper capital backing, complete irrigation farms would be even more attractive. But the real-estate agent did not have the capital to develop his plan.62 Henderson forged the link between his plan and reality when in 1912 he contacted a prominent eastern engineer and promoter named Fred­ erick Stark Pearson. Pearson appeared in the Plainview area that year while making a railroad reconnaissance for the Frisco Railroad. The railroad scheme failed to materialize, but Henderson apparently ap­ proached Pearson about his plan. The prominent engineer, whose ac­ complishments included the positions of chief engineer of the Metro­ politan Street Railways in New York City, consulting engineer for hydroelectric projects in Europe and North and South America, and head of his own Pearson Engineering Corporation, became attracted to the Henderson plan primarily because he was impressed by the Plainview ir­ rigation pumps.63 The Pearson Engineering Corporation, known locally as the Pearson Syndicate, began pouring money into the project in May, 1912. Hender­ son bought tracts of land from farmers and ranchers in Hale, Floyd, and Swisher counties. On October 21, 1912, the Pearson Syndicate completed the organization of the largest irrigation development enterprise on the Texas High Plains— the Texas Land and Development Company. The TL&D, as it was known locally, was an agency which, through the next few years, underwent several reorganizations. At the outset Henderson was elected president. The company was owned by a Canadian holding company which Pearson organized and which included as trustees John 61 Milton Day Henderson, Plainview, May 6, 1912, to Arthur B. Duncan, Arthur B. Duncan Papers. 62 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 17—18. Milton Day Henderson apparently had the idea of marketing developed irrigated farms before the Coldrens of Bailey County or Arthur P. Duggan of Littlefield Lands entertained the idea. 63 Ibid, pp. 21-28.

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H. Slaton, who had put down the first Plainview well, and H. D. Ran­ dolph, a prominent Plainview attorney.64 The TL&D’s capital investment amounted to over $1.5 million. Before the conclusion of 1912 the company had purchased some 61,360 acres at an average price of $25 per acre, which was above the current going price for land in that area. Most of the capital came from British associates of Pearson. The historian of the TL&D has conjectured that the muchpublicized objectives of Pearson may have been a factor in the rise of land prices.65 But the publicity about the existence of shallow water in the re­ gion may already have forced prices up. Land prices tended to rise as the existence of irrigation water became more widely known throughout the High Plains. Originally, the Pearson Syndicate planned to develop and sell all its lands within five years. The firm first offered improved farms for sale in minimum units of 40 acres. The purchaser could buy multiples of these at a corresponding decrease in cost which ranged from $250 per acre for a 40-acre farm to about $100 per acre for 160 acres or more. The price depended on the improvements which the buyer desired. On a typical unit, the TL&D built a house, barn, and outbuildings, put up a windmill for a domestic water supply, and put down an irrigation well complete with pump and engine. In addition, the company dug the primary canals leading from the well to the field, put 50 percent of the land in cultiva­ tion, seeded 20 of those acres to alfalfa, planted 2 acres in fruit trees, and fenced the entire farm. The plan, however, was flexible enough to allow for individual desires. If a prospective buyer wanted to exclude such items as outbuildings or barn, the company decreased the price for the farm. Some farmers wanted fewer acres in orchards or more land in alfalfa or fewer outbuildings or no house. For example, one buyer was given a $100 credit on his total cost in lieu of the 2 acres of orchard. In another case, the company gave the buyer $75 worth of hog fencing instead of the orchard.66 64 Ibid., pp. 21-28, 30-43; "Where Business Combines Philanthropy,” The Earth 11 (January 1914): 10. 65 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 21-22, 31-32, 38. 66 Ibid., pp. 47-48, 61; advertisement by Texas Land and Development Company, The Earth 11 (March 1 914): 15; contract for sale of land to E. J. Smith by Texas Land and Development Company, July 19, 1916, file no. 2 -3; contract for sale of land to Frank A.

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The TL&D guaranteed an irrigation well capable of watering the entire tract of land on each farm and sold its lands for one-fourth down and the balance within five years at 6 percent.67 But by 1916 the company was selling land for as little as 10 percent down with twelve years to pay the remainder at 6 percent interest. For example, E. J. Smith of Morrisville, Missouri, bought a 160-acre tract in 1916. He paid $2,300 down and was to pay the remainder in twelve annual installments of approximately $1,340 each, including 6 percent interest. Smith paid $115 per acre for the tract, which included 80 acres under cultivation. Another buyer who bought land the same year paid approximately $124 per acre for 741^ acres with similar terms.68 The TL&D advertised its lands in the most glowing terms. The "in­ exhaustible” shallow-water supply lay only thirty to sixty feet from the surface. The flat surface of the plains was inexpensive to prepare and to level for irrigation. A single well could water from 160 to 320 acres of crops. The cost for raising the water was estimated at only one dollar per acre-foot. And in order to appeal to the speculative urge, the company implied that, because of irrigation, land values would rise throughout the Plainview area.69 Originally, the Pearson Syndicate planned to install four hundred pumping plants, or approximately one well for every 160 acres.70 The first wells for the company were pit-types installed by the Green-McNaughton Drilling and Machinery Company of Plainview, which had dug the well for John H. Slaton. Milton Day Henderson signed an agreement with George E. Green on January 27,1913, to dig a minimum of ten pit wells. These wells were to be 5 feet in diameter and dug to a depth of 6 feet below the first water level. Then a hole 15 inches in diameter was to be

Kindwall by Texas Land and Development Company, May 1, 1916, file no. 3-24, Texas Land and Development Company Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University (hereafter cited as TL&D Papers). 67 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 47-48, 78; "Where Business Combines Philanthropy,” p. 10. 68 Contract for sale of land to E. J. Smith by Texas Land and Development Company, July 19, 1916, file no. 2 -3 ; contract for sale of land to Frank A. Kindwall by Texas Land and Development Company, May 1, 1916, file no. 3-24, in TL&D Papers. 69 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 46-47. 70 Ibid, p. 78.

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drilled from that level to 175 feet below the surface.71 By August, Green completed the first ten wells and began under contract to dig and drill the next twenty. The TL&D also made a contract with the Layne and Bowler Company for a number of wells to be drilled with a rotary and purchased at least one rotary rig for its own use. By November, 1913, the TL&D had installed at least seventeen pumping plants, possibly more.72 The techniques which the TL&D used to attract buyers were similar to those used by other land speculators of the High Plains. The company sent its agents to various cities in the country, primarily to the midwestern region. In 1913 a permanent office was opened in Chicago. Agents ad­ vertised the lands in local newspapers and provided railroad excursions for prospectors free of charge or at a very nominal rate. In order to em­ phasize the availability of underground water, the TL&D drilled a well within a few yards of the Santa Fe passenger station at Plainview. An ir­ rigation plant operated continuously, pumping water into a multitier con­ crete weir which produced a waterfall effect and into a playa lake, or "buffalo wallow,” only a few yards away named Lake Plainview by the company. On Sundays rowboats and small sailcraft could be seen on the pond. Prospectors stepping off excursion trains were impressed. Some ex­ pressed disbelief that such a large stream of water could continuously be pumped from the ground and voiced the belief, before scrutinizing the unit more closely, that the water was being pumped out of the lake.73 From 1914 through 1916 the TL&D conducted regular monthly ex­ cursions to its lands from various points throughout the Midwest.74 The 71 Memorandum agreement signed by Milton Day Henderson, for the Texas Land and Development Company, and George E. Green, January 27, 1913, in Files of Green Machinery Company, Plainview, Texas. 72 Amarillo Daily News, August 1, 1913, p. 4. R. S. Charles came to Plainview in 1912 as chief engineer for the Texas Land and Development Company irrigation project. From August 14, 1913, to November 1, 1915, he served as general manager of the com­ pany. He later became an official of the Layne and Bowler Company (R. S. Charles, New York City, November 14, 1949, to D. E. Nelson, in Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee; Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, p. 203). Between March and August eighty-two irrigation wells were drilled in the Plainview area. Of this number, Layne and Bowler drilled forty-eight, Green Machinery Company put down twenty-two, and the Texas Land and Development Company drilled twelve with the company’s own rigs. Most of the total number were drilled for the Texas Land and Development Company ( Amarillo Daily News, August 17, 1913, p. 1 ). 73 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 6 7-72; photograph of the well and lake, Layne Water Facts, pp. 35-36. 74 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, p. 55.

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trains probably brought in prospectors at TL&D expense for other land agents as well. For example, Dr. R. R. White, who had the largest well in the area, placed large billboards near the highways and the railroad lead­ ing into town which stated, "See Dr. White’s irrigated farms before you buy, nearer town for less money; no cash payment required, twenty years time.”75 Some local citizens, including John H. Slaton, protested that White obviously was attempting to siphon off prospectors which the TL&D had brought into Plainview at the company’s expense. Local lead­ ers were fearful that White and possibly other local speculators might antagonize the TL&D, which would then withdraw from the Plainview area.76 White replied that the company operated as a business concern, not as a philanthropic organization. To quiet fears that the competition might cause the TL&D to relinquish its interests in the area, White stated in an advertisement appearing in a local newspaper, "Speculators and development companies buy land to sell— they can’t eat it, and they do not want to keep much of it, so do not be annoyed by any hot air talk that any of us [land speculators] are going to withdraw from the Plainview country.”77 Up to July, 1916, the company had sold approximately twelve thou­ sand acres to ninety-two individuals. When it received the complete pay­ ment for the farms, the company would gross approximately $1.09 million from the sales. By May, 1915, the TL&D had drilled or dug 127 irrigation wells at a total cost of $257,410. After that date the company installed no more pumping plants.78 Not all early irrigation wells were the products of land speculators. Some ranchers and a few farmers drilled wells in order to raise forage tor their livestock or to produce certain specialized crops. As early as 1910 the Alamocitas Division of the Matador Ranch in Oldham County installed an elaborate plant and aqueduct system at a cost of over ten thousand dollars to pump water from the Canadian River for forage crops.79 Offi­ cials of the ranch interested in using wells arrived at Hereford in July, 75Plainview Evening Herald, June

15, 1915; quoted in ibid, p. 56. 76 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 56—57. 77 Plainview Evening Herald, June 29, 1915, and July 2, 1915, quoted in ibid, p. 58. 78 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 90, 124. 79Averlyne M. Hatcher, "The Water Problem of the Matador Ranch,” West Texas Historical Association Year Book 20 (October 1944): 65-66.

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1913 , "to investigate the irrigation proposition.”80 Soon thereafter Murdo McKenzie, general manager of the Matador, hired D. L. McDonald to drill its irrigation wells. In September, 1914, McDonald completed the second of two wells with which the ranch officials planned to water alfal­ fa.81 That same year the X IT Ranch had an irrigation farm in operation near Friona.82 The Fairview Land and Cattle Company near Hurley used one of its wells to raise forty acres of truck garden. The forty-acre plot was divided into two-acre fields and rented to individuals, who raised beans and tomatoes. The company built a cannery to provide a market for the truck, and for a few years cans of "Hurley Best” vegetables were freighted out of Bailey County.83 In Randall County Mrs. J. A. Mooney put down a small irrigation plant in 1912 to water a field of alfalfa.84 Two brothers in Swisher County—J. D. and J. W. Vaughn— installed a Layne pump on their farm in 1914 for the purpose of raising kafir corn and other forage crops for their livestock.85 A few farmers who could afford the cost o f irrigation plants drilled wells, but land speculators, who provided the primary impetus for the irrigation movement, installed most of the pumping units on the High Plains. One indication of the success of speculation was the rise in the price of land. During the drouth of 1910 it was reported that unimproved land in Floyd County was selling at fourteen or fifteen dollars per acre when buyers could be found.86 Later that same year, as news of the Mc­ Donald wells in Deaf Smith County spread throughout the High Plains, Harry M. Bainer, agricultural agent for the Santa Fe, reported that

80 Ranch Manager s Diary, Alamocitas Division of the Matador Ranch, July 21, 1913, Matador Land and Cattle Company Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. 81 Ibid., September 8, 1914; Amarillo Daily News, April 5, 1914, p. 6. 82 Frances Phillips, "The Development of Agriculture in the Panhandle-Plains Region of Texas to 1920,” M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1946, pp. 93-94. 83 Stevens, "History of Bailey County,” pp. 75-76. 84 Amarillo Daily News, February 18, 1912, p. 1. 85 Telephone interview by Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn, son of one of the Vaughn brothers, Tulia, Texas, November 25, 1968. 86 Arthur B. Duncan, September 28, [1910], to Mr. and Mrs. F. P. Baumgardner, Arthur B. Duncan Papers.

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although "unimproved dry-land farms” were priced at ten to twenty dollars per acre, unimproved lands in the "proven irrigation districts” were selling at prices ranging from twenty-five to fifty dollars per acre.87 In 1915 unimproved land in Hale and Deaf Smith counties was selling for thirty-five to fifty dollars per acre.88 There were indications by 1916 that the irrigation movement was com­ ing to a halt. In that year the Texas Land and Development Company, in an attempt to attract more buyers, lowered the down payment on its lands and spread the balance out over twelve years instead of the originally announced five years. The TL&D brought its last excursion trains to Plainview and discontinued its sales program that year.89 Moreover, in 1916 the Layne and Bowler Company, which had provided many of the irrigation pumps to the Texas High Plains, shipped its last load of pumps to the region until the 1930’s.90 Summary The irrigation movement on the Texas High Plains, which began dur­ ing the drouth of 1910, failed to mature under the promotion efforts of speculators and boosters. By 1920 there were only 187 irrigation wells in operation in the four counties of Bailey, Deaf Smith, Floyd, and Hale, and probably over half of these were TL&D wells. These irrigation units were used during the season of 1919 to irrigate 13,510 acres, an average of only about 72 acres per well. By 1930 the number of wells had declined to 170, and the irrigated acreage at 7,384 was little more than half of that in 1919.91 The irrigation movement was premature because it lacked a solid base of farmer support. Nevertheless, some of the early pumping units continued to operate during the 1920’s and early 1930’s. 87 Harry M. Bainer, "Tried and Not Found Wanting,” The Earth 11 (April 1914): 14. 88 Editorial Correspondence, "Shallow Water Counties of Texas,” The Earth 12 (August 1915): 7, 989 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, p. 59. 90 Determined upon an examination of shipping receipts for pumps, Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee. 91 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920: State Compendium, Texas, pp. 201-202; Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930: Irrigation of Agricultural Lands, II, pp. 219-223.

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Paul W. Gates has stated: "For better or worse the speculator, whether absentee or resident, squatter or banker, local politician or eastern senator, was present on every frontier. He affected every phase of western develop­ ment and left in all places his indelible mark.”92 One of his most indeli­ ble marks on the Texas High Plains was the irrigation pumping plant— evidence of the possibilities for future irrigation. 92 Paul W . Gates, "The Role of the Land Speculator in Western Development,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 66 (July 1942) : 333.

7. Early Failure of Pump Irrigation, 1910-1920

T h e early attempt to develop pump irrigation on the High Plains was primarily the work of land speculators who used irri­ gation as a means for raising prices on land and making it more attractive to prospectors. Included among early irrigators were not only land specu­ lators, but also a few ranchers, some local farmers, and especially out-ofstate farmers who purchased from speculators "shallow-water” lands equipped with pumping plants. The experiment in pump irrigation of semiarid lands was, on the whole, not successful. For example, about 80 percent of the irrigated farms purchased from the Texas Land and De­ velopment Company, the largest developer of irrigation in the region, were turned back to the company by the original buyers.1 Pump irrigation had emerged during a period of relatively high prices for both farm products and farmlands in the United States, and in direct response to a regional drouth. But both national and regional conditions 1 B. R. Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company: A Panhandle Promo­ tion, 1912-1956, p. 122.

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changed. The forces which halted the irrigation frontier on the Texas High Plains sprang from complex factors, most of which appeared during the period 1910-1920. One important circumstance was the involvement of the United States in World War I. The conflict in Europe had a direct effect upon market prices for American crops. The prices for farm products, especially those of wheat and livestock, rose sharply. Wheat, which had brought an average price of ninety-eight cents per bushel to farmers in 1915-1916, sold for $2.48 by June, 1917. At the same time, prices for livestock and meat products rose 52 percent beyond the 1913-1914 level.2 The increased demand for wheat and livestock encouraged extensive dry-land agriculture on the High Plains rather than intensive irrigation farming. Farmers sowed more freshly broken sodland to wheat and began stocking their ranges with additional livestock, especially with hogs, which matured faster than cattle. Pigs were fattened on kafir corn, milo, and other grain sorghums. Irrigation farmers even pastured their hogs on alfalfa meadows.3 Local boosters announced that Hale County was the "most piggish part of the United States.” In 1917 the Santa Fe Railroad began running a special weekly "hog train,” which departed from Plain­ view on Saturday morning and arrived at the Fort Worth stockyards Sunday night.4 Higher prices for these farm products might have stimulated irrigation development had it not been for two important factors. First, the period 1911-1920 was, for most years, an era of adequate rainfall. The drouth which had begun in parts of the High Plains as early as 1908 was broken in 1911. That year Plainview received over thirty inches of rainfall, with one-third of that amount falling during the usually dry month of July. In 1912 the rainfall at Plainview fell to a little under nineteen inches, but most of it occurred during the critical spring and summer months. Wide­ spread drouth emerged only in 1917. That year Lubbock received less than nine inches, Tulia received a little more than twelve inches, and about ten inches fell at Plainview.5 But even then complete crop failures 2 James H. Shideler, Farm Crisis: 1919-1923, p. 11. 3 Myrtle Middleton Powell, "Plainview Pork and Prosperity,” The Earth 15 (February 1 9 18): 17. 4 Ibid. 5 Rainfall charts in [W . G. Carter], "Study Covering Advisability of Owning Central

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were not widespread. A Plainview correspondent wrote in early 1918: "The past year was one of the dryest [ j */V] years this country [has] experi­ enced, the rainfall having been but about ten inches. In spite of this fact, however, a good wheat crop was produced and considerable feed was grown without irrigation.”6 The region had enough rainfall to produce grain sorghums for live­ stock feed, pasture for grazing, and wheat for the nation’s flour mills without irrigation. There is some evidence that the increased prices for wheat and livestock may have created a greater demand for dry-land farms. For example, during 1917 the Texas Land and Development Com­ pany reportedly sold only four irrigated farms. During the same period the company "sold over $75,000.00 worth of unimproved land for all cash.”7 Second, the war stimulated costs as well as prices and produced short­ ages of some materials, particularly metals. This circumstance both in­ creased the costs of pumps, engines, and casing and created shortages of those vital components of pump irrigation. The Layne and Bowler Com­ pany announced to its dealers in the spring of 1916: "Word comes from our managers at the Memphis shops that on account of the great advance of our raw material used in the construction of our patent products we have been forced to make a decided advance on pumps, screen, and pit, etc. Not only are we paying three or four times more for the material, but it is also very difficult to obtain material under four to six months.”8 The next year the general manager of the Texas Land and Development Com­ pany, largest of the speculative irrigation-development concerns, wrote, "Because of the unusual conditions caused by the war, we have had very serious difficulty during the past few months in getting delivery of all Office Quarters in Lubbock, Texas, 1924/’ mimeographed (Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, 1924), pages not numbered; [idem], "Plainview Economic Survey, Plainview, Texas, March 16, 1925,” mimeographed (Plainview: Southwestern Bell Telephone Com­ pany, 1925), pages not numbered, in Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. 6 C. E. Craig, general manager of the Texas Land and Development Company, Plain­ view, January 21, 1918, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, Texas Land and Develop­ ment Company Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University (hereafter cited as TL&D Papers). 7 Ibid. 8 Our Field News (Memphis, Tennessee), March 15, 1916, p. 12, Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee.

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kinds of materials and machinery needed in our work.”9 Thus, the war created shortages of pumping-plant machinery, raised the costs for such equipment, and placed a premium on dry-land agriculture on the High Plains. In addition, the advent of a period of increased rainfall encour­ aged farmers to become more interested in wheat and cattle than in irriga­ tion plants. Factors other than the war also played important roles in the failure of irrigation to expand. Farmers faced difficulties in their new experience as pump irrigators. In the first place most were probably inexperienced with irrigation, and some may even have lacked experience at farming. Early in 1918 the general manager of the TL&D complained that "a great many of the people who purchased irrigated farms in this country were people in­ experienced in irrigation . . .”10 The same official blamed the company’s zealous land agents for the problem. In a letter to an agent in Minnesota, the general manager declared, "On practically every one of the sales in which you have an interest, the purchasers were people from cities or towns who had no experience in farming, to say nothing of irrigation.”11 From information obtained about twenty-three persons who purchased irrigated land from the TL&D before 1920, it appears that none came from western irrigated regions. Twenty-two were from Minnesota, Mis­ souri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and eastern Nebraska. Only one person arrived from Texas, and he was from the more humid central part of the state. Many of these were absentee owners, but little information is avail­ able about the irrigation experience of their tenants.12 There are indications that some, perhaps most, inexperienced irriga­ tion farmers used their pumps only as a last resort. That is, crops were allowed to wither for lack of moisture before farmers started their pumps. 9 C. E. Craig, Plainview, September 5, 1917, to G. E. Lundgren, in file no. 3-15, TL&D Papers. The historian of the TL&D points out that the war affected that company in the following ways: (1 ) increased costs of irrigation equipment, (2 ) a tighter money mar­ ket, (3 ) death of the founder, Frederick Stark Pearson, who went down on the Lusitania, (4 ) curtailment of the flow of English capital into the company (Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 38, 85-86, 9 1 ). 10 C. E. Craig, Plainview, January 21, 1918, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. 11 C. E. Craig, Plainview, December 7, 1918, to John Boden, in file no. 3-1, TL&D Papers. 12 Information obtained from analysis of information on TL&D land buyers in Brun­ son, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 211-230.

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Moreover, irrigators were sometimes uncertain about the amount of water to apply. In one case the general manager of the TL&D notified a farmer that "the alfalfa which the company planted last fall had not been irri­ gated this spring and clearly shows the need of water immediately/’13 In another instance, an official of the company asked a farmer why he had not started to irrigate parched wheat during the dry spring of 1917. The farmer reportedly replied, "It may rain.”14 The Vaughn brothers, who had put down a well in Swisher County, found through costly experience that their crops suffered from lack of moisture because they began water­ ing too late and with too little water.15 There is no evidence that the TL&D or any of the other land companies which attempted to attract land buyers through the promises of irrigation screened prospectors for experienced irrigators. For example, the land agent criticized by the general manager of the TL&D for sending the company inexperienced prospectors replied in his own defense, "But as my contract with the company says nothing about what kind of people it should be I do not feel any further responsibility after the company has accepted there [sic] money.”16 TL&D farmers voiced other complaints about their irrigated farms. Some believed that their wells failed to pro­ duce enough water for their acreage. Others complained of land not being level enough to flood, of inadequate ditching, and of failure to achieve a good stand of alfalfa. Another common complaint was that irrigated fields and ditches became choked with Johnson grass, "blue weeds,” and other noxious plants which were difficult to control.17 13 Winfield Holbrook, Plainview, April 23, 1919, to E. A. Rydell, in file no. 3-18, TL&D Papers. 14 D. L. Alexander, Plainview, May 25, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-5 , TL&D Papers. 15 Telephone interview of Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn, son of one of the brothers, Tulia, Texas, November 25, 1968. 16 John Boden, Duluth, Minnesota, December 19, 1918, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-1, TL&D Papers. 17 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, p. 122. C. E. Craig, Plain­ view, February 16, 1917, to A. T. Tornholm, in file no. 2-23; Victor J. Wallin, Minne­ apolis, July 5, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-18; Victor J. Wallin, Minneapolis, July 17, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-18; legal summons of Carl B. Anderson v. Texas Land and Development Company and Third National Bank of Plainview, 1918, in file no. 3 -5 ; D. L. Alexander, Plainview, May 25, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3 -5 ; C. F. Myers, general manager of TL&D, Plainview, November 9, 1916, to Cal Byars, in file

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By 1918 some farmers were expressing their disenchantment. One owner, a graduate of Wisconsin Agricultural College who had experience in farming before purchasing a TL&D irrigated farm, complained after one year that the property had been misrepresented.18 A land agent who almost moved to an irrigation farm which he had purchased from the TL&D stated in late 1918, ". . . as things developed to a dissatisfaction on the irrigated farms it frightend [sic] me and I am now glad that I did not move on to the farm as I understand that the farmers that have tryed [sic] can not make a living on these places sold by the T L & Dev CO.” 19

Pump irrigators also encountered mechanical difficulties with engines and pumps. Most farmers had no prior experience with operating or re­ pairing internal-combustion engines, although many had probably worked with steam engines. They were still using horse-drawn farm equipment and driving to town in buggies or wagons rather than automobiles. In 1918 the general manager of the TL&D complained that only a few of those who had bought land from the company "knew anything at all about the care and operation of large engines.”20 The diary of Roland Loyd, a tenant farmer who rented an irrigation farm near Hereford, sheds light on the mechanical problems faced by irrigators. Loyd sometimes found his engine difficult to start. He re­ corded: "Worked about half of afternoon trying to start pumping out­ fit {.] gave [sic] it up as bad job and cut weeds rest of afternoon.”21 On another occasion he wrote: "Worked ’til 3 30 p .m . trying to start big engine, then [sic] gave it up and went to town.”22 Irrigators were for­ tunate if a good mechanic lived in the area. Such was the situation at Hereford where one "Bessemer” Smith, who earned the nickname beno. 3 -5 ; legal summons of E. J. Johnson v. Texas Land and Development Company, 1918, in file no. 3-27, TL&D Papers. 18 John Boden, Duluth, October 21, 1918, to C. E. Craig; Elmer G. Johnson, Minne­ apolis, February 23, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-1, TL&D Papers. 19 John Boden, Duluth, November 29, 1918, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 1-3, TL&D Papers. 20 C. E. Craig, Plainview, January 21, 1918, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. 21 Diary of Roland Loyd, June 20, 1914, in possession of Mrs. Roland Loyd, Vega, Texas; microfilm copy in Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. 22 Ibid., August 10, 1915.

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cause of his ability to repair Bessemer engines, earned his living as an engine mechanic. Smith repaired Loyd’s engine frequently during the latter’s first year as a pump irrigator. By the next year, however, the irri­ gator had learned enough about the engine to do much of his own me­ chanical work.23 A more frequent problem concerned the long, wide belt which con­ nected the engine to the pump. Because summer temperatures on the High Plains varied frequently, the big belt constantly expanded or con­ tracted. A loose belt slipped on the pulleys, causing not only excessive wear on the belt but also a marked decline in pump efficiency. A tight belt caused excessive pressure and wear upon pump-shaft bearings, which in turn created a "hot box” within the upper pump-shaft housing. Conse­ quently, irrigators had to cut segments out of the belt to shorten it when the weather turned warm and lace pieces back in to lengthen it when the temperature dropped. During the summer of 1914 Roland Loyd "cut big belt” on June 29 when the temperature climbed to 103 degrees, "put piece in big drive belt” on July 21, shortened the belt again on July 30, and "cut big belt” once again on August l .24 Because of the frequency of mechanical difficulties, a farmer did not usually leave his pumping plant unattended while operating the machine. Consequently, irrigators did not run their pumps at night, and wells watered only about half the land they were capable of irrigating had they been operated twenty-four hours per day. J. D. and J. W. Vaughn of Tulia irrigated only about fifty acres from their well. Roland Loyd failed to record the number of acres he irrigated, but the average from wells on the Texas High Plains during the season of 1919 was seventy-two.25 Loyd ran his pump for periods of as long as ten and twelve hours at a 23 Ibid, June 22, August 1, August 15, 1914; June 23, July 14, July 17, 1915. By 1916 Loyd was taking his engine apart in order to clean out carbon deposits and make other repairs (entries for March 30, May 29, June 28, July 18, 1916). 24 Ibid, June 29, July 21, July 30, August 1, 1914. By 1914 the Layne and Bowler Company had patented a "Sliding Pit Head” by which the belt could be tightened or loosened by adjusting set screws on the well casing, but I found only three of these on the Texas High Plains. D. L. McDonald ordered three "Sliding Pit Head” pumps in 1915 (shop order receipts in Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee; Layne Water Facts, p. 207). 25 Telephone interview by Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn; Fourteenth Cen­ sus of the United States, 1920: State Compendium, Texas, pp. 201-202.

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time, but never for more than a thirteen-hour period. It was a proud farmer who once confided to his diary, "Irrigating alfalfa all day—Run 13 hrs without a bobble.”26 Although mechanical problems were discouraging to irrigators, an even more serious obstacle was that no cash crops suitable to irrigation farm­ ing emerged in the region. In addition to small quantities of truck and fruit, farmers experimented with wheat, other small grains, and even sugar beets. But little market for truck existed in the area, and high winds and hail prevented much success in growing commercial fruit orchards.27 In 1911 D. L. McDonald planted fifty-five acres in sugar beets at Here­ ford. The beets were harvested but had to be sent to the United States Sugar and Land Company at Garden City, Kansas, to be refined.28 Some wheat was irrigated on TL&D lands in Hale County and by the Lubbock Irrigation Company.29 If several unfavorable factors had not been present, cotton might have emerged as an important irrigated crop during this period. It was being grown under irrigation in various parts of west and southwest Texas and producing from one to two bales per acre before the first pumps were in­ stalled on the High Plains. By 1904 at least two canal companies in the Pecos Valley— the Barstow Irrigation Company and the Grand Falls Irrigation Company—were supplying water to farmers for several dif­ ferent crops, including cotton. In addition, the plant was being irrigated from streams by canals and pumps near San Angelo, Sterling, Abilene, San Saba, Brownwood, and other towns. Near Brownwood one farmer was irrigating three hundred acres of cotton using a centrifugal pump on Pecan Bayou.30 26 Diary of Roland Loyd, June 26, 1916. In contrast, pump irrigation farmers of the region in the 1960’s ran their engines twenty-four hours per day for weeks at a time, stopping them only long enough occasionally to change the engine oil or to make repairs. 27 Charles L. Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Estacado, University of Texas Bulletin, no. 57, p. 95. 28 Amarillo Daily News, January 2, 1912, p. 3. 29 C. E. Craig, Plainview, December 29, 1917, to Frank A. Kindwall; O. L. Allen, Plainview, January 8, 1918, to C. E. Craig; C. E. Craig, Plainview, June 19, 1917, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. Editorial Correspondence, "Glimpses of Shallow Water Districts,” The Earth 11 (September 1914): 12. 30 Harvey Culbertson, "Irrigation Investigations in Western Texas,” in Annual Report of Irrigation and Drainage Investigations, 1904, United States Department of Agriculture Experiment Stations Bulletin, no. 158, pp. 324, 333-334.

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A few farmers were growing the crop on or near the High Plains be­ fore 1910. Cotton had first been planted in the region as early as 1889 when Rollie Burns introduced the crop. He planted some three acres, using seed originally purchased for milch-cow feed. Burns later recalled, "I was interested in knowing whether or not cotton would grow on the Plains.”31 It was reported in 1900 that J. T. Phillips and Henry A. White were cultivating cotton near Petersburg in Hale County and that a gin existed in Floyd County. The first gins in Crosby and Hale counties ap­ peared in 1902 and 1903, respectively.32 Cotton, however, did not become an important crop in the region until near the end of World War I. In 1907 a total of about 4,000 bales were ginned in all the High Plains counties.33 By 1910 there were only 3,620 acres planted to cotton in the counties of Crosby, Floyd, Hale, Lubbock, and Swisher. Almost 3,000 acres of that amount were in Floyd. Most of that acreage was probably in the eastern part of the county below the High Plains.34 The stimulation of high wartime prices occasioned a dra­ matic increase in cotton production by 1919. For example, Crosby County, which had ginned 4,195 bales in 1918, produced 20,639 bales in 1919. By the latter year Crosby and Lubbock were the chief cotton-producing counties of the region, with approximately 35,000 acres planted to the crop in each county. That same year Floyd grew about 27,000 acres of the lint-bearing plant.35 There are a number of reasons for the retardation of cotton culture on the High Plains. First, much of the region north of Hale County was high in elevation and unsuitable for growing cotton, which requires warm 31 W . C. Holden, Rollie Burns or An Account of the Ranching Industry on the South Plains, pp. 97-98; Joseph F. Gordon, "The History and Development of Irrigated Cotton on the High Plains of Texas,” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Technological College, 1961, pp. 97-98. 32 Mary L. Cox, History of Hale County, Texas, pp. 50-51; Nellie W itt Spikes and Temple Ann Ellis, Through the Years: A History of Crosby County, Texas, p. 81. 33 Cox, History of Hale County, Texas, p. 51. This total included Briscoe County, of which the eastern half is located below the Cap Rock. Thus, a large percentage of this total may have included cotton produced below the High Plains. 34 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910: Agriculture, VII, 678-700. 35 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920: State Compendium, Texas, pp. 160-181; Spikes and Ellis, Through the Years, p. 81.

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summer nights.36 Second, many of the plainsmen were natives of the Mid­ west accustomed to growing grain and cattle rather than cotton.37 Third, there is some evidence that some of those who migrated to the region from the cotton belt of East Texas and the lower South came to the region in order to escape the strenuous labor of cotton culture. The local his­ torians of Crosby County have stated: "People came to the Plains, a lot of them, to get rid of the curse of cotton in the East. It had been a backbreaker and purse-flattener all over the East, then why should people have to plant it on the Plains.”38 Finally, another factor may have been racism. It was reported that, when cotton was planted in Lubbock County in 1900 by one S. S. Rush, his white neighbors forced him to plow his crop under because they believed that "the cotton industry would bring in the negro, and at that time the population of the county was one hundred per cent American born white people who were determined to keep it so.”39 Whatever the explanation, very little cotton was being planted in the region when irrigation was first introduced at the beginning of the dec­ ade. By 1919, when cotton production began to rise significantly, irriga­ tion was declining. Moreover, in the eastern part of Floyd and Crosby counties, where most of the cotton was being produced, the ground-water level was too deep to be used economically for irrigation during this period.40 Consequently, the crop was produced under irrigation south of Hale County in only a few instances. And in those cases speculative con­ cerns planted the crop only for demonstration purposes. For example, the Littlefield Lands Company planted 5 acres of irrigated cotton in 1914.41 Near Lubbock, John P. Wortham and Colonel J. S. "Sheb” Wil36 The editor of The Earth, in reporting on a journey of some six hundred miles through the Texas High Plains, failed to mention any cultivation of cotton north of Hale County. Besides Hale, the only other county in which cotton fields were observed was Lubbock (Editorial Correspondence, "Glimpses of Shallow Water Districts," The Earth 11 [September 1914]: 1 1 -1 4 ). 37 Cox, History of Hale County, Texas, p. 52. 38 Spikes and Ellis, Through the Years, p. 80. 39 Cox, History of Hale County, Texas, p. 52. Although I have found no supporting evidence, another possible explanation for little cotton being grown in the region may have been a shortage of labor, especially Negro labor, to work the crop. 40 See chapter 6. 41 David B. Gracy II, Littlefield Lands: Colonization on the Texas Plains, 1912-1920, pp. 37-38; Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, March 23, 1914, to George W . Littlefield;

Map of the "Shallow Water Belt" on back of stationery used by Milton Day Henderson. Contained in a letter from Henderson to Arthur B. Duncan, May 6, 1912, Plainview. (Courtesy of Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University)

Land prospectors from Indiana and Ohio brought to the Texas High Plains by D. McDonald, ca. 1906. (Courtesy of John McDonald, Amarillo)

First irrigation well on the Texas High Plains completed in Frio Draw near Hereford McDonald ( standing at righ t), 1910. (Courtesy of John McDonald, Amarillo)

The John H. Slaton well near Plainview with interested citizens soon rfte r com plete in 1911. George E. Green is no. 11. J. O. Wyckoff, president of the Plainview Commerc: Club, is the man in the derby who appears to be sitting on the discharge pipe in froi (Courtesy of Green Machinery Company, Plainview)

The B. Earnhart well near Lubbock, 1911. George E. Green is at the left, Don Biggers on the right. (Courtesy of Green Machinery Company, Plainview)

limping plant installed on farm of E. Graham near Plainview by George E. Green standing second from right) in 1911. The pump is a vertical centrifugal. (Courtesy of jreen Machinery Company, Plainview)

An irrigation unit installed by D. L. McDonald on his farm in 1915. Note Bessemer oil burning engine with air tanks. (Courtesy of John McDonald, Amarillo)

Irrigated alfalfa crop near Hereford, ca. 1917 or 1918. From W here Crops N ever Fa by D. L. McDonald. (Courtesy of John McDonald, Amarillo)

Irrigated kafir corn on farm of D. L. McDonald near Hereford, ca. 1916 or 1917. Notice that the wall of the irrigation ditch has been spaded out to run water down the rows. From W here Crops N ever Fail by D. L. McDonald. (Courtesy of John McDonald, Amarillo)

Irrigated kafir corn being turned into ensilage on farm of D. L. McDonald north of Here­ ford, ca. 1913 or 1914. Yield was reported to be twelve tons per acre. From W here Crops N ever Fail by D. L. McDonald. (Courtesy of John McDonald, Amarillo)

The Lubbock Irrigation Company well near Lubbock, 1913( Courtesy of Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University)

(Left) A Layne 'pit-less” pump. From Layne Water Facts.

Pumping plant of S. B. Edwards and D. L. McDonald near Hereford, ca. 1914. Notice tht belt from engine to pump. From Layne W ater Facts. (Courtesy of John McDonald Amarillo)

Remains of the Vaughn pumping plant south of Tulia in 1968. Installed in 1914. Note derrick and remains of engine house. (Photo by author)

Unit installed by George E. Green, during the Dust Bowl Era, ca. 1934. Place unknown. Note that unit is belt driven by tractor. (Courtesy of Green Ma­ chinery Company, Plainview)

D. L. McDonald ( on right) with Super Superior, one of his prize bulls, ca. 1936. (Courtesy of John McDonald, Amarillo)

Artemus "Artie” Baker, banker and entrepreneur of Lockney, whose First National Company financed ir­ rigation pumping plants beginning in 1934. (Courtesy of O. C. Bailey, Lockney)

Frederick Stark Pearson of the Texas Land and Development Company. (Courtesy of Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University)

An early gear-head built by George E. Green and powered by a Twin City engine, ca. 1917 Possibly the same unit installed by Green on the Texas Land and Development Company farm of Octave Poissant near Plainview. (Courtesy of Green Machinery Company Plainview)

[irrigating grain sorghum from open ditch by means of siphon tubes on the contemporary ffigh Plains. (Photo by Donald Skaggs, courtesy of Carl H. Gelin, Layne Pumps, Inc., of Lubbock, The Singer Corporation)

\ modern pumping unit with gear-head on the Texas High Plains. (Courtesy of Carl H. Selin, Layne Pumps, Inc., of Lubbock, The Singer Corporation)

A modern electric-powered pump on the Texas High Plains. (Courtesy of Carl H. Gelin, Layne Pumps, Inc., of Lubbock, The Singer Corporation)

A modern sprinkler system. (Photo by Frogge Studio, courtesy of Carl H. Gelin, Lay Pumps, Inc., of Lubbock, The Singer Corporation)

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liams, owners of the Lubbock Irrigation Company, announced in Febru­ ary, 1913, that they planned to plant most of their irrigated tract in the fibrous plant. But by the summer of the next year, the Lubbock Irrigation Company had only 35 of 450 irrigated acres planted in cotton.42 Thus, although the Texas High Plains would later become one of the major cotton-producing areas of the nation, the crop was of little importance to irrigators in the region during this decade. The crop which most interested irrigation farmers, however, was al­ falfa, a favorite forage and cash crop of irrigators in the arid West. It was not new to the Panhandle-High Plains region. Even before the advent of pump irrigation some alfalfa was being raised for livestock feed in the valleys of various streams where shallow subsurface water could be tapped by the long roots of the plant. One stock farmer in Randall County began growing alfalfa in 1896. By 1910 the legume was found in Hale, Hans­ ford, Dallam, Potter, Deaf Smith, Randall, Floyd, and possibly other counties. A farmer in Hansford County was even raising alfalfa seed and marketing it in Kansas as well as Texas before 1910.43 On the eve of developing the first irrigation wells, Frederick W. Mally of the Texas Department of Agriculture wrote, "First class alfalfa lands have such high valuations placed upon them that I am surprised that the land own­ ers, especially of Hale and adjoining counties, have not put in pumping plants of sufficient capacity to place thousands of acres of their level prairie lands under irrigation, and plant them to alfalfa.”44 John H. Slaton, who had put down the first irrigation well in Hale County, planted alfalfa on his land in 1911. During that season he reportedly harvested some five tons to the acre and sold his hay for an average price of fifteen dollars per ton.45 Growing alfalfa was especially attractive to prospectors. TL&D agents informed prospects that the price for the farm included a good stand of Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, May 8, 1914, to George W . Littlefield, Littlefield Lands Company Papers, in possession of David B. Gracy II, Lubbock. 42 Amarillo Daily News, February 5, 1913, p. 6; Editorial Correspondence, "Glimpses of Shallow Water Districts,” p. 12. 43 Frederick W . Mally, The Panhandle and Llano Estacado of Texas, Texas Depart­ ment of Agriculture Bulletin, no. 12, pp. 11-20. 44 Ibid., p. 172. 45 Amarillo Daily News, January 2, 1912, p. 3.

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alfalfa. Some agents went so far as to claim that profits from the alfalfa crop alone would pay the principal and the interest on the farm mort­ gage.46 In spite of the boasts of land agents, good local markets for hay usually existed only during exceptionally dry years when grain sorghums, the pre­ dominant forage crops of the region, failed. For most of the period from 1910 to 1920, rainfall was sufficient for the production of grain sor­ ghums. Consequently, by 1915 the local market for hay was so weak that irrigation farmers who had first planted alfalfa as a cash crop were pastur­ ing hogs and cattle on hay meadows.47 Another drawback to the culture of alfalfa on the High Plains was the unstable weather. Summer rains tended to damage a freshly cut crop,48 and a good stand on newly broken sodland was sometimes difficult to achieve. Native grass had a tendency to spring up and choke out the alfalfa.49 For this reason the Texas Land and Development Company encountered much difficulty in getting a good stand on its lands at first. The general manager of the company admitted that the problem existed. In 1919 he observed: "The trouble with these fields seems to be that the prairie grass gets started before the alfalfa takes a vigorous growth. We have been sufferers from this same cause on farms operated by the com­ pany, and each year we have been obliged to plow out alfalfa that has gone back to sod. The cause of this is not known.”50 One disappointed absentee owner wrote, "It was on the strength of the irrigation and the alfalfa that I bought the land and . . . the whole proposition has fallen down.”51 46 Octave Poissant, Minneapolis, February 24, 1919, to TL&D; Victor J. Wallin, Min­ neapolis, April 2, 1919, to Winfield Holbrook, in file no. 102, TL&D Papers. 47 Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Estacado, p. 96. 48 Ibid. 49 Elmer G. Johnson, Minneapolis, October 3, 1916, to C. F. Myers, in file no. 3-18; Elmer G. Johnson, Minneapolis, January 5, 1917, to TL&D, in file no. 3-1 8 ; Octave Poissant, Minneapolis, February 24, 1919, to TL&D, in file no. 102; Winfield Holbrook, Plainview, March 1, 1919, to Octave Poissant, in file no. 102; Victor J. Wallin, Minne­ apolis, April 2, 1919, to Winfield Holbrook, in file no. 102; E. Dowden, Plainview, September 23, 1914, to A. T. Tornholm, in file no. 3-23, TL&D Papers. 50 Winfield Holbrook, Plainview, March 4, 1919, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. 51 Octave Poissant, Minneapolis, March 15, 1919, to TL&D, in file no. 102, TL&D Papers.

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The most reliable irrigated crops appeared to be forage crops combined with stock farming. Those farmers who seemed to enjoy the most success with irrigation were those who fed their crops to their livestock. D. L. McDonald referred to this practice as "Irrigation Live Stock Farming,” and on one occasion stated, "I have never marketed a bushel of grain other than wheat, except on the hoof and I never expect to Try it, if you want to succeed as a Panhandle farmer.”52 He continued to irrigate his 640-acre farm through the war and the 1920’s, using three irrigation wells, primarily for grain sorghums, alfalfa, and oats, which he fed to his cattle and hogs.53 The Vaughn brothers near Tulia irrigated wheat and kafir corn from their well during their first season as irrigation farmers, but afterward they confined themselves to irrigating only kafir corn and other grain sorghums.54 Roland Loyd of Hereford raised a variety of crops under irrigation, including garden vegetables and fruit, but, like his neighbor D. L. McDonald, he concentrated on raising forage crops, such as milo maize, kafir corn, alfalfa, oats, and barley.55 And J. R. Robinson, who installed an irrigation plant on his 120-acre stock farm in Deaf Smith County in 1912, was reportedly free of debt in 1917.56 Another factor which retarded the early development of irrigation was the cost for installation of the pumping plant. Pit-type units, such as the first plant installed by McDonald at Hereford and early plants installed by George E. Green at Plainview, were the cheapest, but they were less trouble-free and were practical only where the depth to water was thirty feet or less. The plant installed by Green for John H. Slaton consisted of a vertical centrifugal pump powered by a thirty-two-horsepower engine. Total cost for digging the well and completely installing pump and engine was $2,350.57 52 D. L. McDonald, Where Crops Never Fail, sales-promotion pamphlet (Hereford, Texas, ca. 1917 or 1918), pages not numbered, Files of McDonald Drilling Company, Amarillo, Texas; Amarillo Globe, May 11, 1925, p. 8. 53 Amarillo Globe, May 11, 1925, p. 8. 54 Interview of Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn, 55 Diary of Roland Loyd, various entries for 1914, 1915, and 1916. 56 McDonald, Where Crops Never Fail. 57 The cost for the installation was given as $1,500 in Zenas E. Black, "The Pump in the South Plains,” The Earth 9 (March 1912): 13. But in Baker, Geology and Under­ ground Waters of the Northern Llano Estacado, p. 91, the cost for the Slaton well is given as $2,350. Black possibly gave only the cost of the engine and pump, but the figure given by Baker probably includes the cost for the well.

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As the Layne and Bowler "pit-less” pump, which was more troublefree and more efficient than the pit type, came into general use, the cost, depending upon the depth of the well and the size of the engine, also increased. Cost for drilling and casing the well varied. Layne and Bowler Company drillers were the most expensive and charged $5.25 per foot for drilling and casing a well. A local driller at Plainview charged $4.00 per foot for a twenty-six-inch well capable of handling a Layne and Bowler pump.58 Thus, the cost for a well 120 feet deep was approximately $480 to $630.59 The price of a Layne and Bowler pump was approximately $500.60 Incidental items, including lumber and construction of the derrick and the pump-engine house, a concrete foundation for the engine, drayage, freight, an oil-storage tank, an air compressor, air tanks, and other small items, might cost an additional $1,000 or more.61 The most expensive item for the plant was the engine, which ranged from twenty-five to about sixty horsepower. The less expensive and less powerful engines, such as the Charter, Van Sevrein, or Herr, ranged from $1,000 to about $1,600; but more powerful machines, such as the Primm and the Bessemer, cost from $1,800 to $2,500 or more. Although the Bessemer was more expensive, it was designed to run on cheaper oil than the smaller engines.62 Thus, wells could be installed for approximately 58 Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, July 22, 1913, to George W . Littlefield, in Littlefield Lands Company Papers; D. L. Alexander, Plainview, March 9, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. 59 The cost might be more, however, if the irrigator insisted, as many did, on drilling a smaller hole at the bottom of the well deeper into the water-bearing formation. For example, on one TL&D well, the driller bored a twenty-six-inch well 100 feet deep, then drilled a sixteen-inch hole another 142 feet, adding $347 to the cost for the well. The pump was usually set 20 to 30 feet below the water level in order to accommodate the resulting "draw-down,” the drop in water level which was caused by operating the pump (D. L. Alexander, Plainview, March 9, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers). 60 J. E. Harmon, Columbus, Ohio, December 28, 1943, to A. O. Fabrin, Files of Layne and Bowler Company, Memphis, Tennessee. J. W . Lough of Scott County, Kansas, re­ ported in 1911 that his Layne and Bowler pump had cost $550 (F. D. Coburn, "Irriga­ tion by Pumping in Western Kansas,” in Eighteenth Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, X X III, 6 8 -6 9 ). 61 This is a conservative estimate. The total cost for accessories installed on a TL&D demonstration farm in 1920 was about $1,300. This price may have reflected the inflated wartime cost for machinery (Winfield Holbrook to Henry S. Fleming, Plainview, Oc­ tober 19, 1920, in file no. 41-4 2 -4 3 , TL&D Papers). 62 The price for a sixty- or seventy-horsepower Bessemer engine delivered to the Little­ field Lands Company in 1914 was $2,650. Cost of the engine may have varied with the

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$4,000. Some professional drillers, such as D. L. McDonald and the Layne and Bowler Company, drilled wells and installed irrigation plants on a turn-key basis, guaranteeing sufficient water. Such turn-key jobs usually amounted to about $6,000.63 The cost for irrigating with pumping plants varied with the costs for fuel, horsepower of the engine, repairs, depreciation, and interest on the investment. Low-grade oil used in Bessemer engines cost only about four and one-half cents per gallon.64 Some contemporary state agricultural spe­ cialists estimated at the time that the cost per acre-foot of water delivered by the pumps, including depreciation, interest on the investment, costs for fuel and lubricating oils, repairs, and labor, varied from $5.00 to $6.25 per acre-foot. Alfalfa required about two and one-half acre-feet of water.65 The cost for irrigating alfalfa, therefore, ranged from approxi­ mately $12.50 to $15.60 per acre. On an alfalfa farm of eighty acres, the cost of irrigation figured at $12.50 per acre-foot would be $1,000. If the field yielded three tons per acre and brought $15 per ton, the gross returns would be $3,600. After deducting $1,000 for the cost of irrigation and $600 for harvesting, the remainder would be $2,000. But the farmer would have to deduct taxes and interest on his land in addition to depreci­ ation on his farm equipment and the cost of seed and labor in planting the crop. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that the weather on the High Plains tended to modify the theoretical farm picture. Alfalfa might be dealer. For example, in contrast to the figure above, D. L. McDonald sold a seventy-horse­ power Bessemer to the Double U Company at Post City, Texas, for $1,720 (Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, January 8, 1914, to George W . Littlefield, in Littlefield Lands Com­ pany Papers; bill from D. L. McDonald and Company, Hereford, May 29, 1913, to Double U Company, in file no. GC 1246, Double U Company Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University; J. B. Marcellus, "Selection and Installation of a Pumping Plant for Irrigation," in Twenty-first Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, X X V I, 120). Cost for an oil engine was about $30 per horsepower. Thus, cost for a sixty-horsepower engine suitable for a deeper well should have been about $1,800 plus the freight charges (Coburn, "Irrigation by Pumping in Western Kansas,” p. 6 8 ). 63 The Layne and Bowler Company charged the Vaughn brothers of Tulia $6,000 for a turn-key job in 1914. McDonald’s contract with the Double U Company of Post City was for $6,500 (telephone interview of Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn; bill submitted by D. L. McDonald and Company, Hereford, May 29, 1913, to Double U Company, in file no. GC 1246, Double U Company Papers). 64 Diary of Roland Loyd, memoranda, 1914. 65 Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Estacado, p. 92; W . L. Rockwell, The Water Resources of Texas and Their Utilization, Texas Department of Agriculture Bulletin, no. 43, p. 34.

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very profitable during the driest years, when rains did not damage the crop and when shortages of cattle feed boosted the price for forage crops. However, unlike the irrigation farmer of the dry, arid West, who could control the amount of water for his crops, the semiarid farmer had no such mastery over his supply of moisture. He might receive a four-inch downpour which would damage his alfalfa, only to be followed by two months of drouth. Finally, the price of alfalfa fluctuated greatly in the region. Thus, irrigated alfalfa was a risky cash crop on the Texas High Plains. Still another cause for the failure of irrigation to develop in the region was the lack of adequate credit facilities for farmers to install their own irrigation systems. Although some land companies, such as the Texas Land and Development Company and the Coldren Land Company, sold developed irrigated farms on credit, the prospector had to pay $100 an acre or more for a 160-acre unit. Before 1916 the buyer had to pay for the land in five years. In that year, however, the TL&D liberalized its credit terms by allowing payments to be made over a twelve-year period and by not requiring the first payment until the end of the second year of occupancy. In a typical contract for a 160-acre farm selling for $18,400 ($115 per acre), a buyer made a down payment of $2,300. His annual payments on the principal were $1,349 for the first installment and $1,341 for the remaining eleven payments. In addition, the 6 percent interest rate charged by the company boosted annual payments several hundred dollars more. The first installment payment, which would in­ clude two years’ interest, would be over $3,200. Subsequent payments would of course be lower, but would remain about $2,000 or more for the first few years.66 Thus, the farmer was handicapped by high principal and interest payments on his irrigated farm. Because of the circumstances of the decade, as well as the postwar agricultural depression, irrigators found it difficult to meet their payments on such high-priced land. Conse­ quently, about 80 percent of those who bought TL&D farms were unable to pay for them.67 66 Contract between E. J. Smith and TL&D, July 19, 1916, in file no. 2-3, TL&D Papers. 67 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, pp. 122, 211-230. Among those who purchased land from the TL&D, Brunson lists twenty-three who bought farms before 1920. Of these twenty-three, twelve lost their land before 1920, three had their

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If, on the other hand, credit for putting down irrigation wells had been available to farmers who bought unimproved lands, the total cost for the irrigation farm would have been significantly lower. If a farmer had bought 160 acres for $25 per acre, the price paid by the TL&D for its lands, the cost for the unimproved farm would have been $4,000. Then, if he could have borrowed money to install an irrigation plant at $4,500, to erect a house and outbuildings for $1,000, and to build fences and break his land for another $1,000, his total cost for land, irrigation plant, and improvements would have amounted to $10,500, or about $65 per acre, almost one-half less than an irrigated farm marketed by the TL&D. For the average farmer of the Texas High Plains, already in debt for his land, his improvements, or both, credit facilities for installing an irrigation plant simply were not available. The chattel mortgage records in Deaf Smith, Hale, Floyd, Bailey, and Swisher counties fail to reveal any long-term credit for pumping units during this period. A few farmers who put down wells on their lands could afford to pay cash for their plants. The Vaughn brothers near Tulia, who were reported by 1909 to be worth more than sixty thousand dollars, installed a plant on their farm in 1914.68 But most farmers were probably like Charles E. Cooper of Lafayette, Indiana, who used all his capital to purchase a plot from the Littlefield Lands Company and borrowed money on his land to make $1,000 worth of improvements. Cooper then attempted, apparently with­ out success, to borrow money from George W. Littlefield in order to put down an irrigation well.69 Another important factor which helps to explain the failure of irriga­ tion is found in the origin of the movement on the Texas High Plains. The irrigation movement in the West during the late 1880’s and early 1890's had been led by social reformers, such as William E. Smythe, who were primarily interested in furnishing a means to enable groups of settlers to farm and live in arid regions.70 In contrast, the move toward contracts canceled due to nonpayment or forfeiture of earnest money, and all but one of the remainder eventually reconveyed their farms to the TL&D. 68 Farm and Ranch, July 10, 1909, p. 2; telephone interview by Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn, November 25, 1968. 69 Arthur P. Duggan, Littlefield, December 9, 1914, to George W . Littlefield, in Lit­ tlefield Lands Company Papers. 70 See Chapter 2.

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irrigation on the Texas High Plains was led by speculators who were primarily interested in enhancing the value of their land. Although there is no evidence of intent to defraud prospectors, there are indications that most land companies were more interested in demonstrating the avail­ ability of water for irrigation purposes than in proving that farmers could make a profit through pump-irrigation farming.71 Summary The irrigation frontier failed to expand during the decade of its beginnings on the Texas High Plains. World War I increased prices for pump machinery, wheat, and meat products. Moreover, the inexperi­ ence of farmers in irrigation techniques and in using internal-combustion engines hindered the early acceptance of pump irrigation. The end of the drouth which had initially stimulated the movement was probably im­ portant in diverting local interest away from irrigation. In addition, the failure to adopt cash crops which were suitable to the uncertain High Plains climate and which could assure farmers of stable high profits to offset fixed costs for irrigation played an important role. Finally, the initial cost to install a pumping plant was beyond the resources of most farmers, and, even more important, no adequate credit facilities to finance such improvements were available. All of these factors serve to emphasize that economic conditions were unfavorable for pump irrigation at the time. It is significant that farmers of the region did not furnish the leadership for the movement, nor were they important in promoting irrigation. Instead, it was the speculator who furnished the short-lived momentum for the movement and who attempt­ ed to superimpose this type of economy on a region not yet prepared for it. Like a surgically transplanted biological organ which had been too hastily engrafted, irrigation was "rejected” by the Texas High Plains. 71 See Chapter 6.

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ational and local interest in irrigation declined in the 1920’s as prices for farm products plunged downward. Between June and December of 1920, the average price for wheat dropped from $2.58 to $1.43 per bushel. Between July and December, the price for cotton fell from thirty-seven cents to fourteen cents per pound. In terms of purchas­ ing power the American farmer by the spring of 1921 could purchase only 63 percent of the industrial goods which he had been capable of buying in prewar America with the same crop production. Farm prices declined to their prewar levels while prices for other goods, although falling some­ what in the postwar recession, remained above prewar levels. The valua­ tion of farms also declined. In 1921 the value of farm land stood at 57 percent above the pre-World War I level, but by 1928 values had dropped to only 17 percent above the prewar price.1 1 Gilbert C. Fite, “The Farmers’ Dilemma, 1919-1929/' Change and Continuity in Twentieth Century America, the 1920’s, ed. John Braeman, p. 69; Murray R. Benedict, Farm Policies of the United States, 1790-1950: A Study of Their Origins and Development, p. 172; George Soule, Prosperity Decade, from War to Depression: 1917-1929, vol. VIII of The Economic History of the United States, ed. Henry David et al., pp. 229-230.

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Overproduction of farm products stimulated criticism of and opposi­ tion to additional production through expanding irrigated acreage in the West. Farm spokesmen in the Middle West expressed opposition to the expansion of irrigation projects by the Reclamation Service and the initia­ tion of new projects by Congress. By 1927 the Department of Agriculture under the Kansan William M. Jardine directly opposed new irrigation projects. Moreover, in western Canada, too, an irrigation movement which had originated before the First World War came to a halt by the middle 1920’s because of the agricultural depression. A further factor in the decline of interest in irrigation was that many settlers on reclamation projects were unable to meet payments on land or water rights.2 The agricultural depression also discouraged further pump irrigation projects on the Texas High Plains. One absentee landlord who had pur­ chased a Texas Land and Development Company irrigated farm received a net income of $196.53 from his seventy-four-acre tract, after taxes and expenses, for the crop year of 1924.3 The subsequent lack of interest caused D. L. McDonald, who had drilled many of the early wells in the region, to stop putting down irrigation wells in 1923 and to begin install­ ing pumping units for municipalities, railroads, and oil companies.4 The general manager of the Texas Land and Development Company wrote in late 1925: "Since about 1920 farming has not been profitable here. It seems that when we have made a crop that prices have been low. This condition prevailed in the falls of 1920, 1921, and this year. We have one of the best feed crops we have ever grown here and the price of threshed maize and kafir is only 40^ to 50jz! per bushel. Our cotton is also of poor grade this year and the price low. Since 1920 we have only 2 Paul C. Conkin, "The Vision of Elwood Mead,” Agricultural History 34 (April I9 6 0 ): 9 3-94; Donald C. Swain, Federal Conservation Policy, 1921-1933, pp. 83-86; Lawrence B. Lee, "Dominion Ditches and British Columbia Canals: A History of the Western Canada Irrigation Association,” Journal of the West 7 (January 1968): 37-38. Other segments of the population, including some economists, were also opposed to further expansion of federal irrigation projects by 1929 (Roy E. Huffman, Irrigation Development and Public Water Policy, pp. 2 9 2 -2 9 4 ). 3 Statement of account of Frank A. and A. L. Kindwall from December 1, 1923, to April 1, 1925, in file no. 3-24, Texas Land and Development Company Papers, Southwest Col­ lection, Texas Tech University (hereafter cited as TL&D Papers). 4 Interview with John McDonald, oldest son of D. L. McDonald, Amarillo, August 23, 1968. The McDonald Drilling Company, owned by John and Bill McDonald, still exists and has offices in Amarillo.

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sold two irrigated farms and none this year.”5 By 1929 conditions had not improved. That year the same correspondent stated: "It is the general opinion of real estate men that the price of land is now the lowest it has been since 1920. It is only occasionally that we are able to make a sale and then at very low prices.”6 In spite of the depression, sufficient rainfall through most of the decade encouraged immigration into the region.7 Increased immigration was reflected in the platting of more large ranches into farms. The remainder of the Yellow House Ranch of now-deceased George W. Littlefield was put on the market at $25 per acre with liberal credit terms of fifteen years and interest at 6 percent. Land companies advertised the advantages of growing cotton in an area free from boll weevils and Johnson grass among Central and East Texas farmers who had an abundance of both pests. Moreover, land agents were "prepared at all times to take you out to inspect this land in good closed cars.”8 In Lamb County, W. E. Halsell placed his "Sod House pasture of 70,000 acres on the market.” Within nine months, over fifty thousand acres were reportedly sold to farmers, and the town of Amherst was founded.9 Population increased greatly throughout the region during the decade of the 1920’s. In 1920 Deaf Smith County reported 3,747 persons. Hale County had 10,104; Floyd County boasted 9,758; Lubbock County had 11,096; and Swisher County reported 4,388. By 1930, Lubbock County boasted a population of 39,104; Deaf Smith had 5,979; Floyd numbered 12,409; Hale had 20,189; and Swisher County reported 7,343.10 5 Winfield Holbrook, Plainview, December 3, 1925, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. 6 Winfield Holbrook, Plainview, December 10, 1929, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. 7 Ernest Charles Ratliff, "A Survey, Analytical and Historical, of Irrigation in Hale County, Texas,” M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1938, p. 51. The Lubbock area was an exception to this generali2ation. The years of 1921 and 1924 were also years of low precipitation during this period ([W . G. Carter], "Study Covering Advisability of Owning Central Office Quarters in Lubbock, Texas, 1924,” mimeographed [South­ western Bell Telephone Company, 1924}, in Southwest Collection, Texas Tech Uni­ versity). 8 Advertisement posters of Yellow House Land Company, ca. 1923; advertisement in Denton (Texas) Herald, June 22, 1923, p. 8, in Yellow House Land Company Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. 9 A. M. Hove, "The Transformation of Texas’ South Plains,” The Earth 20 (July 1924): 18,20. 10 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the

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Occasionally local groups aroused interest in the possibilities of irriga­ tion. The Texas Board of Water Engineers surveyed the Canadian River for possible dam sites in 1924 for the purpose of flood control as well as irrigation. Civic leaders of Amarillo were enthusiastic at the prospect. An Amarillo newspaper heralded the survey by stating, "When the Pan­ handle blossoms as the rose may not be far off.”11 At the conclusion of a preliminary survey, a member of the board said that there were several possible sites for dams in the valley of the Canadian near Amarillo.12 But no dam would be built on the river in Texas until after the middle of the century, and even then the resulting reservoir would be used for munici­ pal water supplies and recreation rather than for irrigation. During the dry year of 1927, a group of businessmen and farmers from Hereford went to eastern New Mexico to examine the small irrigated truck farms dominating the Portales Valley. Influenced by irrigation in New Mexico, as in the earlier period, the group attempted to promote truck farming in Deaf Smith County by publicizing the Portales farms.13 In another effort to boost irrigation, the Plainview Board of City Development began in 1930 to advertise the existence of the old Texas Land and Development Company irrigation wells. Winfield Holbrook, general manager of the TL&D, was one of the leaders. A committee of the board reported that 4,600 acres in Hale, Floyd, and Swisher counties were currently being irrigated and that a complete pumping plant could be installed for $5,500.14 As the pale shadow of the Great Depression stretched across the nation in the early 1930’s, the economic problems of the High Plains farmer became even more distressing. Crop and land prices plunged farther downward. In the fall of 1931 Winfield Holbrook of the TL&D noted, "Inquiries for land has [sic] ceased on account of the low price of farm products and the amount of distressed land on the market.” Later he United States, 1920: State Compendium, Texas, pp. 13-16; Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930: Population, I, 1058-1062. 11 Amarillo Daily News, January 17, 1924, p. 1. 12 Ibid., January 19, 1924, p. 1. 13 Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, June 5, 1927, section 3, p. 1. 14 Maury Hopkins, "Making the Plainview Section a Land of Flowing Water,” The Progressive Farmer and Southern Ruralist, November 1-14, 1930, p. 16.

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wrote: "We know of distressed dry land here which cannot be sold for $20.00 per acre and less/’15 The New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 helped to allevi­ ate the distress of High Plains farmers through government subsidy checks. In addition to meeting long-overdue mortgage payments, many farmers chose to spend their new money on farm mechanization rather than upon small luxuries for their families. One observer who toured the region in the spring of 1934 noted "the astounding number of new trac­ tors and other equipment that are seen on South Plains farms.” The con­ trast between new John Deere and Farmall tractors, on the one hand, and drab, run-down farmhouses, on the other, was especially noticeable. In Cochran County, which had just been platted into farms in the 1920’s, the reporter was amazed to see "the incongruousness of apparently new trac­ tors and up-to-date farm equipment on farms where the farm people themselves are living in mere holes [dugouts and half-dugouts] in the ground.”16 By 1935 it was reported that South Plains farmers had bought almost a million dollars’ worth of tractors during the first six months of the year.17 Farm mechanization and government subsidy checks were not enough, however, to combat an even worse enemy than depression. In 1931 the region plunged into one of the most severe and prolonged drouths men had yet experienced on the plains. With the exception of 1932 and 1937, the next nine years were plagued with below-average rainfall.18 Even the usual spring rains did not fall in 1933. Some farmers "dusted” their seed into the soil, but the drouth continued with scarcely a shower through the summer, fall, and winter. Some dust storms blew through the region in 1933, but such phenomena were not unusual during periods of drouth; they had been observed on the plains during the 1890’s and even before. 15 Winfield Holbrook, Plainview, August 5, 1931, to Frank A. Kindwall; Winfield Holbrook, Plainview, October 23, 1931, to Frank A. Kindwall, in file no. 3-24, TL&D Papers. 16 Eugene Butler, “A South Plains Potpourri,” The Progressive Farmer and Southern Ruralist, Texas edition 49 (June 1935): 5. 17 The Earth 32 (July 1935): 6. 18 Ratliff, "Survey of Irrigation in Hale County, Texas,” p. 51; W . H. Alexander, Jr., and J. W . Lang, Ground Water in the High Plains of Texas, Texas Board of Water En­ gineers Progress Report, no. 5, p. 3.

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Plainsmen, however, had never before seen the kind of "black duster” which hit the region on April 14, 1935. That afternoon an ominouslooking black cloud, which had originated in Kansas and eastern Colo­ rado, began moving south across the terrain like a giant black steam roller. One observer recalled that it resembled " a big headrise cornin’ down the Canadian River after a heavy rain.”19 As the cloud draped the High Plains in darkness that afternoon, some people, believing that the end of the world was upon them, assembled in houses and churches to pray and to "get right with God.” The American folk singer, Woody Guthrie, living in Pampa at the time, began composing his "So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You” during the "duster.”20 Dust storms of such severity continued through 1935. The soil of the High Plains in some areas drifted into miniature sand dunes, collecting along fencerows like snow during a blizzard. Elsewhere high winds scraped off the topsoil down to the hardpan. The unprecedented storms damaged more than the land and the economy of the High Plains. Fine, powdery dust seeped into the cases of fine watches, causing them to stop. Engines of tractors, trucks, and automobiles were sometimes damaged. Surgeons postponed operations because the brownish haze of dust within buildings prevented the sterilization of instruments. Cases of pneumonia (local people called it "dust pneumonia” ) were up by 50 to 100 percent in some counties, in addition to an increase in all types of respiratory ail­ ments and eye infections.21 In desperation many High Plains farmers began to search for ways to employ what had been for many in the past that fanciful panacea for Great Plains drouths— irrigation. In 1934 some new irrigation plants began to appear around Lockney in eastern Floyd County, near Plainview, and in a few other areas. During the next six years the number of new irrigation wells and the increase in irrigated acreage grew at a phenom­ enal rate in contrast to the abortive movement between 1910 and 1920. 19 Vance Johnson, Heaven’s Tableland: The Dust Bowl Story, pp. 155-156. 20 Interview by Alan Lomax with Woody Guthrie, 1941, on Woody Guthrie Ubrary of Congress Recordings, Electra Record no. EKL-271/272. 21 Frederick Lewis Allen, Since Yesterday: The Nineteen-Thirties in America, pp. 196-200; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal, vol. 2 of The Age of Roosevelt, pp. 68-70. For a treatment of the drouth see Fred Floyd, "A History of the Dust Bowl,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1950; Johnson, Heaven’s Table­ land, pp. 156-157, 185-186.

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The census of 1930 reported only 170 wells in use, a marked decrease from the possible 250 wells drilled in the decade before 1920. The num­ ber of irrigation plants began to expand in 1934. At the end of that year there were 296 irrigation plants watering some 35,000 acres. By 1936 the number of wells had more than doubled, and the irrigated acreage stood at 80,000. The year of most rapid growth during the decade was 1937. The number of wells that year was estimated at 1,150, almost double the number of the previous year. The acreage doubled to 160,000. Finally, by 1940 the region had become one of the most important irrigated areas in the West with some 250,000 acres under pump from 2,180 wells.22 As one observer in 1936 assessed the reason for renewed interest in irrigation in the region, "Sandstorms which have lately scourged a large part of the United States have made imperative some form of crop insurance.”23 Irrigation appeared to be that "crop insurance.” Why were farmers able to make a success of irrigation in the 1930’s in view of the failure of the experiment twenty years earlier? Several im­ portant factors and new developments not present in the earlier move­ ment aided the inception and growth of pump irrigation during this era. First, important improvements in technology made irrigation plants less expensive, more trouble-free, and more efficient at pumping from greater depths. During the 1920’s the pump itself had been greatly im­ proved by several manufacturers who decreased the diameter of its bowls24 from the old, large "pit-less” centrifugal pump to twelve inches or even smaller.25 The reduction was made possible by increasing the 22 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930: Irrigation of Agricultural Lands, II, 219-223; Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940: Irrigation of Agricultural Lands, II, 544-555; Regional Water Conservation Division of the Soil Conservation Service, "Ground Water and Irriga­ tion in the High Plains of Texas,” mimeographed (Fort Worth: Soil Conservation Serv­ ice of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1947), p. 923 C. V. Eubanks, "Modern Rainmakers,” The Farmer-Stockman (Oklahoma City), May 15, 1936, p. 277. 24 The bowl is the round component which encases the impeller near the bottom of the well. Each bowl and its impeller are usually referred to as a "stage.” Most deep-well pumps have two, three, or more "stages,” depending upon the depth of the well and the desired water pressure at the discharge pipe. 25 As early as 1914 the Layne and Bowler Company was marketing "The Layne Pat­ ent Deep Well Turbine Pump,” which had bowls fourteen to sixteen inches in diameter. It was designed for use in wells three hundred feet or deeper, but this high-speed unit could only have been driven by a direct-connected electric motor ( Layne Water Facts, pp.

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revolutions of the pump from about 865 to high speeds ranging from 1,200 to 3,600 revolutions per minute, as well as by modifications of the pump-impeller, lubrication, and bearing systems. The same large volume of water could thus be pumped by a smaller pump revolving at a much higher speed.26 In addition, the pump was less expensive to install because it required a smaller-diameter well and casing than the old pump. By 1930 the new high-speed pump, commonly referred to as the "deep-well turbine pump” and manufactured by such companies as Layne and Bowler, Byron Jackson, Pomona, Peerless, Kimball-Krough, and others, was already in use not only for irrigation purposes in the West and in the Gulf Coast rice belt, but also to provide municipal water supplies.27 Extensive use of the high-speed pump was made possible, in turn, by the development of powerful high-speed industrial and automobile engines which developed considerably more revolutions per minute than the old 250-rpm oil engines which had been used in the pre-World War I era. For example, Ben Quebe, a farmer of Floyd County, installed one of the new-type pumps in 1930 and powered it successfully with a fourcylinder gasoline engine.28 George E. Green, who owned the Green Machinery Company of Plainview and who had installed the first irriga­ tion plant in Hale County in 1911, began putting relatively cheap auto­ mobile engines on the new pumps.29 By 1935 rebuilt engines made by Buick, Pierce Arrow, Studebaker, Ford, Chevrolet, and other manufac2 0 1 -2 0 2 ). I found no evidence of this type of pump being used on the High Plains in the 1910’s. A description and diagram of the "deep-well turbine centrifugal pump” used for irrigation is found in Paul A. Ewing, Pumping from Wells for Irrigation, United States Department of Agriculture Farmers’ Bulletin, no. 1404, pp. 12, 16-17. 26 Information found in summary of speech given by A. O. Fabrin, executive of the Layne and Bowler Company, at the "First Annual Get-Together Meeting, Layne Subsid­ iaries and Affiliated Companies, Lake Charles, Louisiana, December 28, 29, and 30, 1935,” reprinted insert booklet in Layne Deep Waters 3 (November 1968): pages not numbered. 27 This pump, however, is not a true turbine. It still operates on the principle of a centrifugal rather than a turbine pump (conversations with Carl H. Gelin, pump engi­ neer and manager of Layne Pumps, Inc., Lubbock). Photographs and descriptions of pump in Orson W . Israelson, Irrigation Principles and Practices, pp. 77-81. Various companies made many improvements in this type of pump during the 1920’s and 1930’s (Everett W . Lundy, "A History of the Deep Well Turbine Pump Industry,” mimeo­ graphed [Los Angeles, 1968], in possession of R. S. Charles, Jr., president of Layne and Bowler Company, Los Angeles, California). 28 Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 3, p. 3. 29 Floyd County Hesperian, May 28, 1940, p. 7; Plainview Daily Herald, special edi-

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hirers were being used. A farmer in 1938 could purchase a Ford V-8 engine for $310 or a Chevrolet engine for $235, prices considerably below those paid for the early oil-burning engines.30 Equally important, engineers developed a more efficient device for connecting the engine to the pump. The early pump was linked to the engine by means of a long, wide belt. As mentioned earlier, it was difficult to maintain the desired tension on the belt because of changing tempera­ tures. Early irrigators had to constantly lengthen or shorten it. In 1915 Charles L. Baker, who conducted one of the earlier irrigation investiga­ tions of the region, wrote: "One of the great losses of efficiency in cen­ trifugal pumps is in the slipping of the belt connecting the pump with the engine. Some system of direct connection should be devised in order to get more efficiency [italics mine].”31 In response to the need, as early as 1915 or 1916, George E. Green of Plainview designed a right-angledrive-geared pump-head to take the place of the belt. Resembling half of an automobile differential, the "gear-head,” as it was often later referred to, was attached to the pump shaft at the surface. A horizontal gear on the pump shaft meshed with a vertical gear on the engine shaft, and the oillubricated gear works were enclosed in a housing. Such a device would have been unsuitable for the slower-rpm engine, but Green used a new type of gasoline engine, manufactured by the Twin City Company of Minneapolis, which developed about 800 rpm, more than three times the speed of an oil-burning engine. By using a larger-diameter gear on the engine shaft than on the pump shaft, the pump’s speed could be increased. Thus, with an 800-rpm engine using certain ratio gears, the pump could develop 1,200 to 1,600 rpm.32 In 1917 Green agreed to install "the 45

tion, Fiftieth Anniversary of Green Machinery Company, November 26, 1961, section C, p. 5. 30 Ratliff, "Survey of Irrigation in Hale County, Texas,” pp. 21, 37-38. 31 Charles L. Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Esta­ cado, University of Texas Bulletin, no. 57, p. 95. 32 A photograph of the first gear-head installed by Green has the date “ 1915” written on it, but evidently the date was put on the photograph several years after it was taken (Files of Green Machinery Company, Plainview). Joseph F. Gordon, “George E. Green,” in Builders of the Southwest, ed. Seymour V. Connor, pp. 96-97, states: “In 1917 he [Green] was the first to design and construct a geared head for a deep-well turbine pump.” But the blueprints for the “No. 1 Geared Head,” Files of Green Machinery Com­ pany, carry the date of November 15, 1916. Information about the rpm rating of the

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h.p. Twin City engine and geared pump-head” on a farm recently sold by the Texas Land and Development Company.33 The Green Machinery Company apparently continued to manufacture a few gear-heads, although for some reason the apparent inventor never obtained a patent. The device, however, did not come into general use until the early 1930’s.34 Then with the development of high-speed pumps, probably powered at first by electric motors connected directly to the pump shafts, the necessity arose for the gear-head in areas inaccessible to electricity. Gear companies appear to have been the first to mass-produce the device. The Johnson Gear and Manufacturing Company of Berkeley, California, established in 1905, began manufacturing a right-angle geardrive for irrigation pumps in 1933, primarily for the California market. The firm also supplied many of the devices used on the Texas High Plains during the middle 1930’s.35 In addition, the Amarillo Machine Shop of Amarillo, established in 1924, began manufacturing gear-heads in the early 1930’s.36 By 1935 or 1936 the Green Machinery Company was mass-producing its own gear-head. In a sales brochure probably printed about 1936, Green advertised that his "direct gear heads” were "as com­ pact, and easily operated as electric. Engine and pump direct connected with Geared Pump Head, equipped with spiral Steel Gears in oil tight early Twin City engine was obtained in a conversation at Tulia, December 29, 1968, with Otto Crawford, a long-time Twin City implement dealer of Spearman, Texas. 33 The unit was installed on the farm of a French-Canadian from Minnesota named Octave Poissant. Agreement was signed by George E. Green and C. E. Craig, general manager of the Texas Land and Development Company, April 20, 1917 (C. E. Craig, Plainview, March 26, 1917, to Wallin and Johnson Land Company; C. E. Craig, Plain­ view, April 3, 1917, to Wallin and Johnson Land Company; C. E. Craig, Plainview, Jan­ uary 30, 1917, to Wallin and Johnson Land Company; Elmer G. Johnson, Minneapolis, March 29, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 102, TL&D Papers). 34 The first gear-head to appear in the chattel-mortgage records of Floyd County is December 15, 1934. The first in Swisher County records is June 6, 1934. Prior entries for chattel mortgages on pumps specified belt pulleys (Chattel Mortgage Record of Machinery on Realty, Swisher County, I, p. 5; Chattel Mortgage Register of Machinery on Realty, Floyd County, I, p. 2 0 ). George E. Green did not secure a patent on his early gear-head although the phrase "Pat. applied for by G. E. Green, Plainview, T E X .” ap­ pears on the blueprints for the device (Files of Green Machinery Company). 35 G. M. Pamphilon, engineer for Johnson Gear and Manufacturing Company, Berke­ ley, California, January 30, 1969, to author. 36 Telephone interview with Miss Margaret Johnson, formerly associated with Am­ arillo Machinery Company, Amarillo, December 31, 1968.

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case, makes most modern and efficient plant known. . . . You save all present and future belt costs and about 10% slippage.”37 The increased efficiency of the new pumping plants was illustrated by the increased acreage per pump under irrigation. In 1919 72 acres was the average unit of land watered by each pump. By 1937 the average had climbed almost twofold to 139 acres per pump.38 Although the increase in acreage may be partly explained by the new practice of operating pumps twenty-four hours per day, rather than the daylight-to-dusk routine of the early irrigators, and by the increased efficiency of farm machinery, which allowed a single farmer to cultivate more land, much of the increase must also be attributed to more efficient pumping units. Another important technological factor closely related to the economics of irrigation was the decrease in cost for installation of a pumping plant. The most efficient and trouble-free unit which could be installed in the earlier period, such as those put down by D. L. McDonald, had cost from $4,000 to $6,000. Many of the newer units were now installed for a total price of $2,000, including the cost for drilling and casing the well. A typical well 180 feet deep could be drilled and the unit installed for the following amounts: pump— $835; drilling and casing at $3.25 per foot— $585; gear-head— $270; V-8 engine— $310; house over engine and pump— $75. Total cost for this type of unit was $2,073.139 It could be lowered even more by the farmer taking such short cuts as building his own pump house out of scrap lumber or using a cheaper engine from a junked automobile. 37 Modern Irrigation by Direct Gear Heads, sales brochure, in Files of Green Ma­ chinery Company, Plainview. 38 Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920: State Compendium, Texas, pp. 2 01202; Walter N. White, W . L. Broadhurst, and J. W . Lang, "Ground Water in the High Plains in Texas," mimeographed, p. 15. 39 These figures are taken from Ratliff, "Survey of Irrigation in Hale County, Texas,” p. 37, and Ed Bishop, "Rain When You Want It,” The Progressive Farmer and Southern Ruralist 51 (August 1936): 6. The figures used by Bishop are lower than those quoted by Ratliff, but prices used by the former were supplied by a Plainview Chamber of Commerce committee and probably represented the cheapest possible installation costs rather than average costs. For example, Bishop puts the cost for drilling and casing a well at $2.50 per foot. Neither gives the cost for the gear-head. Ratliff lumps the gearhead and pump together in reaching the cost of $1,105 for the pump unit. Bishop gives the cost for the pump as $835. I have subtracted Bishop s figure from Ratliff’s figure to find the cost for the gear-head.

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New irrigation technology not only lowered the initial installation cost for the pumping plant but— even more important—the improvements were largely responsible for a significant decrease in operating expenses. The average operating expense for the earlier irrigation units ranged from $5.00 to $6.25 per acre-foot of water. According to a study made in 1937 by a team of economists in the Land Use Planning Division of the Re­ settlement Administration, the cost per acre-foot of water in the area, including the initial cost for the plant, interest, depreciation, repairs, and fuel consumption, was about $4.50 with a Ford V-8 engine or $3.20 with a Chevrolet engine.40 A change in the kinds of crops grown by irrigators was another im­ portant factor which aided the development of irrigation. In the earlier period, the crop which seemed especially attractive was alfalfa, a risky crop to raise in the region.41 Some farmers still produced alfalfa, which brought good prices on local markets during drouth years. The Texas Land and Development Company continued to raise irrigated alfalfa, which brought $20 per ton at Plainview in 1934, as well as other forage crops.42 But the most prominent cash crops were now winter wheat and cotton. The change of emphasis from alfalfa is illustrated by the example of Charles Pickrell, a farmer who lived near Littlefield. In 1936 he irri­ gated twenty-two acres of alfalfa, but his most profitable crop was ninety acres of cotton, from which he harvested 107 bales.43 Beginning on the eastern edge of the plains, cotton had gradually worked its way westward. During the wet years of the 1920’s, when low cattle prices caused many large ranches to sell much of their land to farm­ ers, cotton became the most important cash crop of the South Plains. While it was not yet a major irrigated crop, there were indications during that period of its future importance to irrigation. Tenants living on Texas Land and Development Company farms watered the crop during the decade. In 1925 R. E. Keniston made thirty-one bales from thirty irri­ 40 Ratliff, "Survey of Irrigation in Hale County, Texas,” pp. 35-39. 41 See chapter 7. 42 The Earth 27 (November 1930): 10; 31 (December 1934): 3; B. R. Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company: A Panhandle Promotion, 1912-1956, pp. 139140. By contrast, during the "wet” year of 1937, alfalfa hay sold for only ten dollars per ton in the area (T he Earth 34 [October 1937]: 4 ) . 43 The Earth 34 (August 1937): 5.

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gated acres. Winfield Holbrook, general manager of the company, an­ nounced that "cotton, milo maize, truck, alfalfa, and other crops paid fine dividends on every drop of water pumped from the wells.”44 By the middle 1930’s cotton had become the most important irrigated crop in the southern part of the region. In Lubbock County, Travis Tubbs planted 81 acres of cotton on his 148 irrigated acres in 1935 and harvested 112 bales.45 C. P. Obar in Terry County made more than a bale to the acre on a 32-acre tract of cotton in 1937.46 In the central part of the region, primarily Hale and Floyd counties, irrigators planted both cotton and winter wheat for maximum utilization of their pumping plants. Cotton was watered primarily during the sum­ mer; farmers irrigated wheat in the winter and spring. In Floyd County, George T. Meriwether, a landlord, reported that rent from his 292-acre farm in 1936 was twelve hundred dollars for 126 acres of wheat and sixteen hundred dollars for 86 acres of cotton. And Ralph Brown irri­ gated 100 acres of cotton and 260 acres of winter wheat that same year.47 A. R. Meriwether’s first irrigated crop in 1934 consisted of wheat and millet planted on the same land. But by 1937 Meriwether was planting 130 acres of cotton, 23 acres of grain sorghums, and no wheat on his Floyd County farm. J. R. Bowman of the same county divided 120 acres equally between wheat and cotton that year.48 The growing popularity of irrigated cotton was directly related to good profits realized from the crop in spite of low prices. According to an analysis made in 1938, cotton yielded a higher profit per acre than any other major irrigated crop. The study indicated that on a field of one hundred acres, assuming that the total operating cost per acre-foot was $4.37, the cost for putting on twenty-four inches of water would be $874. Barring natural disasters, the field could be expected to yield one and onehalf bales per acre, or a total of about 75,000 pounds of lint. At eight cents per pound, the approximate price of the 1937 season, the gross 44 Wellington Brink, "Big Crops from Shallow Wells,” Farm and Ranch, March 6, 1926, p. 1. 45 "Water from Wells,” The Farmer-Stockman, January 15, 1936, p. 42. 46 Reprint of article from Terry County Herald, 1937, in Terry County Herald, special edition, July 23, 1954, section 2, p. 4. 47 Article in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 2, 1937, reprinted in Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 2, p. 4; section 4, p. 1. 48 Lockney Beacon, April 30, 1937, section 1, pp. 4, 9.

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profit would amount to $6,000. After deducting irrigating costs, $5,126 would remain. Of course, labor costs for hoeing weeds and hand-pulling must be deducted and normal depreciation on farm machinery and cost for tractor fuel must be taken into account. But assuming such cost to be as much as $1,500, the farmer would still make a net profit of approxi­ mately $3,500. On the other hand, the study showed that the same amount of land planted in wheat and yielding thirty-two bushels to the acre would only net $1,174, exclusive of harvesting expenses, after irrigation costs were deducted, assuming the price of wheat to be sixty-four cents per bushel.49 The growing importance of cotton as an irrigated crop may also be seen in the ratio of irrigated to nonirrigated crops. Hale County in 1937 had about 46,500 acres under irrigation, or approximately 32 percent of the total irrigated acreage of the region. With 21,000 acres, wheat constituted more than 40 percent of the total acreage. Cotton consisted of 10,500 acres, or a little less than one-fourth of the total. But 12 percent of the total cotton acreage in the county was under irrigation, while irrigated wheat made up only 8.4 percent of the total wheat crop.50 Grain sorghums probably ranked third in importance as an irrigated crop. Most farmers had livestock, and irrigators planted some acreage in forage crops. In Hale County 9,400 acres, or a little more than one-fifth of the total irrigated acreage, was planted in grain sorghums in 1937.51 In addition, other small grains, such as oats and barley, as well as alfalfa and truck, were raised under pump.52 Irrigation farmers, especially those in Deaf Smith County, which lay outside the cotton belt, experimented with other crops. D. L. McDonald of Deaf Smith County raised sugar beets as early as 1911 and again in 1921, but the attempt was premature.53 In about 1935 new experiments were inaugurated in Bailey, Hale, Swisher, Floyd, Hockley, Lubbock, Deaf Smith, and other counties, sponsored by the American Crystal Sugar Company of Rocky Ford, Colorado, under the leadership of H. E. Knapp, 49 Ratliff, "Survey of Irrigation in Hale County, Texas,” p. 41. 50 Ibid., pp. 30-31. 51 Ibid., p. 31. 52 W . A. Browne, "Agriculture in the Llano Estacado,’’ Economic Geography 13 (April 1 937): 170. 53 Amarillo Daily News, January 2, 1912, p. 3; The Earth 18 (February 1 922): 12.

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an agricultural expert of the company, and Harry M. Bainer, agricultural agent for the Santa Fe Railroad. At first the beets seemed highly suscep­ tible to a disease called "curly top.” But by 1938 a wilt-resistant strain had been developed, and some farmers harvested fourteen to sixteen tons per acre with a sugar content of 17 to 19 percent. The crop, however, re­ quired a great deal of water and hand labor, which added to the cost. In addition, rail freight costs to Rocky Ford, Colorado, for refining further narrowed the margin of profit. Consequently, for the time being, sugar beets failed to become an important crop.54 Potatoes appeared to be a more promising crop for some farmers. M. B. Jewell in 1932 harvested an average of 300 bushels of potatoes from 20 irrigated acres in Hale County.55 In Lubbock County, J. B. McCauley, who had installed an irrigation plant in 1934, planted 6 acres of potatoes two years later. By 1940 McCauley had 30 acres in potatoes. That year he harvested 150 sacks to the acre at $1.50 to $2.00 per sack. McCauley expanded his crop to 50 acres in 1941. Potatoes were even more important for Deaf Smith because the higher elevation which resulted in cooler summer nights in that county was not conducive to cotton culture. Dur­ ing the late 1930’s twenty-five farmers migrated to the county from Idaho for the specific purpose of raising potatoes. Two of the immigrants, "Tater Joe” Ballinger and Glenn Boardman, grossed $3,528 in one year from their 15-acre crop. The largest potato farm in the county consisted of 250 acres. In 1939 farmers of Deaf Smith organized a cooperative called Hereford Potato Growers, Inc., and began marketing their crop in such major southwestern cities as Houston, Dallas, and Oklahoma Gty. The total crop for Deaf Smith in 1940 was estimated to be about 400,000 bushels. Total acreage planted in potatoes on the Texas High Plains the next year was around 12,000 acres.56 One important factor which had retarded the expansion of irrigation during the earlier period was lack of credit. Irrigation plants were in­ 54 Thelma Walker Stevens, "History of Bailey County,” M.A. thesis, Texas Techno­ logical College, 1939, pp. 79-81; The Farmer-Stockman, July, 1942, p. 323; Amarillo Times, December 16, 1939, section E, p. 4. 55 The Earth 29 (October 1932): 10. 56 The Farmer-Stockman, July 15, 1941, p. 363; Victor Schoffelmayer, "Plains Po­ tato Growers Use State Fair to Tell World of Their Achievements,” Dallas Morning News, October 14,1940, section 1, p. 8.

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stalled either by speculators or by farmers and ranchers who could afford to pay cash for pumping plants and wells. Roy E. Huffman has pointed out that "the problem of financing the irrigation farmer is the dual one of providing enough credit and of making available the right kind of credit. . . adapted to the peculiar characteristics of new irrigated farms.”57 In other words, large operators of established irrigated farms have no problem in getting credit from banks, because they are able to borrow money based upon their present productivity and farm valuation. By con­ trast, small farmers needing money initially to develop their nonirrigated farms into irrigated farms "need loans based on the expected productivity of the farm in the future and not based on current equity of the opera­ tor.”58 Although Huffman was referring specifically to farmers on federal reclamation projects, the same was true for farmers on the Texas High Plains who needed capital to install pumping plants. During the depression decade, a strange combination of High Plains entrepreneurship, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Herbert Hoov­ er’s leftover Reconstruction Finance Corporation produced the first really effective program for extending credit to average High Plains farmers for the installation of pumping plants. In spite of Roosevelt’s concern for the Great Plains as symbolized by the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Soil Conservation Ser­ vice, and the Great Plains Committee, the New Deal did little at first to provide direct aid for the development of pump irrigation on the Great Plains. In one case, however, the government created a windmillirrigation project reminiscent of efforts on the Great Plains during the drouth of the late nineteenth century. In the resettlement project at Ropesville, sponsored by the Resettlement Administration in 1936, set­ tlers were moved onto sixty-acre tracts on the South Plains and encour­ aged to plant twenty acres of dry-land cotton and to irrigate three acres of truck from a windmill. The government agency calculated that the total income of each settler would be $1,747. Instead, the first-year average income for the thirty-three settlers on the project was $900.59 57 Huffman, Irrigation Development and Public Water Policy, p. 114. 58 Ibid., p. 115. 59 Vernon C. Stafford, "The Ropesville Resettlement Project,” West Texas Historical Association Year Book 25 (October 1949): 94-98.

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By 1937 the Water Facilities Act provided some assistance. That act authorized the secretary of agriculture to provide for the installation of pumping plants, as well as for the construction of other water utilization and conservation facilities. The act failed to mention specifically irriga­ tion pumping plants, but by 1939 some farmers were putting down wells through loans provided under this law.60 The act, however, was evidently insufficient for the needs of most farmers who wished to put down wells. It was used primarily to construct ponds, check dams, and small wells, because the national emphasis upon the heels of the Dust Bowl era was upon soil conservation rather than upon the exploitation of subsurface water for irrigation purposes. This attitude was reflected in the Great Plains Committee’s acceptance of the findings of the Water Resources Committee of the National Resources Committee in 1936. The Great Plains Committee reported, "Irrigation at best can cause only minor changes in the economic life o f the Great Plains [italics mine].” Moreover, "the shallow underground waters of the Great Plains generally are adequate to supply only domestic and farm­ stead demands. They are not plentiful, and over large sections are al­ most wholly lacking. . . . Increased drafts upon ground water for irriga­ tion therefore are practicable only in a few favorable areas.”61 The report did not recommend government aid for pump irrigation even in the "few favorable areas.” Part of the reason for the federal government’s lack of a policy toward the development of pump irrigation may possibly have been merely a con­ tinuation of the attitude toward irrigation in the region expressed in the early 1890’s by John Wesley Powell, namely, that water resources were inadequate for irrigation on any great scale. More likely, the government may simply have felt it unwise to encourage projects which would lead to still more overproduction of staple crops. Whatever the causes, this lack of federal interest prompted state senator Harry E. Gantz of Ne­ braska, in a speech on the need to develop pump irrigation in western Nebraska, to remark: "At the present time there is no adequate or work­ able public agency through which pump irrigation projects can be prop­ 60 United States, Statutes at Large, L, 869-870; The Farmer-Stockman, March 15, 1941, p. 179. 61 Great Plains Committee, The Future of the Great Plains, pp. 76-77.

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erly or adequately financed. Due to general conditions, the average farmer is unable to finance his own individual pump irrigation project.”62 Although no federal aid designed specifically for pump irrigation projects was available, an aggressive, tobacco-chewing High Plains banker conceived a plan using certain federal programs to finance the installation of pumping plants in 1934. Artemus "Artie” Baker, member of a pioneer Floyd County family which owned several business establishments in Lockney, had become president of the First National Bank in that town in 1928. During the depression he kept his bank doors open through mas­ sive loans from the Intermediate Credit Bank of Houston63 and because the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas continued to honor checks drawn on Baker’s bank in spite of the fact that his institution ran a continual over­ draft for two years.64 During the summer of 1934 Baker received a form letter from the newly created Federal Housing Administration stating that the FHA would guarantee 20 percent of any home-improvement loan made by his bank for amounts up to two thousand dollars each. The act stated that such loans were to be "for the purpose of financing alterations, repairs, and improvements upon real property [italics mine].” Baker felt that an irrigation plant would certainly be an improvement for any real property in his region. Thus, he received permission from the local FHA administrator at Plainview to make such loans.65 The short, tobacco-chewing banker, whose round face was dominated by a pair of intense eyes, then formed the First National Company, a separate corporation from his bank, to loan money to farmers for pump equipment. Offices of the new company were located at the rear of the bank building. While loaning money to a few farmers to purchase pumps in the spring of 1934, he realized that farmers needed more than credit 62 Harry E. Gantz, "Pump Irrigation in Nebraska,” Nebraska History Magazine 20 (October-December 1939): 246. 63 Intermediate Credit Banks, created during the Harding administration, had been in existence since 1923. They were designed to give more flexibility to rural credit needs (Benedict, Farm Policies of the United States, 1790-1950, pp. 1 84-185). 64 Interview with Artemus "Artie” Baker, Pecos, Texas, June 3, 1968; reprinted Eng­ lish translation of article about Baker in El Fronterizo (Ciudad Juarez, Mexico), Decem­ ber 30, 1966, Baker Pump Company Files, Pecos, Texas. 65 Interview with "Artie” Baker; the National Housing Act, United States, Statutes at Large, XLVIII, 1246-1247; The Earth 32 (February 1935): 10.

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for pumps. They needed comprehensive loans to finance the drilling and casing of wells and the purchase of engines as well. For this purpose Baker needed much more capital than his small company had at its dis­ posal.66 The Lockney banker faced two immediate obstacles. Baker needed money to loan, and he had to interest farmers in irrigation. The High Plains businessman tackled the former problem first. He went to Wash­ ington that hot, drouth-stricken summer of 1934 to meet an old acquaint­ ance in the offices of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Baker had known Lynn P. Talley, special assistant to the directors of the RFC and president of the Commodity Credit Corporation,67 since the latter had been governor of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. Baker told Talley that he wanted RFC aid in order to finance the installation of irrigation plants for farmers; this money, he stressed, would greatly aid the eco­ nomic recovery of the High Plains. The banker then presented the fol­ lowing plan to Talley. If the RFC would furnish the necessary capital for the project, Baker would install irrigation plants at the turn-key rate of about two thousand dollars for each well. This amount was the maximum loan which the FHA could insure. The FHA, in turn, would guarantee 20 percent of the loan. Moreover, Baker would use 20 percent of his profits to buy government bonds as collateral for the RFC loan. And to further secure the loans, he would take a mortgage on the farmers’ lands, crops, and irrigation equipment. Another security for the loan would con­ sist of the increased value of the land under irrigation. Baker concluded, "There’s not a damn way in the world I can lose any money.”68 The day after the meeting, Talley informed the Lockney banker that the board of directors of the RFC had approved the loan request for sev­ eral hundred thousand dollars. With a letter from Talley to that effect, Baker returned to the Plains, making two important stops on the way. First, he went to the Central Iron and Steel Company at Harrisburg, Penn­ sylvania, to place an order for thirty carloads of steel well casing. Then 66 Interview with "Artie” Baker. 67 Ibid.; Jesse H. Jones, Fifty Billion Dollars: My Thirteen Years with the RFC, p. 91, describes Talley’s relationship with the RFC; Who Was Who in America, II, 523. 68 Interview with "Artie” Baker.

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he stopped at the Ford Motor Company assembly plant at Dallas. That company agreed to ship him V-8 engines in car lots of fifty at a wholesale price, including freight, of $125 each. Baker ordered one car lot.69 The tobacco-chewing plainsman also needed quantities of gear-heads and pumps. To meet the former need, he went to the Amarillo Machine Shop at Amarillo. He wanted a gear-head designed specifically for a small-horsepower, high-rpm engine like the Ford V-8. Older gear-heads, such as those manufactured by the Green Machinery Company at Plain­ view, were designed so that a slower-rpm engine could drive a higherrpm pump. For example, in a 2:3 ratio gear-head, for every two revolu­ tions of the engine, the pump shaft would develop three revolutions. Baker, however, wanted a 4:3 ratio gear-head. That is, his desired unit would turn four revolutions for the engine for every three revolutions of the pump. Such an arrangement would not only allow a cheaper, smaller, high-rpm engine to be used, but would also prevent overloading the smaller engine, in the same way that a lower gear in an automobile pre­ vents the lugging of its engine on steep grades. The company agreed to manufacture the gear-head of Baker’s design for a wholesale price of $150 each. The banker then placed an initial order of three hundred gearheads.70 Next "Artie” Baker took a bus to the West Coast. At San Francisco, he talked with the president of the Kimball-Krough Pump Company. The official agreed to ship several hundred pumps immediately. In less than two weeks he had traveled from Washington to San Francisco, accumu­ lated a debt of $300,000, and "didn’t use a damn penny of money to buy that stuff.”71 Finally, the High Plains banker needed drillers. He advertised through radio stations in Amarillo, Lubbock, and Wichita Falls for well drillers who wanted "plenty of work.” Within fifteen days several rigs were in Floyd County. He then subcontracted the well work for 10 percent of the drillers’ fees.72 69 Ibid.

70 Ibid.; telephone conversation with Miss Margaret Johnson, Amarillo, December 31, 1968. Miss Johnson, formerly associated with the Amarillo Machine Shop, confirmed the importance of Baker's initial order to the company. 71 Interview with "Artie” Baker. 72 Ibid.

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Baker’s final problem involved attracting farmers to his credit plan, which involved 9.3 percent interest and payments over a five-year period. He found that those farmers who had the money to install plants were generally not interested in drilling wells. In contrast, those who had mort­ gages on their land and whose debts continued to accumulate from year to year because of the drouth were the most receptive. Baker found that "a man who had money wouldn’t buy an irrigation well; you had to find a 'poor devil’ to buy one.”73 A great many of those remaining on the drouth-stricken High Plains were burdened with cumulative debts. Farmers existed primarily by sell­ ing eggs and cream during their weekly trips to town. Royal Crawford, a Swisher County farmer, bought alfalfa hay produced by the Texas Land and Development Company’s irrigated farms in order to feed his milch cows, which, in turn, produced cream to market. Tom McGehee of Floyd County reported that he made more money from his cream and eggs than from his field crops. In 1936 he made three "light bales of cotton” from twenty-seven acres, and his wheat crop was a complete failure.74 Just as the desperation of farmers during the depression influenced their favorable support of the New Deal’s radically different farm pro­ gram, so desperate farmers of the Texas High Plains, besieged by both depression and drouth, turned to the new experience of irrigation. As Mrs. J. B. Stevenson of Floyd County put it, "In 1934 when drouth and the depression had swept everything from us, we decided to give up dry farming and irrigate.” The Stevensons subsequently obtained a loan that year to put down an irrigation plant.75 M. C. Scheele, also of Floyd County, summed up his plight in this way: " . . . hadn’t gathered a grain of wheat in two years, made very little feed and cotton, and in general I was 'flat broke’ and ready to move when I installed a well on my place in May 1936.”76 Clarence Todd of Swisher County, who installed a plant on his farm in 1937, later recalled that with a well "you were sure of a crop; without a well you were sure of a failure.”77 Carl Ferguson who lived near 73 Ibid. 74 Interview with Royal Crawford, Tulia, December 29, 1965; Lockney Beacon, spe­ cial irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 2, p. 8. 75 Lockney Beacon, April 30, 1937, section 2, p. 1; reprint of letter from Mrs. J. B. Stevenson to the editor in The Farmer-Stockman, December 1, 1935, p. 592. 76 Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 2, p. 1. 77 Interview with Clarence Todd, Swisher County, May 25, 1968.

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Lockney concluded, "It’s the only possible way for farmers in this area to make a crop any more.”78 Within a year after Baker’s First National Company began extending credit to potential irrigators, other firms offering similar services appeared on the scene. The Peerless Pump Company, a subsidiary of the Food Machinery Corporation of California, established offices at Plainview in 1935 and began to offer turn-key jobs using its own gear-head, extending credit to farmers through the Food Machinery Corporation. The Peerless company charged 8 percent interest over a three-year period. Unlike Baker, who required no down payment, the company required a flat fivehundred-dollar down payment. Average price for its installations ranged from sixteen hundred to two thousand dollars.79 In addition, such regional concerns as the Bradford Supply Company of Lubbock, the Green Machinery Company of Plainview, and Clowe and Cowan of Amarillo began to finance pumping-unit installations in about 1935. Green installed Byron Jackson pumps and his own gear-head de­ signed for high-speed engines.80 At about the same time, pump com­ panies which did not offer turn-key installations, such as Layne and Bowler, Johnston, and others, began selling their pumps on credit in the region.81 Encouraged by the new credit facilities for installing pumping plants, farmers developed more favorable attitudes toward irrigation. First, low crop prices in tandem with the drouth seem to have influenced most to be­ come irrigators. Many farmers during 1937-1939 told J. K. "Bill” Chil­ dress, manager of the Peerless Pump Company outlet at Plainview, that low farm prices were a primary consideration in their decisions to put down irrigation wells. In other words, at current low prices farmers could 78 Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 3, p. 6. 79 Interview with J. K. Childress, manager of the Peerless Pump Division of FMC Corporation, Plainview, May 24, 1968. Mr. Childress has been associated with the Plainview branch since 1937. 80 Chattel Mortgage Record of Machinery on Realty, Hale County, I, for the years 1934-1940, reveals the activities of these companies in Hale County. 81 Chattel Mortgage Records of Machinery on Realty, I, for Hale, Deaf Smith, Floyd, Swisher, Bailey, and Lamb counties contain various entries for these companies in the period 1934-1940. By the end of World W ar II the Green Machinery Company was manufacturing its own pumps, as well as its gear-head, and had become one of the most important irrigation-equipment supply companies on the High Plains. The company has continued to finance turn-key installation jobs.

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not raise enough to pay their debts and meet expenses by dry-land farm­ ing.82 Second, farmers began to think of irrigation as more than simply "crop insurance” to be used during abnormally dry years. The earlier attitude was expressed by an irrigation farmer on a Texas Land and Development Company farm in 1917. When asked why he had not begun to irrigate his parched crop, he replied, "It may rain.”83 D. L. McDonald, the early irrigation promoter who had continued to operate an irrigated farm throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, wrote in 1935: "This is the worst drawback to local irrigation. The farmer has watched the clouds and prayed for rain when he should have been pumping water and the idea that the pumping plant is just for emergencies during dry years is all wet all over.”84 Fred Hage of Floyd County, who installed a pumping plant in 1937, expressed the new attitude by stating that formerly irrigation in the region "was used merely as a last resort when the weather man failed. The average irrigation farmer watered with an eye on the sky for possible rainfall and usually waited until the last possible moment be­ fore he used his well. Consequently, his crops did not show sufficient margin of profit over that of the dry farmer.” But, Hage concluded, "In the past two or three years, since serious thought has been given to irri­ gation with an eye to producing capacity crops, irrigation has been a dif­ ferent story.”85 Third, farmers began to use more efficient irrigation techniques. The pre-World War I irrigation farmers of the High Plains watered their crops only during the day and almost never on Sunday. Local prejudices against profaning the Sabbath with any type of work were so strong that in 1913 the Texas Land and Development Company felt compelled to place an advertisement in a local Plainview newspaper to apologize for running a pump on Sunday.86 By 1937 farmers like Paul Cooper of Floyd irrigated their crops "both day and night.”87 Another irrigation practice 82 Interview with J. K. Childress. 83 D. L. Alexander, Plainview, May 25, 1917, to C. E. Craig, in file no. 3-5, TL&D Papers. 84 D. L. McDonald, Hereford, April 7, 1935, to Carl Gilliland, in Files of McDonald Drilling Company, Amarillo, Texas. 85 Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 3, p. 1. 86 Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company, p. 173. 87Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 2, p. 1.

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which came into widespread use during the 1930’s was that of "preplanting irrigation”— the practice of watering the soil before planting a crop. In 1937 H. A. Brotherton of Floyd County reported that he irri­ gated his land "from once to twice” prior to planting his cotton.88 By that year the practice had become widespread among irrigators in the region according to the editor of the Lockney Beacon.89 News of the wells and abundant crops tended to influence other farm­ ers to install pumping plants. In Bailey County, for example, the an­ nouncement of C. A. Barnett of Muleshoe that his pumping plant had produced enough profit to pay for itself in one season undoubtedly in­ fluenced some of his neighbors to consider seriously the prospect of drill­ ing wells on their farms.90 During the dry spring of 1934 J. B. McCauley installed one of the first new irrigation units in Lubbock County. A few years later he recalled, "I thought of all the pumps I’d seen up around Plainview and decided to put one down on my farm.”91 Travis Tubbs, also of Lubbock County, put in a system in 1935 for $2,258 after looking at pump-irrigation plants in Arizona and California. Using irrigation, Tubbs’s profit amounted to almost $4,000 for the first year of operation.92 During the spring of 1936 John McDonald, a son of the pioneer irrigator D. L. McDonald, recalled that a "parade” of visitors drove up "TwentyFive Mile avenue” north of Hereford to see the stand of irrigated wheat on the farm which his father had first watered in 1910. One visitor asked the younger McDonald if irrigation "really paid.” "McDonald replied that, even though many "domino-parlor” farmers contended that irriga­ tion was unprofitable, the McDonalds had been irrigating for twenty-six years and had managed to live well.93 A farm journalist who termed the new irrigators "modern rainmakers” observed that, "during 1935, crops raised on irrigated farms of the shallow water belt proved some things conclusively. Among them, that to place moisture where and when 88 Ibid., p. 2. 89 Ibid. 90 The Earth 31 (December 1934) : 2. 91 Francis Flood, "Pump Irrigation Is Good Crop Insurance,” The Farmer-Stockman, April 15, 1938, p. 237. 92 The Farmer-Stockman, January 15, 1936, p. 42. 93 Interview with John McDonald, August 23, 1968.

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needed, produces certain and abundant crops in spite of cloudless skies and torturing suns.”94 Summary The growth of irrigation during the 1930,s is vividly illustrated in the increased number of wells and irrigated acreage during the decade. In contrast to the 170 pumping plants reported in the census of 1930, the number of wells by the end of 1940 stood at 2,180. And these irrigation plants located in Hale, Floyd, Deaf Smith, Swisher, Lubbock, Lamb, Bailey, and several other counties were watering some 250,000 acres.95 By 1940 irrigation on the High Plains of Texas had become a reality as a result of a combination of favorable conditions. The drouth, always a strong stimulus for irrigation on the Great Plains, descended with un­ precedented severity on the region once again. Because of the increased growth in population on the High Plains, it touched the lives of many more farmers than had previous drouths. Even more important, the Great Depression coupled with the Dust Bowl produced a feeling of despera­ tion throughout the region. Inhabitants began to feel that something had to be done. New developments in irrigation technology and changed attitudes to­ ward the utility of irrigation played important roles in converting the re­ gion to irrigation. Less expensive, more efficient, and more trouble-free pumping plants capable of raising a large volume of water from greater depths were now available. Cash crops more suitable both to the unstable High Plains climate and to irrigation, particularly cotton, had become well established in the region during the 1920’s. Moreover, because of low crop prices, farmers developed attitudes toward the use of irrigation which stressed maximum production rather than a guarantee against crop failure. Perhaps most important, a means for the installation of pumping plants 94 Eubanks, "Modern Rainmakers,” p. 277. 95 White, "Ground Water in the High Plains of Texas,” p. 15; Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930: Irrigation of Agricultural Lands, II, 219-233; Regional Water Conservation Division of the Soil Conservation Service, "Ground Water and Irrigation in the High Plains of Texas,” p. 9.

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on long-term credit appeared on the scene. First, a local banker aided by federal-government loan agencies organized a company to install and fi­ nance irrigation plants. Then pump companies and other concerns formu­ lated similar plans. As in the abortive irrigation movement in the decade 1910-1920, local business leadership played an important part. In the earlier period, however, that role had been confined primarily to using ir­ rigation as a tool for speculation. By contrast, town and city leadership in the 1930’s provided farmers with credit which had been needed but un­ available in the previous irrigation movement.

9. The Expansion of Irrigation, 1940-1960

A lthough favorable conditions were responsible for the revival of irrigation on the Texas High Plains in the 1930’s, there was no assurance that the movement would continue. But in the 1940’s and 1950’s pump irrigation expanded at a phenomenal pace and exerted a significant influence upon the economy and society of the region. The expansion, like the revival, was the result of national as well as regional circumstances. American agricultural prosperity associated with World War II, the postwar period, and the Korean War stimulated the expansion of irriga­ tion because the pumping plant constituted a method for increasing both crop production and profits for individual farmers. Considering the price for farm products in the period 1910-1914 as equaling 100, in 1941 the wholesale index price for farm products stood at 116 . By 1942 the price had moved up to 172, and by 1945 it was 180.1 In addition, the policy of 1 Murray R. Benedict, Farm Policies of the United States, 1790-1950: A Study of Their Origins and Development, pp. 449-450.

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the federal government toward agriculture emphasized increased produc­ tion. Farm income for the period 1939-1945 rose from $5.25 billion to about $14 billion, an increase of 165 percent. Another indication of agri­ cultural prosperity was the decrease of farm mortgage debts from $6.8 billion in 1939 to $5.25 billion by 1945. In addition, the liquid assets of American farmers ascended from $3.9 billion at the beginning of 1940 to $14 billion as of January, 1946. Farmers also held some $5 billion in U.S. Savings Bonds at the end of the war.2 After 1945 American agricul­ ture continued to share in the booming national economy, fed in part by the food and fiber needs of war-torn Europe, whose economy was in shambles, and in part by a postwar inflation.3 Farm prosperity was further assured by the Agricultural Act of 1948, which guaranteed a price of 90 percent of parity for certain staple crops, including cotton and wheat, to farmers who cooperated by restricting their acreage.4 The policy of high price supports was continued as a result of the Democratic-controlled Congress which came back into power in the election of 1948.5 Good farm prices continued into the early part of the 1950’s as a result of the Korean War. Farmers used increased profits to raise their standard of liv­ ing, to pay off mortgage debts, to buy more land, and to purchase more farm equipment. In 1948 American farmers spent $5,194 million on equipment and improvements, or about three times more than they had invested for that purpose in 1941.6 Many farmers of the Texas High Plains invested much of their in­ creased profits in pumping plants. During World War II irrigation equip­ ment as well as all machinery was in short supply for home-front de­ mands. The sharp decrease in the number of new wells drilled in 1942 partly reflected this shortage. But the temporary decrease in rate of ex­ pansion did not indicate a decline of interest in irrigation. The demand for pumping plants continued to be quite strong. From 1941 through 1945 the number of irrigation wells in the region increased from 2,560 2 Ibid., pp. 452-453, 459. 3 Ibid., pp. 463-464. 4 For an analysis of the act and an explanation of the formula used to determine "par­ ity,” see ibid., pp. 474-476. 5 Ibid., pp. 479-490. 6 Ibid., pp. 463-464. 4

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to 4,300. It was not until about 1948 that the supply of irrigation equip­ ment began to catch up with the demand.7 Expansion continued during the early 1940’s in spite of the fact that rainfall during those years was generally sufficient to produce dry-land crops. For example, 1941 was the wettest year in the annals of the U.S. Weather Bureau for the Texas High Plains. Lubbock received 40.55 inches of rainfall, and precipitation at Muleshoe totaled 43.52 inches.8 The increase of irrigation plants despite generally sufficient rainfall strongly indicated the new emphasis upon irrigation as a means for in­ creasing production rather than as a last resort against crop failure.9 After World War II irrigation expansion accelerated as another severe drouth slowly enveloped the Texas High Plains after originating on the South Plains. From 1945 through 1949 the rainfall at Plainview fell be­ low twenty inches every year except 1949. From 1950 through 1956 the drouth gripped much of the southern Great Plains.10 In spite of soilconservation measures which had originated during the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, some dust storms again descended on the area.11 The Texas legislature appropriated ten million dollars to be used over a two-year period by the State Soil Conservation Board to aid in fighting soil erosion. The money was to be apportioned among the state’s soilconservation districts and to be used to subsidize such antierosion prac­ tices as stubble-mulching by chisel-type plows and deep-breaking in sandy soil. Such practices were important in saving valuable topsoil and in con­ serving the little available moisture, but to the average farmer there was simply no substitute for adequate rainfall. When the sum mentioned 7 W . L. Broadhurst, Ground Water in High Plains in Texas, Texas Board of Water Engineers Progress Report, no. 6, p. 8; William F. Hughes and Joe R. Motheral, Irrigated Agriculture in Texas, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Miscellaneous Publication, no. 59, p. 16. 8 J. R. Barnes et al., Geology and Ground Water in the Irrigated Region of the Southern High Plains in Texas, Texas Board of Water Engineers Progress Report, no. 7, pp. 16—18. 9 See chapter 10, ftn. 9. 10 C. A. Bonnen et al., Use of Irrigation Water on the High Plains, Texas Agricul­ tural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. 756, p. 8; William F. Hughes and A. C. Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, Texas High Plains, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. 966, p. 3111 experienced some of the severe dust storms of the early 1950’s while living in the Texas Panhandle.

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above was set aside for soil conservation practices, one farmer from West Texas said that the money could best be spent by purchasing "10,000 bibles and teach[ing] all the farmers how to pray for rain/’12 Although many farmers may have asked for aid from the Deity, others, who believed in the old adage that "the Lord helps those who help them­ selves,’’ began drilling irrigation wells. There were 8,356 irrigation wells on the Texas High Plains in 1948. By 1957 some 42,225 large pumps were pouring water on the region’s crops. Hale County alone by that year had a half-million acres under pump and Lubbock County had 350,000 irrigated acres. The period of most rapid growth was 1950-1954, roughly coinciding with the Korean War, when the number of wells increased from 14,000 to 27,500 and the irrigated acreage rose from 1.86 million to 3.5 million.13 A good example of irrigation expansion may be seen in Lamb County, which had a mere 26,000 acres under pump by 1944. In 1957 irrigators in that county were watering 350,000 acres.14 Although costs climbed sharply in the post-World War II period, this rise did not seem to deter the expansion of irrigation. In the 19471949 period the least expensive irrigation pumping units were about $3,900, almost twofold more than the cost in 1938. This amount included $1,272 for drilling and casing the well, $2,155 for the pump and gearhead, and $485 for a small automobile engine. For electric motors, larger engines, and deep wells, the cost was more than $4,000.15 Increased prices probably reflected a greater demand for such equipment and improve­ ments in machinery, as well as postwar inflation. Because of the increased efficiency of pumping plants and profitable prices for farm products, irrigation moved beyond the old "shallowwater” belt into areas of deep ground water. For example, as early as 1937, several farmers drilled wells south of Floydada in eastern Floyd County. Among those who put down wells was Lovell Jones, who made 12 Arlee Gowen, "There Goes That Farm Again,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (January 1949): 10. 13 Lorrin Kennamer, "Irrigation Patterns in Texas,” Southwestern Social Science Quar­ terly 40 (December 1959): 208-209; William F. Hughes and A. C. Magee, Changes in Investment and Irrigation Water Costs, Texas High Plains, 1950-54, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. 828, p. 3. 14 Kennamer, "Irrigation Patterns in Texas,” pp. 208-209. 15 A. C. Magee et al., Cost of Water for Irrigation on the High Plains, Texas Agri­ cultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. 745, pp. 12-13.

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an agreement with the Floydada Chamber of Commerce to insure the drilling of a well on his farm. The group of businessmen agreed to pay Jones the cost for drilling if he failed to find sufficient irrigation water. The well, drilled to a depth of 330 feet, was successful.16 Irrigation expanded in all directions from the nucleus of the old "shallow-water” area. To the south farmers began installing pumping plants in about 1946. Within eleven years Dawson County had approxi­ mately six hundred wells irrigating 70,000 acres on 450 farms.17 By 1958 Gaines County reported 108,000 acres in irrigation from nine hundred wells, and Lynn County was watering 65,000 acres from fifteen hundred pumping plants. North of Amarillo in the same year Dallam County had 42,255 acres under pump. Moore County boasted 81,280 irrigated acres, and Hansford County reported 69,150 acres in irrigation.18 The greater efficiency of the deep-well turbine pump was not enough to bring irrigation to areas of rolling topography or sandy soil. New tech­ niques of applying water and preparing the soil were also needed. Sand soaked up massive amounts of liquid, making it virtually impossible to run water down rows as was commonly done in tighter soils. In rolling land the opposite effect was produced because water ran downhill too rapidly to be soaked into the soil. The extension of irrigation into such areas was made possible by the growing use of deep-breaking plowing techniques, which "tightened” sandy soil by bringing clay to the surface, and of sprinkler systems using lightweight portable aluminum pipe, which applied water in the form of man-made rain, thus producing little runoff. For example, Gaines County farmers in the southwestern part of the region began deep-breaking cheap sandy soil covered with sagebrush and installing irrigation plants. In 1948 a farmer named Carl Clawson broke out six hundred acres of such land, watered his cotton crop only twice by row irrigation, and harvested a bale to the acre. The next year Clawson brought several hundred more acres under cultivation and, by leveling his land and using better farming methods, he averaged more than one and 16 Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 4, p. 1; interview of Garry Nall with Lovell Jones, Canyon, July 5, 1968. 17 M. C. Lindsey, The Trail of Years in Dawson County, Texas, p. 103. 18 Paul T. Gillett and I. G. Janca, Inventory of Texas Irrigation, 1958 and 1964, Texas Water Commission Bulletin, no. 6515, pp. 15-17, 21.

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one-half bales to the acre. By 1949 farmers from neighboring counties were moving into the area, buying "raw land” at prices ranging from forty-five to seventy-five dollars per acre, and drilling wells. By the begin­ ning of 1951 it was reported: "In the past few months more than seventy farm families have bought land in the area to develop for irrigation. And daily, more are streaming in to seek favorable locations in this area of relatively cheap land.”19 In the 1950’s the aluminum-pipe sprinkler sys­ tem came into widespread use in Gaines and other counties having sandy soil or rolling topography. The growing popularity of this type of irriga­ tion distribution system is indicated by its use in Gaines County, which had 101,000 of its 108,000 irrigated acres watered by 830 sprinkler systems in 1958.20 Several other technological developments aided the expansion of irri­ gation. The growing use of cheap fuels for powerful automobile and in­ dustrial engines used for power sources on pumps and the extension of electrical lines into irrigation areas were important factors. As early as 1936 a few electric motors were running pumps in Deaf Smith, Floyd, and other counties.21 But electricity came into common use for irrigation purposes only after the Rural Electrification Administration brought cheap electricity into rural areas for the first time on the Texas High Plains. In 1937 an REA program for Deaf Smith County costing some $135,000 was approved by the federal government. Under the leadership of the Hereford Chamber of Commerce, which had petitioned for the loan, some 115 miles of power lines were to be constructed in the county to power 150 irrigation wells and to supply electricity for 220 farm homes.22 The cost of operating electric motors was relatively cheap by this time, but irrigators had some reservations about using electricity. The average cost for operating electrically powered pumping plants in the period 1947-1949 was about forty-nine cents per hour, which was considerably 19 J. C. Ainsworth, Jr., "Bonanza in the Sand,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 5 (Feb­ ruary 1951): 18. 20 Gillett and Janca, Inventory of Texas Irrigation, p. 16. 21 C. V. Eubanks, "Modern Rainmakers,” The Farmer-Stockman, May 15, 1936, p. 277; Lockney Beacon, special irrigation issue, April 30, 1937, section 2, p. 2; Floyd County Hesperian, May 28, 1940, p. 7. 22 The Earth 35 (July 1 9 37): 4.

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cheaper than gasoline.23 Some irrigators who were near electric lines, however, seemed to prefer internal-combustion engines because the speed of the electric motor could not be reduced for a weak well and because electrical storms common to the region occasionally cut out electrical transmissions for several hours at a time.24 Recently developed liquified-petroleum gases, butane and propane, were more widely used than electricity for running irrigation pumps in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. By means of a few minor modifications, gasoline engines could be converted to these high-pressure fuels. In Swisher County, A. C. Julch was using butane gas from a one-thousandgallon tank to power two irrigation engines as early as 1940. 25 One liquified-petroleum dealer at Plainview reported in early 1949 that more than 5,000 irrigation and tractor engines had been converted to "LP gas.” And by 1952 approximately 10,000 of the more than 16,500 irrigation units on the High Plains were being powered by the fuel.26 The cost for butane in 1947 was about eight cents per gallon if the operator furnished his own storage tank, or about nine cents if the fuel distributor supplied the tank. This cost compared favorably with gasoline, which sold for eleven and one-half cents per gallon. In a study of average fuel consump­ tion on a group of irrigation engines, it was determined that butanepowered engines consumed twenty-six to thirty-seven cents of fuel per hour, while gasoline units used forty to fifty-two cents worth of fuel.27 The most important progress in cheaper fuels, however, was the greatly increased use of natural gas in the 1950’s. Vast deposits of natural gas had been known to exist in the Texas Panhandle as early as 1904 when Charles N. Gould, geologist from the University of Oklahoma, had con­ ducted the first of his investigations of the region for the U.S. Geological Survey. During his field trips of 1904 and 1905 Gould noticed geological "domes” strongly indicating oil and gas deposits along the Canadian 23 Magee et al., Cost of Water for Irrigation, pp. 15, 25. 24 Ibid, p. 9. 25 Ferdie Deering, "Water Is Where You Find It,” The Farmer-Stockman, August 1, 1940, p. 374. 26 John Mullins, "Butane Use Triples on Plains Farms,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (February 1949): 11; A. B. Slagle, "Irrigation on the High Plains,” Southwest­ ern Crop and Stock 6 (July 1952): 12. 27 William F. Hughes, “Cost of Pumping Water for Irrigation, Texas High Plains,” mimeographed, p. 9.

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River. In 1916 two Amarillo businessmen, M. C. Nobles and T. J. Moore, employed the Oklahoma geologist to chart oil and gas formations of the northern Panhandle. A group of High Plains businessmen including Nobles and Moore formed the Amarillo Oil Company, which brought in the first gas well in December, 1918. Subsequently, the Panhandle emerged as one of the important oil and gas fields in Texas.28 During the 1920’s gas companies extended their transmission lines to towns and cities over the Panhandle-High Plains region. By 1927 gas lines reached from the petroleum fields on the Canadian to Lubbock, Can­ yon, Happy, Tulia, Kress, Plainview, Hale Center, and other towns.29 An anonymous reporter predicted as early as 1921 that irrigation pump­ ing plants near Hereford "soon may be using natural gas as fuel.”30 In 1927 the West Texas Gas Company, which had constructed many of the lines into the High Plains, announced that it would establish near Plain­ view a demonstration farm which would be irrigated by gas-powered en­ gines in order "to show the practicability and cheapness of irrigating with gas.”31 By the end of the decade a few farmers in Deaf Smith and Floyd counties were using natural gas for irrigation purposes.32 More irrigators began to use gas during the 1930’s, but the fuel did not come into general use until after World War II. Even then its use for ir­ rigation purposes was retarded, primarily because of the expense in ex­ tending pipes from main transmission lines to farmers’ wells. At first those irrigators who wanted to use natural gas had to pay for the installa­ tion of their own lines. For example, in 1948 a farmer in Swisher County laid a line a distance of three hundred yards from a main line to his well. Some farmers overcame this obstacle in the late 1940’s, however, by forming their own cooperatives to construct gas lines.33 But in the early 1950’s the increased number of irrigation plants made it profitable for 28 Charles N. Gould, “The Beginnings of the Panhandle Oil and Gas Field,” Panbandle-Plains Historical Review 8 (1 9 3 5 ): 24-35. Gould’s reports were published by the United States Geological Survey in 1906 and 1907, respectively. 29 The Earth 24 (November 1927): 2; Amarillo Daily News, September 1, 1927, p. 1. 30 The Earth 17 (October 1 9 21): 11. 31 Amarillo Daily News, September 7, 1927, p. 1. 32 Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, July 22, 1928, section 3, p. 1; The Earth 26 (July 1 9 2 9 ):1 0 . 33 Interview with Royal Crawford, Tulia, December 29, 1965.

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gas companies to bear all or most of the expense in laying lines to wells.34 Consequently, farmers rapidly began converting their fuel systems to natural gas after 1952. By 1958, 68 percent of the irrigation pumps on the Texas High Plains were powered by natural gas. Of the total number of wells using gas that year, only 3 percent had employed the fuel to power irrigation pumps before 1952.35 A study published by the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station for the period 1947-1949 concluded that natural gas was significantly cheaper than any other fuel. Investigations compared the cost per acrefoot of water, which included such items as depreciation on plant, interest on investment, taxes, fuel cost, fixed costs, and repairs, for the four major fuels. Gasoline was the most expensive at $8.70 per acre-foot. Liquifiedpetroleum gas cost $7.53. Electricity, reflecting primarily inexpensive up­ keep of electrical motors, rather than the kilowatt cost per hour, was $6.58. But the cost per acre-foot for those using natural gas was only $5.15.36 Technological improvements which decreased the amount of labor in water distribution and increased efficiency also came into general use. By the end of World War II plastic, rubber, or aluminum siphon tubes to carry water from ditches down field rows had replaced the old method of spading out a part of the ditch wall. These simple devices not only cut down on the amount of labor previously required for cutting out wedges of soil in ditches, but also decreased the labor previously required to re­ pair erosion caused by the old method and to close up breaks in ditches after making a "set.”37 Some form of closed-conduit system was needed to replace the open ditch, through which as much as 30 percent of the water was lost by seep34 Thomas F. Cartwright, "History of Pioneer Natural Gas Company,” PanhandlePlains Historical Review 32 (1 9 5 9 ): 86. As late as 1952, farmers generally had to con­ struct their own lines (Magee et a l. Cost of Water for Irrigation, p. 12). 35 Hughes and Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, p. 10. 36 These figures were for engines rated at one hundred horsepower or less. The cost was proportionately higher for larger engines (Magee et a l. Cost of Water for Irrigation, pp. 9, 2 5 ). 37 Hughes and Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, pp. 10-11. A "set” is the term used by irrigators in the region to designate the watering of one segment of a crop at a time.

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age and evaporation according to some agricultural specialists.38 That need was met when irrigators began using aluminum and concrete pipe instead of ditches to carry water from pump to field. Concrete pipe be­ came especially popular with farmers. Used in sizes ranging from ten to seventeen inches in diameter, the conduit was laid three to four feet below the surface. Risers with valves, which would release water under pressure into sections of gated aluminum pipe, were installed at about twohundred-foot intervals. The system was easily identified by tall steel or concrete standpipes jutting into the air in straight lines at the end of fields. These standpipes were used to vent air to the pipe and to serve as safety valves in the event that more water was pumped into the conduit than could be released. Another obvious advantage of the pipe was that water could be pumped to a more elevated area of the field. One of the earlier systems to be used was installed north of Littlefield on the farm of Walter Gray. The Lamb County Soil Conservation District held a demonstration of the system on Gray’s farm January 21, 1949. Some 250 farmers and businessmen attended the session. Obviously impressed by the demonstra­ tion, a farm reporter wrote that the use of underground conduit not only conserved water, but also allowed cultivation of land at the surface which otherwise would be wasted through ditching; and by using gated pipes instead of individual siphon tubes it significantly reduced the amount of labor in making "sets.”39 Another advantage in putting in the pipe was that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would pay approximately one-third the cost of installation through the conservation program of the Production and Marketing Ad­ ministration (PM A). Total cost for the pipe, including installation, ranged from 95 cents to $1.40 per foot for sizes from ten to fifteen inches in diameter.40 By 1958 some form of closed-distribution system was being used on 50 percent of the irrigated farms on the Texas High Plains. About 15 per­ cent of this number were equipped with surface aluminum pipe. The re­ mainder consisted of underground concrete conduits. A state agricultural 38 Bonnen, et al., Use of Irrigation Water on the High Plains, p. 18. 39 Raymond Lee Johns, "The 'Big Inch’ Comes to Plains Irrigation,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (February 1949) : 8-9. 40 "Concrete Pipe Built in Plant at Lubbock,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (De­ cember 1949): 47, 51.

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report found one concrete pipe system which had been installed as early as 1944, but only 17 percent of those in existence in 1958 had been put in before 1954. Some 80 percent of the concrete conduits were installed between 1954 and 19 58.41 Technological innovations were not the only important characteristics of irrigation expansion. Irrigators on the plains also made some major changes in agricultural methods. One such adjustment concerned the use of fertilizer. Previously, very few High Plains farmers had used fertilizer, because of the fertility of the rich topsoil. But with the advent of irriga­ tion, the emphasis upon maximum yield rapidly depleted the soil. In 1951 an observer reported that in irrigated areas of the Texas High Plains, "constant cultivation is exhausting the organic content of the soil.”42 At first farmers thought of fertilization processes in the older terms of rotating crops and applying cattle manure. A Swisher County farmer said in 1940 that irrigation would require more crop rotation than dry-land farming had required.43 The maximum production of cash crops which continued to bring good prices left little time, however, for grow­ ing soil-building crops of low cash value. Farmers needed some type of fertilizer high in nitrogen content to replenish the soil rapidly after the harvesting of each crop. By the early 1950’s various petroleum-products manufacturers were producing such a chemical fertilizer in gas form— anhydrous ammonia. Anhydrous ammonia, consisting of more than 80 percent nitrogen, was manufactured from natural gas. The product had to be stored in highpressure steel tanks and could be very dangerous if inhaled. At first the gas was put into irrigation water between the pump and the field, but by the summer of 1950 the Jeoffrey Manufacturing Company of Amarillo had adapted their chisel-type plow for applying the fertilizer directly into 41 Hughes and Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, pp. 10-11. The demand for concrete pipe on the High Plains brought a new in­ dustry to Lubbock in September, 1949. The Gifford-Hill Company of Dallas, manufac­ turers and engineers for concrete products, established Gifford-Hill Western, Inc, a subsidiary, in that city for the purpose of manufacturing and installing underground concrete conduits for irrigation farmers ("Concrete Pipe Built in Plant at Lubbock,” pp. 47, 51; Pete W . Gifford, The Gifford-Hill Story, p. 13) • 42 Frank A. Briggs, "Touring the Plains and Panhandle,” Farm and Ranch 81 (De­ cember 1951): 24. 43 Deering, "Water Is Where You Find It,” p. 374.

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the soil through nozzles attached behind plow points.44 According to a study conducted in 1958, it was found that approximately 67 percent of the irrigators who relied primarily upon the production of grain sorghum and wheat used fertilizer. In the sandy-loam soils of the cotton-producing region in the southern part of the region, however, only about 31 percent of the irrigation farmers used fertilizer.45 Another significant change in irrigation agriculture was the develop­ ment of grain sorghum46 as the major cash crop in terms of total acreage for the Texas High Plains. This crop was especially suited for the clayloam soils north of Lubbock County. In 1948 grain sorghum was planted on 518,600 acres of irrigated land. In comparison, cotton ranked second with 482,700 acres, and wheat was third with an acreage of 266,900. Among other crops were alfalfa, 55,900 acres; forage sorghums, 23,700 acres; and 8,870 acres in commercial truck crops.47 By 1958, out of a total of approximately 4.486 million irrigated acres on the Texas High Plains, more than 1.878 million acres were planted in grain sorghum. Cotton ranked second with approximately 1.315 million acres. Wheat was third with some 706,000 acres, followed by sorghums planted for livestock forage (125,000 acres) and alfalfa (61,800 acres).48 In representative counties from the northern, southern, and central areas of the plains, the important role of irrigated grain sorghum as of 1958 is apparent. Dallam County in the north had 20,150 acres in wheat and 15,655 acres in grain sorghum. Some 129,539 acres in grain sorghum were grown in Deaf Smith, compared to 113,500 acres in wheat. Hans­ ford County, well within the boundaries of the old wheat-belt region of the Great Plains, had 34,750 acres in wheat and 33,200 acres planted to grain sorghum. Even in the southern counties, which were within the southern cotton belt, the number of acres planted to grain sorghum com­ pared favorably to cotton acreage. Lubbock had 199,000 acres in cotton and 133,472 acres in grain sorghum, Terry County had 82,557 acres in 44 Interview with Royal Crawford; "Anhydrous Ammonia Gaining Favor,” South­ western Crop and Stock 4 (June 1950) : 68-69. 45 Hughes and Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, p. 11. 46 The singular term "grain sorghum” was being used by agricultural specialists at this time to designate the kind of grain sorghum grown as a cash crop. 47 Hughes and Motheral, Irrigated Agriculture in Texas, p. 6. 48 Gillett and Janca, Inventory of Texas Irrigation, pp. 13-24.

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cotton and 50,707 acres in grain sorghum, and Hockley had 102,300 acres in cotton and 51,900 acres in grain sorghum. Grain sorghum played a relatively minor role in only a few southern counties. Cochran County was such an exception with 55,000 acres in cotton and only 5,000 in grain sorghum. In the central counties grain sorghum was by far the most im­ portant crop in terms of total irrigated acreage. For example, Castro County had 168,570 acres in grain sorghum, 86,000 acres in wheat, and 55,000 acres in cotton. Parmer planted 243,959 acres in grain sorghum, 66,963 acres in wheat, and 43,200 acres in cotton. Hale grew 263,992 acres in grain sorghum, 164,399 acres in cotton, and 43,000 acres in wheat.49 The expansion of grain sorghum not only indicated an increased de­ mand for grain in the production of feeder livestock during and after World War II, but also reflected greater restrictions by the federal gov­ ernment in the 1950’s on the production of cotton and wheat. As acreage allotments were decreased, irrigation farmers planted more acres to grain sorghum. The increase in production of the crop was aided by the de­ velopment of short-stalk, erect-headed plants bred for high-yield grain production and suitable for harvesting by combine. This type of plant, sometimes called "combine maize,” was developed in the early 1940’s largely by R. E. Karper, an agronomist who had long been associated with the Lubbock Agricultural Experiment Station.50 Another significant aspect was that irrigated farms in the region tended to be relatively large. By 1948 there were some 1.385 million irrigated acres on 7,500 farms in the Texas High Plains, an average of approxi­ mately 185 acres per farm. The size of farms varied from truck patches of ten to twenty acres on the outskirts of urban areas to wheat farms of 2,000 acres or more. In the wheat and grain-sorghum belt, irrigated farms aver­ aged about 250 acres. In the cotton-producing areas, the units were smaller, averaging about 160 acres. The number of wells per irrigated farm averaged 1.3 in the region. And it was reported that farms having 5 or more wells were not unusual. A study by a Texas Agricultural Ex­ periment Station group concluded in 1948 that High Plains irrigators 49 Ibid., pp. 45-301. 60 Briggs, "Touring the Plains and Panhandle,” p. 24; Everett A. Gillis, ' R. E. Karper,” in Builders of the Southwest, ed. Seymour V. Connor, pp. 111-113.

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"seldom strive for maximum per-acre yields. They choose instead to spread water over the greatest possible acreage with the accent on in­ creased total production rather than on the highest per-acre yields.”51 But, in addition, subsequent increased use of fertilizer in the 1950’s un­ doubtedly contributed to high per-acre yields. Extensively irrigated farms, characteristic of irrigation agriculture in the region, were also more mechanized than dry-land farms. By 1952 about 55 percent of all row-crop tractors used by irrigation farmers on the Texas High Plains were four-row machines.52 Moreover, most irrigators who produced grain sorghum and wheat as cash crops owned their own combines. Cotton production was less mechanized. More hand-hoeing was required because irrigation produced more weeds. Almost all cotton was hand-pulled the first time. But tractor-mounted cotton strippers were used the second time on 40 to 50 percent of the irrigated acreage.53 In a comparative study done in 1955 of the total farm machinery investments on irrigated and dry-land farms on the Texas High Plains, it was deter­ mined that irrigated farms had two to three times larger investments in farm machinery, excluding irrigation equipment, than did dry-land farms. For example, on a typical dry-land farm of 320 acres, the investment in equipment was $6,615, whereas on a 320-acre irrigated farm the amount totaled approximately $18,000. The same study showed that the invest­ ment in farm machinery even on a 160-acre irrigated farm averaged about $11,000.54 Increased crop production through irrigation was not the only source of profit. Increased land values may have been even more profitable for irri­ gators and undoubtedly made pumping plants even more attractive. In 1948 it was reported that Crosby County dry land was being purchased at prices ranging from $50 to $125 per acre. At the same time irrigated land was selling for $150 to $300 per acre.55 In Hale County in 1935 a 51 Hughes and Motheral, Irrigated Agriculture in Texas, p. 17. 52 A. C. Magee et al., Production Practices for Irrigated Crops on the High Plains, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. 763, p. 6. 53 Ibid., pp. 9, 11, 14, 16. 54 William F. Hughes and A. C. Magee, Water and Associated Costs in the Production of Cotton and Grain Sorghum, Texas High Plains, 1955, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. 851, p. 5. 55 ''Crosby County’s Land Values,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (October 1948): 46.

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farmer named Clinton Terrell bought a farm of 256 acres at $30 per acre, an excellent price during the Dust Bowl era. The Green Machinery Com­ pany of Plainview drilled an irrigation well on credit for him the next year. By 1952 Terrell owned more than a thousand acres and had some 800 acres worth about $250 per acre in irrigated crops.56 Prices for irri­ gated farms continued to climb during the 1950’s. By 1959 the average value per acre of all farming land, including nonirrigated acreage, in Hale County, the most extensively irrigated county of the region, was $333.33. And in Lubbock the value per acre of all farms was even more at $406.26.57 Beyond increased profits for individual farmers, the expansion of ir­ rigation had social and economic significance for the Texas High Plains. As a social consequence, the population of those counties whose econo­ mies rested primarily upon irrigation agriculture either remained stable or showed an increase for the period 1950-1960, while dry-land agri­ cultural counties suffered significant losses of population. For example, Swisher County’s population expanded from 8,249 to 10,607. The popu­ lation of Hockley County grew from 20,407 to 22,340; and Deaf Smith County, which had counted 5,979 in 1930, expanded from 9,111 in 1950 to 13,187 in I960. By contrast, some West Texas counties east of the irrigation region showed marked declines in population. Collings­ worth County, which had numbered 14,461 souls in 1930, declined in population from 9,139 to 6,276 in the period 1950-1960. Childress County, which had declined from more than 16,000 in 1930 to 12,123 by 1950, fell to 8,421 by the end of the following decade. And Donley County’s population declined from 6,216 in 1950 to 4,449 a decade later.58 Although there are no accurate statistics available, there is some evi­ dence that the increase in population was partly a result of young men re­ maining in rural areas to farm rather than moving to urban areas. One 56 Vida Gordon, "Myhaven Farm Is Real Haven,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 6 (June 19 5 2 ): 12. 57 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Agriculture, 1959, vol. 1, part 37, 154-173. 58 United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940: Population, II, Part 6, 792-806; Eighteenth Census of the United States, I960: Population, I, Part A, 45-25 through 45-27.

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observer noted that the average Crosby County farmer in 1949 was thirty-six years old and had purchased his farm in the last ten years. In addition, the majority of vocational agricultural students in Crosby County high schools who had graduated in the period just prior to 1949 were now farmers. The reporter concluded, "It is not uncommon to see Crosby County farms owned and operated by young men only 20 to 25 years of age/’59 Many such young men doubtlessly were aided by finan­ cially successful fathers in buying farms or went into partnership with their fathers. But irrigation may have also offered a means of social and economic mobility for some. For example, in Lamb County a disabled World War II veteran owned 8 acres and rented 100 acres in 1945. By 1946 he had made a down payment on an 80-acre farm and borrowed money from a local bank to install an irrigation plant. With 70 acres in cotton in 1947 he produced 102 bales, enough to pay for the irrigation unit and the land. The veteran then made a down payment on another 115 acres, bought some new farm equipment, and drilled a well on his newly purchased land. By the end of 1948 he had 195 irrigated acres clear of debt.60 The advent of irrigation even modified the vocabulary of the High Plains. New words crept into the West Texas drawl of its farmers. One observer reported in 1949: "Irrigation has brought many new words as well as dollars to Crosby County. Farmers talk of siphons, canvas gates, and ditches.”61 Irrigators also created new phrases, such as "make a set,” "check the water,” "change the water,” "tail water,” and "prewater.”62 59 John N. Mitchell, “Crosby Farmers Prosper by Combining Equipment and 'KnowHow/ ” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (January 1949): 26-27. 60 "Olton Veteran Pays for His Farm,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (November 1949): 24. 61 John N. Mitchell, "Irrigation in Crosby County,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (February 1949), reprinted in Nellie W itt Spikes and Temple Ann Ellis, Through the Years: A History of Crosby County, Texas, pp. 60-61. 62 For a definition of the term "make a set,” see footnote number 37 in this chapter. The following are definitions of the other terms. To "check the water” means to walk across a field to check the progress of water as it flows down the rows. If the water has reached the end of the rows and is flowing down a drainage ditch or across the lower end of the field, it becomes "tail water.” Then one must "change the water,” that is, stop the water from flowing down already soaked rows by setting another canvas dam further down the main ditch and taking up the siphon tubes and resetting them, or by opening

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Even more important, the expansion of irrigation changed the working habits of farmers. In 1896 Frederick H. Newell of the U.S. Geological Survey had cautioned plainsmen that "successful irrigation means highgrade farming. It means the employment of intelligence and persistent labor. Unlike wheat farming, for instance, the work of the year is not concentrated into a few weeks or months, but for good results must be continued in one form or another almost every day. It is not sufficient to raise a single crop or single kind, but if practicable two crops at least every year should be raised.”63 Because High Plains irrigators usually raised more than one cash crop, work became more extensive as well as more intensive, stretching through the entire year. Labor began with preparing the soil in the winter as soon as the last bale of cotton reached the gin. Preparation included discing, chiseling, and applying fertilizer. Preplanting irrigation was required in the early spring if little moisture had accumulated during the winter. In the spring farmers also watered wheat and planted cotton. Irrigators ap­ plied water to cotton, harvested wheat, and planted grain sorghum in June. During July and August both cotton and grain sorghum required cultivation and irrigation. And through the summer, farmers "sidedressed” their crops with fertilizer and periodically sprayed insecticides on growing plants. Then in the fall winter wheat had to be planted, cot­ ton required harvesting, and combines gathered the grain sorghum crop.64 Applying irrigation water to crops also required much labor. Farmers often had to "make a set” during the late night or early morning. The spectacle of pickup trucks driving down country roads at 2:00 a .m ., the bobbing of flashlights across distant fields, and the incessant distant roar of hundreds of irrigation engines became commonplace during what had once been the still of a plains summer night. As one reporter described the scene, "People from the eastern part of the State who might drive through Crosby County at night are often amazed by the flashlights and a riser valve from an underground concrete conduit and by closing the valve of the pre­ vious "set.” "Prewater” is a shortened term for preplanting irrigation of the soil (phrases gathered from personal experiences). 63 Frederick H. Newell, "Irrigation on the Great Plains,” in United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1896, p. 174. 64 Magee et a l, Production Practices for Irrigated Crops on the High Plains, p. 32.

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electric lanterns darting over the fields near the highway. They usually stop at the nearest service station and ask, 'What’s going on?’ Often they get fantastic answers such as, 'The farmer planted his crop this afternoon and wants to see if it’s coming up.’ Anyway, if they realize it or not, big business is going on, and big engines are pumping a drink for the crops from several feet under the ground.”65 A spade and a pair of rubber boots in the back of a mud-splattered pickup truck marked the High Plains ir­ rigator. His twenty-four-hour-per-day schedule during the summer gave him little leisure time. The most significant consequence of irrigation was its impact upon the total economy of the Texas High Plains. In 1959 the increased annual farm income which resulted from irrigation in the region was estimated at some $74 million. Moreover, the enlarged annual profit for businesses involved in marketing the increase in agricultural products was calculated to be $68 million. And the additional income for such agricultural-supply businesses as implement, fertilizer, and insecticide dealers was believed to be another $63 million. Most important for the region as a whole, the increased profits to businesses not directly associated with marketing agri­ cultural products or with supplying goods for agricultural production to farmers was estimated to be an additional $125 million annually. The total economic benefit of irrigation to the Texas High Plains in 1959 was estimated at $330 million.66 Notwithstanding the economic and social gains made possible by the phenomenal increase in the number of pumping plants, the growth of ir­ rigation in the 1950’s was not without its problems. By the end of the Korean War, American farmers were losing many of their Asian and European markets for agricultural products. In spite of the Soil Bank land-retirement program of the Eisenhower administration, farmers con­ tinued through greater mechanization and increased use of fertilizers and hybrid seed to produce more than ever before. Consequently, because of overproduction as prices for other goods and services continued to rise, plains irrigators, like other American farmers, found themselves caught 65 Mitchell, "Irrigation in Crosby County,” p. 61. 66 Herbert W . Grubb, Importance of Irrigation Water to the Economy of the Texas High Plains, Texas Water Development Board Report, no. 11, pp. 20-21.

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in the kind of cost-price squeeze which they had experienced in the 1920’s. On the High Plains, cotton acreage was reduced and the prices for cotton, wheat, and grain sorghum edged downward.67 Summary Many factors contributed to the expansion of irrigation in the two dec­ ades from 1940 to I960. Despite increased costs for irrigation plants after World War II, farmers found irrigation profitable. Reasonably good prices for farm products caused by the demands of World War II, the postwar economic boom, the federal government’s agricultural policies, and the Korean War encouraged maximum agricultural production by means of irrigation on the Texas High Plains. Such technological im­ provements as the increased use of natural gas as a fuel for pumpingplant engines and the use of siphon tubes, closed conduits, and chemical fertilizers decreased some expenses and labor while increasing efficiency. Cotton and wheat remained important cash crops, but grain sorghum be­ came the most significant cash crop in terms of irrigated acreage in the region. Although lower prices for farm products and high costs for goods and services plagued plains irrigators by the middle 1950’s, irrigation continued to expand. In 1950 the average irrigated farm on the Texas High Plains was a relatively large, highly mechanized economic unit. By the close of that decade it was apparent that irrigation had exerted important social and economic influences upon the region. Although most West Texas agri­ cultural counties lost population, the extensively irrigated counties of the High Plains either stabilized or increased their population. And, signifi­ cantly, irrigation contributed to the economic growth of the entire High Plains region. Frederick Jackson Turner once stated that if a person could have viewed the pageant of the American frontier from the vantage point of Cumberland Gap and later at South Pass, he would have seen the repre­ 67 Hughes and Magee, Water and Associated Costs in the Production of Cotton and Grain Sorghum, p. 3.

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sentatives of each type of frontier pass in review.68 The Indian would have been followed by the fur trapper, the cattleman would have suc­ ceeded the trapper, and the farmer would have marched triumphantly through the pass after the herdsman. If Turner could have stood on the eastern edge of the Cap Rock escarpment of the Texas High Plains, he would have seen another type of pioneer—the pump irrigator, dependent upon technology, shod in rubber boots rather than buckskin, and carrying a shovel rather than a rifle. 68 Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in The Early Writings of Frederick Jackson Turner, comp. Everett E. Edwards, p. 199.

10. The Problem of Ground-Water Conservation

F a llin g farm prices posed a serious problem to farmers in the late 1950’s, but the most important dilemma facing High Plains irrigators resulted, ironically, from the very success of irrigation itself. The growing number of wells and the increase of acres under irri­ gation caused a significant decline in the water table of the massive Ogal­ lala ground-water formation. This decline threatened the irrigation econ­ omy of the region. Early settlers of the Texas High Plains believed that their ground water came from an “inexhaustible” source. The editor of The Earth voiced local opinion when he remarked of the Panhandle in 1904: "It has a water sheet under it that is inexhaustible___ An inexhaustible water supply from such wells is a thing expected and counted upon in all cases.”1 This belief was widely held because of a local myth that the water came from a kind of gigantic underground river. People believed that the 1 The Earth 1 (April 1904): 3.

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river originated at some distant source to the northwest and flowed under the High Plains on its course to the Gulf of Mexico.2 This myth may have had its origin in scientific speculation of the late 1880’s when interest in the sources for artesian water had been aroused. Richard J. Hinton, who directed an investigation for the federal govern­ ment’s first report on irrigation, believed that the water underlying the western Great Plains originated as snow on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains.3 One geologist who worked on the federal government’s 1891 investigation of artesian and underflow water, which Hinton also headed, noted that there were two theories about the origin of the water. First, the plains were underlaid with a deposit of gravel through which most of the runoff from the Rockies flowed in an easterly direction. Second, the gravel deposits held water which had percolated down into the earth from rain and snow on the surface of the plains. This scientist admitted, however, that he did "not know which theory is correct.”4 A variation of the idea was that the water flowed from some distant arctic glacier rather than from the melting snows of the Rockies. This mis­ conception supposedly originated with a certain Captain Livermore, who supposedly conducted a topographical survey of West Texas in the 1880’s. H. C. "Hank” Smith, who had settled in Crosby County in 1877, recalled in his later life that Livermore had related the theory to him. According to Smith, the captain had concluded that "the only power that could ever exhaust the Plains water supply would be an earthquake that would crack the flint bottom [of the underground river] and give the water another channel.”5 At least one other later settler continued to em­ 2 In 1907 Charles N. Gould reported, "There is a prevalent but erroneous idea in most parts of the High Plains that the water which supplies the wells on the plains comes from the Rocky Mountains” (Gould, The Geology and Water Resources of the Western Por­ tion of the Panhandle of Texas, United States Geological Survey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, no. 191, p. 4 0 ). 3 Richard J. Hinton, Irrigation in the United States, 49th Cong, 2d sess. Serial No. 2450, Sen. Misc. Doc. No. 15, p. 42. 4 Howard Miller, "Preliminary Report on the Possibilities of the Reclamation of the Arid Regions of Kansas and Colorado by Utilizing the Underlying Waters,” in [Richard J. Hinton}, Irrigation: The Final Report of the Artesian and Underflow Investigation and of the Irrigation Inquiry, 52d Cong, 1st sess. Serial No. 2899, Sen. Exec. Doc. No. 41, p. 303. 5 "Uncle Hank” Smith, "Down the Reminiscent Line,” Crosbyton Review, Old Timers’ and Present Day Edition, February 29, 1912, section 2, p. 6.

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brace this idea after hearing it from Smith. Don H. Biggers, who in 1911 had installed one of the earliest irrigation plants in Lubbock County, recalled years later that upon completing the well he noticed the move­ ment of water across the bottom of the pit "at a rate of about a mile an hour.” He concluded: "Livermore was right. It was not melted snow from distant mountains but glacier water from the Arctic, thousands of miles away. How it gets to the Plains and then spreads out is a matter to be worked out.”6 A number of plainsmen, however, continued to believe that their "in­ exhaustible” supply of water originated in the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains. Zenas E. Black, executive secretary of the Plainview Com­ mercial Club, stated in 1914 that the water came from "the 'Underground River.’ . . . It starts in the melting snows of the Rockies, sinks below the surface and at the urge of gravity starts southeast.”7 Harry M. Bainer, agricultural agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, asserted in 1912 when the early irrigation wells were being drilled: "Geologists, and others who have studied the underground waters of the Panhandle and South Plains, say that much of the area here is underlaid with a great body of water. They claim that this water has its origin in the mountains to the north and west, and that it is an underground stream, flowing southeasterly. The claims of the geologists, apparently, are true.”8 The theory of an inex­ haustible source of water from distant mountains continued to be pre­ valent on the Texas High Plains well into the 1950’s.9 6 Don H. Biggers, "Exploration and Tests of Underground Water on the Plains,” West Texas Historical Association Year Book 17 (October 1941): 78-81. The editor of the above journal reported that he failed to find any mention of Livermore or the Livermore report in the Checklist of United States Government Documents (footnote, p. 77 of the same issue). I also failed to find any evidence of the elusive Captain Livermore either in government documents or in William H. Goetzmann’s exhaustive treatment of scientific reconnaissances in the West, Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West. 7 Zenas E. Black, "The Land of the Underground Rain,” The Earth 11 (April 1914): 13. 8 The Earth 9 (July 1912): 10. 9 A group of Lamb County citizens included the following in its resolutions of 1946: ". . . it has not been condlusively [j/V] established whether the source of such under­ ground water is from surface rainfall or from undercurrents of water flowing through such territory” (copy of resolutions of Lamb County Water Conservation Association in Water Associations File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University). Also see Joseph F. Gordon, "George E. Green,” in Builders of the Southwest, ed. Seymour V. Connor, p. 97.

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Soon after the turn of the century, however, leading geologists con­ cluded that the ground water of the region was simply the accumulation of local precipitation over thousands of years. Charles N. Gould, the University of Oklahoma geologist, noted that the only geological forma­ tion of the High Plains which stretched unbroken to the Rocky Mountains was the Permian, which lay well below the water table of the region. Moreover, Gould pointed out that the Pecos Valley on the west cut off the High Plains ground-water formation from the mountains. Thus, it was physically impossible for water from the mountains to reach the Ogallala formation of the Texas High Plains.10 In 1914 O. E. Meinzer, also of the U.S. Geological Survey, stated that "the fact is well established that the supply [of ground water] does not come chiefly from the mountains, as is still popularly believed, but from the rain and snow that fall on the Great Plains.”11 Ground-water resources of the High Plains were so vast, however, that most irrigators of the 1930’s and 1940’s continued to believe in the myth of an inexhaustible supply. Indeed, the very massiveness of the Ogallala formation was partly to blame for the misconception. Early irrigators could pump a thousand gallons per minute from the extensive subsurface lake day after day without exhausting the supply. In an address given in 1938 before the Statewide Ground-Water Conservation meeting at Austin, Walter N. White, senior hydraulic engineer for the U.S. Geo­ logical Survey, warned ground-water users: "Practically everywhere that large supplies of water can be obtained from wells the popular belief has developed that the water is inexhaustible. This belief in many parts of the United States has led to disastrous over-development.”12 At the same time he observed that "in parts of the High Plains the wells are spaced too closely and the present pumpage probably exceeds the limits of safety.”13 10 Gould, Geology and Water Resources of the Western Panhandle, pp. 40-41. See geological illustration in idem, The Geology and Water Resources of the Eastern Portion of the Panhandle of Texas, United States Geological Survey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, no. 154, p. 36. 11 O. E. Meinzer, “Note on Ground Water for Irrigation on the Great Plains,” in A. T. Schwennesen, Ground Water for Irrigation in the Vicinity of Enid, Oklahoma, United States Geological Survey Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper, no. 345-B, p. 22. 12 Walter N. White, "A Few Facts Regarding Ground Water in Texas and the Prin­ ciples Governing the Occurrence of Ground Water,” mimeographed, p. 5. 13 Ibid, p. 6.

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Even before great numbers of irrigation wells had been drilled, other geologists and agricultural specialists suggested the need to conserve ground-water resources of the Texas High Plains. In 1915 Charles L. Baker of the University of Texas wrote: "It is fortunate for the shallow water districts that the ground water level of so much the greater portion of the Llano Estacado lies too deep to be used for profitable irrigation___ The error should not be made of thinking that all the annual increase to the ground water supply can be withdrawn for irrigation without lower­ ing the ground water level.”14 But within two decades the development of more powerful, more efficient deep-well pumping plants had removed this natural safeguard. In 1936 Bradford Knapp, then president of Texas Technological College (now called Texas Tech University), after reading a report concerning the slight decline in ground-water level in some areas of the High Plains, cautioned, "It is our hope that this bulletin . . . will serve to call the attention of farmers throughout the entire South Plains area to the fact that the water supply in our soil, while apparently abun­ dant at the present time, can be depleted by injudicious use.”15 And the Texas Board of Water Engineers noted in 1939, "There has been a gener­ al decline in the water table in the principal pumping districts of the High Plains during the last few years.”16 Studies conducted in the late 1930’s indicated that the decline in ground-water level varied in different areas and from year to year. In Deaf Smith County the average fall in one group of wells for the 19391940 season was 1.4 feet, while in another part of the county the drop amounted to only 1.3 feet for the two-year period 1938-1940.17 Varia­ tions were caused by a number of circumstances including distance or spacing between wells, thickness of the Ogallala formation, and the volume of water pumped by farmers. After World War II three important factors contributed to an even more drastic drop in the water table. First, the number of new wells 14 Charles L. Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Esta­ cado, University of Texas Bulletin, no. 57, p. 87. 15 Bradford Knapp, "Irrigation in the South High Plains,” The Progressive Farmer and Southern Ruralist 51 (May 1936): 8. 16 Texas Board of Water Engineers, Fourteenth Report of the Texas Board of Water Engineers, p. 53. 17 Walter N. White, W . L. Broadhurst, and J. W . Lang, "Ground Water in the High Plains in Texas,” mimeographed, pp. 24, 27.

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greatly accelerated. Second, many farmers began to irrigate more than one crop, requiring the operation of irrigation pumps for longer seasons. Third, the severe drouth of 1950-1956 created a much greater demand for new pumping plants and for more water from each well. Consequent­ ly, between 1937 and 1959 the average decline in the water level through­ out the irrigated High Plains was some forty-three feet. But again the amount and rate of decline varied in different areas. In more recently developed sectors of deeper water on the perimeter of the old "shallowwater” belt, the drop was less than twenty feet. In some areas of heavy concentration of irrigation wells, such as parts of Hale, Lubbock, and Floyd counties, the decline reached an astounding one hundred feet.18 A report issued by the Texas Board of Water Engineers in 1949 warned that "if present trends of pumping and water-level decline continue, those areas [under pump irrigation] and other parts of the irrigated region will be seriously affected within 5 to 10 years.”19 The decline of water levels was exacerbated by the fact that Texas had no law dealing with ground-water conservation until 1949. Every western state has some type of legislation to regulate the appropriation of water from streams,20 but as of 1948 only eight states in the nation had laws to conserve ground water.21 One problem which has hindered legislation to regulate the appropriation of subsurface water has been the lack of under­ standing about the origin of such water. Courts have generally classified ground water as originating either from subsurface streams or from rain­ fall which has percolated down through the soil. Judicial bodies have ruled that such underground formations as sources of artesian water and 18 William F. Hughes and A. C. Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, Texas High Plains, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bul­ letin, no. 966, p. 5. 19 J. R. Barnes et al., Geology and Ground Water in the Irrigated Region of the Southern High Plains in Texas, Texas Board of Water Engineers Progress Report, no. 7, p. 46. 20 Most surface-water laws of western states are modeled after those of either Colorado or California. For treatments of those laws and their origins, see Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, pp. 431-452; Robert G. Dunbar, "Water Conflicts and Controls in Colorado,” Agricultural History 22 (July 1948): 180-186; idem, "The Significance of the Colorado Agricultural Frontier,” Agricultural History 34 (July I9 6 0 ): 119-125; Benjamin Franklin Rhodes, Jr., "Thirsty Land: The Modesto Irrigation District, A Case Study of Irrigation under the Wright Law,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1943. 21 Roy E. Huffman, Irrigation Development and Public Water Policy, p. 50.

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ground water along the banks of rivers are subject to the same regula­ tions as surface streams. On the other hand, percolated water has been declared by various state courts and legislatures to fall within the scope of three different legal doctrines. First, the doctrine of 'absolute owner­ ship’' gives a property owner the right to unrestricted use of all water below the surface of his land regardless of consequences to neighboring wells. Second, the doctrine of "correlative rights” grants landowners the ownership of subsurface water, but requires that they use the water for beneficial purposes without injuring the rights of other well owners. Third, the doctrine of 'p rio r appropriation” holds that all ground water belongs to the state, and a state agency supervises the distribution of water rights on the basis of prior claims according to the estimated amount of water in the underground formation. In other words, the state issues only a certain number of permits for wells in each area.22 Texas has long held to the absolute-ownership theory. In 1904 the State Supreme Court in the case of Houston and T. C. Ry v. East elected to follow the doctrine of absolute ownership laid down in Acton v. Blun­ dell, an 1843 British case. The Texas court stated, "So the owner of the land is the absolute owner of the soil and of percolating water, which is a part of, and not different from, the soil/’23 In 1913 the Texas legis­ lature enacted a law for the regulation and control of artesian water, but the bill did not apply to pumped wells. At the same time, a state Board of Water Engineers was created to regulate the use of surface-stream water and artesian wells.24 The Board of Water Engineers, aided by reports of some federal agen­ cies in the 1930’s, began to urge the state legislature to enact compre­ hensive ground-water legislation. In 1929 the Texas board, in coopera­ tion with the U.S. Geological Survey, undertook an extensive survey of ground-water resources throughout the state. During the early New Deal, the work was augmented by the Works Progress Administration. Subse22 Ibid., pp. 50-51; Carl Frederick Kraenzel, The Great Plains in Transition, pp. 293— 294. 23 98 Texas 146 (1 9 0 4 ); quoted in Joe R. Greenhill and Thomas Gibbs Gee, "Owner­ ship of Ground Water in Texas: The East Case Reconsidered,” Texas Law Review 33 (May 1955): 620. 24 John T. Thompson, "Governmental Responses to the Challenges of Water Re^ sources,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 70 (July 1966): 54.

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quently, the board’s biennial report published in 1934 called for a law, "first, to declare the underground water of the State the property of the State; second, to guarantee vested rights to those who already have made beneficial use of underground water; and third, to exercise proper control over future underground-water development.” The board concluded, "There is no reason why underground water should not be subject to the same control as surface water.”25 The position of the state agency was strengthened by the report of the Great Plains Committee, formed by President Roosevelt as a response to the disastrous Dust Bowl ex­ perience. The national committee noted that, with the exception of New Mexico, the Great Plains states "either have inadequate or no statutes relating to ground-water utilization control.”26 Subsequently, the committee endorsed the report of the National Advisory and Legislative Committee on Land Use, which strongly urged that states "declare all unappropriated underground waters to be public waters of the state, sub­ ject to appropriation for beneficial use.”27 The Board of Water Engineers reiterated the need for such laws in its report of 1938.28 But bills dealing with ground-water control introduced into the Texas legislature in 1937, 1941, and 1947 were defeated.29 Because of declining water levels in some parts of Texas in the late 1940, s , particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, and possibly because of widespread national publicity given to a growing shortage of water re­ sources throughout the United States,30 a movement for ground-water conservation emerged in Texas. By the fall of 1946 it was obvious in some quarters of the High Plains that the state legislature at its next biennial session in 1947 would consider a bill to control or regulate ground-water withdrawal. Support for such a bill appeared to be gaining strength in some parts of Texas. Some urban interests on the High Plains, alarmed at the declining water level, also began to advocate similar legislation. The Lubbock Chamber of Commerce wanted legislation "to protect, control, 25 Texas Board of Water Engineers, Eleventh Report of the Texas Board of Water Engineers, pp. 36-37, 40-43. 26 Great Plains Committee, The Future of the Great Plains, p. 116. 27 Ibid., p. 117. 28 Texas Board of Water Engineers, Thirteenth Report of the Texas Board of Water Engineers, p. 43. 29 Thompson, "Governmental Responses to the Challenges of Water Resources,” p. 58. 30 Lester Velie, "Are W e Short of W ater?” Collier’s, May 15, 1948, pp. 14, 74.

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and allocate the withdrawal of underground water.”31 On October 29 a resolution presented by the city engineer of Big Spring, E. L. Killingsworth, to a joint meeting in Lubbock of the Permian Basin Water Works and Sewage Association, the Caprock Water Works Operators Associa­ tion, and the Panhandle Water Works Operators called for laws to regu­ late withdrawal of subsurface water and to establish ground-water dis­ tricts based upon geological unity rather than upon river drainage-basin areas.32 Irrigation interests on the Texas High Plains generally opposed such legislation. Several county groups were organized in the fall of 1946 to oppose ground-water-control legislation. For example, some "dry-land farmers, irrigation farmers, and business men of Lamb County” met at Amherst on November 21 and organized the Lamb County Water Con­ servation Association.33 The association passed resolutions on December 27 which left little doubt as to its objectives. Among its resolutions was the following: "Whereas the rising water level in our country demon­ strates conclusively that there is no immediate danger to our water supply . . . NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that LAMB CO U N TY W A T ER C o n s e r v a t i o n A s s o c i a t i o n go on record opposing any bill by the coming Legislature of the State of Texas applying to or concerning the control of the underground water of the High Plains area of Texas.” Moreover, the organization called for further investigations "as to the possible existence of stronger and deeper water strata” and possibilities for "increasing the re-charge of the underground water supply from streams, rivers, and lakes by any reasonable method thoroughly investi­ gated and determined.”34 A regional meeting composed of delegates from about fourteen county organizations met at Plainview on December 28,1946, and organized the High Plains Water Conservation and Users Association. W. O. Forten­ berry of Lubbock County was elected president. The organization’s pri31 The Hub (official publication of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce) 7 (November 1946): 4, in Water Printed Material File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 32 Ibid. 33 The name of the organization originally was the Lamb County Water Conservation District. It was changed to Lamb County Water Conservation Association on December 16, 1946. 34 Copy of resolutions of Lamb County Water Conservation Association in Water As­ sociations File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers.

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mary objective was to launch a united opposition of High Plainsmen against any type of legislation to control ground water in the next session of the Texas legislature. The association indicated, however, that it was not opposed to water-withdrawal regulations if such controls were abso­ lutely necessary. But for the present the group insisted there was no need, because the Texas Board of Water Engineers had found that water levels had risen in the region in the last couple of years.35 If regulation might be necessary in the future, however, authority should be vested in the local area rather than in a state agency.36 Opposition to the ground-water bill was strong enough to defeat the proposal in the state legislature in 1947, but the issue did not die. Urban interests on the High Plains continued to be alarmed at the prospects of declining water supplies for municipal and industrial uses and at the possible future collapse of an irrigation economy. For example, J. E. Cunningham, president of the Southwestern Public Service Company, a large electric-utility corporation of the Texas Panhandle which also sup­ plied electricity to fifteen Rural Electrification Administration coopera­ tives, met with Claude R. Wickard, administrator of the REA, and other members of Wickard’s staff in Washington, D.C., on August 17, 1948. Cunningham and Wickard discussed the future extension of electrical lines into the Texas High Plains.37 Cunningham told one member of the REA staff: "The present agricultural income level on the High Plains is largely dependent on irrigation, and we are worried about the sudden collapse of our agricultural economy when the water becomes too low for economical pumping. We are afraid that this will happen within the next 8 or 10 years. Parties interested in the entire area, such as the REA and 35 The report referred to was probably W . L. Broadhurst, Ground Water in High Plains of Texas, Texas Board of Water Engineers Progress Report, no. 6. The report showed that most counties of concentrated irrigation, such as Floyd and Hale, were ex­ periencing some decline. The association’s assertion that ground-water levels were rising was probably based upon the report’s findings that because of the unusually wet year of 1941 ground-water recharge from precipitation had caused marked rises varying from 0.9 to 2.1 feet in ground-water levels for Hockley, Lamb, and Lubbock counties for the overall period 1938-1946. But the report also showed that from 1943 to 1946 all counties suffered some decline (Broadhurst, Ground Water in High Plains of Texas, pp. 8 -2 1 ). 36 A. B. Slagle, "Proposed Controls by State Opposed,” Lubbock Avalanche-] ourn al, December 29, 1946, pp. 1, 4. 37 Mimeographed copy of memorandum, J. E. Cunningham, Amarillo, August 23, 1948, to Claude R. Wickard, in Water Texas File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers.

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our Company, must take the factor of underground water supply into consideration in making long term plans and commitments.”38 Eschewing the myth of the inexhaustible supply, the business leader suggested to Wickard that "an educational program be inaugurated to acquaint the water users of the region with the facts. It is doubtful that our irrigation farmers will wish to continue to pump water fifteen times faster than it is recharged when they realize that the underground reservoir may be exhausted in many locations within the next decade.” Cunningham con­ cluded, "The REA set-up appears to be a splendid medium for the dis­ semination of information on this important question.”39 Amid reports that certain industrial and conservation groups in Texas, such as the Texas Water Conservation Association, were preparing bills pertaining to ground-water controls for presentation to the forthcoming session of the Texas legislature in 1949, High Plains irrigation interests began moving in early 1948 to prepare a counter bill. The Texas Farm Bureau sponsored a meeting at Plainview on March 8, 1948, to discuss the problem. State senator Grady Hazelwood of the Panhandle urgently warned the participants, "You had better get busy and find out what kind of law you want— and you can’t get started too soon.” A. B. Tarwater, vice president of the High Plains Water Conservation and Users Associa­ tion, which had successfully defeated the bill of 1947, suggested that such a law should create a system of locally controlled ground-water districts similar to the state’s soil-conservation districts.40 By the summer of 1948 the Texas Water Conservation Association had drawn up a lengthy bill of some thirty-three typed sheets of legal-size paper. The bill would have placed ground water under the doctrine of correlative rights rather than absolute private ownership. After a certain date, to be established later, farmers were to make application for all new irrigation wells through the office of the state engineer, who could grant or deny the applications. Moreover, the bill also established priority of 38 Mimeographed copy of letter, J. E. Cunningham, Amarillo, August 31, 1948, to R. F. Richter, manager of Applications and Loans Division, Region 10 of the REA, in Water Texas File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 39 Mimeographed copy of memorandum, J. E. Cunningham, Amarillo, August 23, 1948, to Claude R. Wickard, in Water Texas File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 40Arlee Gowen, "Plains Farmers Seek to Create Irrigation District,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (April 1948): 7.

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water rights in favor of municipal and manufacturers’ needs. Irrigation was placed at the bottom of the priority list.41 The editor of Southwestern Crop and Stock, an important farm magazine of the Texas Plains, re­ sponded to the report by comparing plains irrigators to "Carthagenians defending their city against the Roman onslaught.” He warned: "The third attack, like the Roman siege, may be successful. . . . We must beat them to the punch. West Texas does not need water proration— it needs protection against proration!” Moreover, the journalist advised High Plainsmen that Texas legislators no longer wanted to hear West Texans declare that " 'we don’t want this’ and we don’t want that’ at every ses­ sion. Soon the legislature will ask, 'What do you people in West Texas want?’ And when that question comes, the answer had better be ready (and it had better be good) .”42 Another interested party, the conservative his­ torian and cattleman J. Evetts Haley of Canyon, wrote: "Let us have a simple bill, providing for locally controlled districts, empowered to im­ pose their own restrictions, and guaranteeing to the owners the rights embodied in the American Constitution. This socialistic stuff has gone far enough.”43 Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., prominent Littlefield attorney and son of one of the early promoters of irrigation in Lamb County, drew up a list of pro­ posals representing the consensus of the High Plains Water Conservation and Users Association. Duggan believed that "an ideal law would work out in such a manner that no limitations on withdrawals of ground water would ever be necessary.” Subsequently, he proposed more study of methods for recharging ground-water formations; creation of ground­ water districts with responsibility, among other things, for recharge oper­ ations from playa-lake basins; programs for conservation of rain water and information to farmers about the minimum amount of water needed for various crops; measures to prevent the waste of ground-water reserves; permits to drill new wells in order to regulate the spacing of wells and the size of pumps; and "limitation of withdrawals” of ground-water reserves 41 Arlee Gowen, "Fifth Proration Bill Advocated for Texas,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (August 1 948): 13. 42 Arlee Gowen, "Proration or Protection,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (August 1948): 38. 43 J. Evetts Haley, Canyon, n.d., to Arlee Gowen; reprinted in Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (September 1948): 6.

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if "ground water supply situations become really critical.” But Duggan qualified the final point by insisting that restrictions upon withdrawals should be established only if water users within a district voted to impose such regulations upon themselves.44 Realizing the political strength of the 3,200-member organization which was mobilizing to fight its bill, the Texas Water Conservation Association invited representatives of the High Plains Water Conserva­ tion and Users Association to work out a compromise bill. The HPWCUA consequently sent a committee composed of W. O. Fortenberry and Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., among others, to a meeting with representatives of the TWCA in Austin on August 30-31. No agreement was reached at that time, primarily because the West Texans served notice that water proration was unacceptable to them. The two groups began meeting again in October, however, and on December 17 a compromise bill based on locally controlled districts emerged from the agreement. Fortenberry re­ marked triumphantly, "W e wrote our own ticket.”45 The editor of Southwestern Crop and Stock viewed the proposal as a capitulation by the TWCA rather than a compromise. "Until such a time as they deem it necessary to call in state assistance to protect the water supply,” he wrote, "West Texans can consider the water their own— to use or to waste as they please [italics mine].”46 Rep. I. B. Holt of Olton sponsored the district ground-water bill in the state House of Representatives. It was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Beauford Jester in June, 1949.47 The law provided for the creation of "underground water conservation districts.” Such districts were to be established upon the presentation of petitions by 44 Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., attorney for the High Plains Water Conservation and Users Association, “Some Texas Ground Water Problems, a Regenerative Approach,” manu­ script copy, ca. 1948, in Literary Productions File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 45 Pat Garrett, “High Plains Group Kills Fifth Water Proration Bill,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (September 1948): 7; Arlee Gowen, "Let’s Finish the Job,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (October 1948): 66; "Water Proration Fued [sic] Compro­ mised,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (November 1948): 7; John Mullins, "Plains Irrigators and TWCA Unite on New Water Bill,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (January 1949): 14. 46 Arlee Gowen, "Solution to Water Problems,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (N o­ vember 1948): 44. 47 "Landowner Retains Title and Control,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 3 (July 1949): 12.

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local citizens to the state Board of Water Engineers, which would de­ termine the geological boundaries of ground-water districts. A refer­ endum would then be held on a local-option system in which the majority of property owners within each precinct of the proposed district would have the power to include the precinct in the district. Among other things, the district would have the power to make and enforce rules for conser­ vation and recharge of ground water, to make rules to prevent waste of ground water, to issue drilling permits, to require the spacing of wells and "regulate the production therefrom,” to establish "research projects,” to publish information on conservation practices for the benefit of water users, and to enforce regulations through court injunction. But the law did not do away with the private-ownership theory of the East case. Pro­ visions were incorporated in the statute to the effect that no district could deny a permit to drill a well to any landowner and that the "ownership and rights of the owner of the land . . . in underground water are hereby recognized.”48 After passage of the act, the HPWCUA sent the required petitions to the state Board of Water Engineers and undertook an active program in 1950 and 1951 to get regional support for the creation of such a district. In February, 1950, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., returned to Littlefield from hearings before the State Water Code Committee and warned High Plainsmen that the new law was under strong criticism by urban indus­ trial interests which wanted control of ground water vested in the state Board of Water Engineers.49 Within a few weeks the regional organiza­ tion established an "information and publicity office” at Littlefield for the purpose of promoting "the educational campaign of the HPWCUA in publicizing the Underground Water Conservation Law and facilitating organization of a conservation district.”50 Members of the group were urged to enlist the support of local newspaper editors, to speak before 48 Vernon’s Annotated Revised Civil Statutes of the State of Texas, X I, Article 7880-3c, 4 18-425; Thompson, "Governmental Responses to the Challenges of Water Resources/' p. 58. 49 County-Wide News (Littlefield), February 16, 1950, section 3, p. 1, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 50 Form letter from Charles Schuler, Jr., secretary, to officers and members of the High Plains Water Conservation and Users Association, ca. 1950, High Plains Water Con­ servation and Users Association File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers.

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local civic organizations, to talk to influential community leaders, to write letters to newspapers, and to use other means for focusing public opinion upon the need for the establishment of a ground-water district.51 On April 14, 1950, the executive committee of the Lamb County Water Conservation Association noted that some wells were now suffering "mutual interference caused by close spacing of wells.” Moreover, the committee warned that if the rapid expansion of new wells continued, "some attention should be given to proper spacing to prevent the mutual interference problem and to help keep the underground water level high.”52 Gus Parrish, president of the county group, stated at the same meeting that a number of farmers in Lamb County now believed that water-conservation districts should be organized in order to space new wells, recharge ground water, and prevent water waste.53 A recurrent argument voiced by local leaders of the movement was that formation of a ground-water district was the best means for assuring the region of local control over its subsurface water resources. In other words, if High Plainsmen did not take advantage of the law of 1949, the Texas legislature might repeal the law and vest control of ground water in the Board of Water Engineers. W. O. Fortenberry, president of the HPWCUA, stated that unless Plainsmen took such steps immediately they might lose their personal property rights in underground water.54 Duggan warned in February, 1950, "If underground water is put under state control, supporters will probably ask that the State Board of Engi­ neers, which controls surface waters, administer the law.”55 Most irriga­ tors on the High Plains probably disliked the idea of state control as much as one Hockley County farmer who said at a local meeting: "I favor no control, but if we must have it, let it be local.”56 In April, 1950, the HPWCUA reported that interest in the formation of a district was grow­ 51 Ibid. 52 Earth (Texas) Sun, April 21, 1950, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 53 County-Wide News, April 20, 1950, p. 1, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 54 Plainview Evening Herald, May 16, 1950, pp. 1, 8. 55 County-Wide News, February 16, 1950, section 3, p. 1, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 56 Hockley County Herald, April 27, 1950, p. 1, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers.

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ing.57 By May, leadership of the HPWCUA began circulating petitions in the three counties of Lamb, Hockley, and Dallam calling for creation of underground-water districts. Leaders in Lamb County had already held two "water-law forums” to stir up support.58 Many of the small-town newspapers in the region came out strongly for creation of the district, primarily because of the bugaboo of state control. The Floyd County Hesperian , for example, urged that "water districts be formed and that the situation be kept in hand rather than to let their districts and possible self-rule go by default.”59 The County-Wide News of Lamb County warned that High Plains irrigators "by their inaction . . . are running the risk of losing control of their water. If they fear regulation, they should pause to consider the fact that self regulation would be far better than state regulation.”60 At least one newspaper favored the formation of the district simply because of the need for water conservation. The Tulia Herald of Swisher County sounded the ominous warning: "If there is not some regulation of water pumpage there is a real danger— note the fall of the water table this year— of this country having to exist on a dry farming and range economy.”61 Farmers on the High Plains were heatedly discussing the issue by the spring of 1950. A farm journalist reported that the majority of High Plainsmen were apparently united in opposing water controls vested in some state board at Austin, but were about evenly divided over the issue of whether or not to form a ground-water district under local control.62 The same reporter discovered a wide range of opinions but much inde­ cision among interviewed farmers of Lamb County. For example, one irrigator said: "I don’t know which way I would vote. Haven’t made up my mind, even though I am aware of the problems confronting irrigation 57 Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, April 23, 1950, p. 23, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 58 "Three Plains Areas Plan Water Districts,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 4 (June

1950): 77. 59 Floyd County Hesperian, May 18, 1950, section 2, p. 2, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 60 County-Wide News, April 13, 1950, p. 1, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 61 Tulia Herald, June 8, 1950, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 62 Garland Smith, "Control of Underground Water Is Life-and-Death Issue on Farms,” Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, May 28, 1950, p. 22.

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farmers and our water.” Another stated: "If there is any controlling of underground water to be done, we, of course, want to do it here. But I haven’t made up my mind whether even local control is necessary.” A farmer who had apparently decided to vote for the water district re­ sponded: "What has caused this underground water crisis which we talk so much about here on the South Plains? Abuse of our natural resources, that’s what caused it. . . . It’s those who want to squeeze every last drop of wealth from the land every year. They are the people who hurt. Maybe a water district could do something about that.” Still another point of view was expressed by a farmer whose wells had probably not suffered much from a decline of water. He was "somewhat puzzled about all this excitement over the wells going dry. Spacing probably is important, but we are getting along all right in this neighborhood.. . . My well has been going good since 1936, and it’s still going strong.” Finally, a farmer who adamantly opposed any type of regulation emphatically stated: "All the water under my land belongs to me. No government, no association, no­ body can tell me how to use it. I’ve never wasted any water in my life. I couldn’t afford it. If my neighbors want to drill wells right next to mine, that’s all right with me. I won’t fuss. If the wells go dry, we will all run out together. I don’t intend to live in a country full of Hitlerism laws.”63 In response to petitions from several counties favoring the formation of a district on the South Plains, the Texas Board of Water Engineers held an open hearing at Plainview on August 9, 1951. The meeting began with about two hundred people present; it ended three and one-half hours later with four hundred in attendance. Among those who appeared in order to voice their opinions in favor of a ground-water district were Duggan and Fortenberry of the HPWCUA. In addition, delegates from several county water users’ associations appeared, including Thomas J. McFarland of Deaf Smith County and Clyde Bradford of Swisher County. Some business and professional leaders, such as George E. Green of Plain­ view, an irrigation-equipment manufacturer who had installed the first irrigation pumping plant in Hale County in 1911, came out in favor of formation of the district. Wendell Bedichek, publicity director of the 63 Garland Smith, "Farm Quiz,” Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, May 28, 1950, p. 23.

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West Texas Chamber of Commerce, bestowed the blessings of his organi­ zation upon the district plan. The only opposition at the hearing was that of T. L. Wright of Plainview, who stated: "You can say you prefer local control to state control or federal control. I don’t want any control by anybody but the land owner. That’s like asking who you’d rather be hanged by. I don’t want to be hanged.”64 After the hearing at Plainview, the Board of Water Engineers set September 29, 1951, as the date for an election to determine whether High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 would become a reality. At the same election voters were to decide on proposi­ tions for giving the district the authority to raise funds for its operation through a property-taxation levy and to elect one director from each of five subdistricts.65 Urban interests, particularly in Lubbock, which relied solely upon ground water for its municipal and industrial needs, strongly supported creation of the water district. The Lubbock City Commission approved a resolution to "actively engage in, and use every possible influence toward the formation of the High Plains Underground Water Conservation Dis­ trict No. 1 and tender all assistance in carrying out the intention of this law.”66 The Lubbock Avalanche-]ournal came out in support of the pro­ posed district. The editor warned that "unless residents of this territory, comprising more than 6,000,000 fertile acres, adopt conservation regula­ tions themselves, the job will be taken over by the State or Federal govern­ ments.” He concluded, "The water district organization . . . therefore, has been called in self-defense.”67 Strong opposition to the district also flared up in the High Plains. Some landowners simply disliked the idea of "growing bureaucracy.” Perhaps typical of this viewpoint was the feeling expressed in a letter to an official of the HPWCUA. The writer stated: "Give these bureaucrats [of the water conservation district] ten or not more than twelve years of unre­ 64 Plainview Evening Herald, August 9, 1951, pp. 1, 4, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 65 Lubbock Morning Avalanche, August 25, 1951, section 1, p. 4, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 66 Copy of resolutions in City of Lubbock File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 67 Lubbock Avalanche-]ournal, August 16, 1951, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers.

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stricted rule and most of the farmers will be reduced to spiritless peasants just one degree above the insensible clod, and, regardless of what they tell you, that is the way they [the bureaucrats] want it. This proposition should be met with 30-30’s [rifles] and its sponsors not only driven back to the City of Austin, but on south across the San Jacinto battlefield and into the Gulf of Mexico where they can get their fill of water.”68 Others who had invested much in irrigation equipment and farm mechanization probably believed creation of the district to be a threat to their continued good profits.69 Soon after High Plainsmen defeated the old ground-water conservation bill of 1947, the editor of Southwestern Crop and Stock had written that "it is unsound to advocate to a farmer that he curtail pumping when with top market prices he can pay for his irrigation installation in the first year of its operation.” Moreover, he added: "When irrigation is no longer profitable, the farmer will no long­ er depend upon it to grow his crops. The 'hands off’ free-enterprise system still works and will always be preferred in West Texas to socialistic con­ trols.”70 As early as 1948 a poll conducted by Southwestern Crop and Stock had indicated that 40 percent of the irrigators of the region opposed any type of program—local or state—designed to control underground­ water usage.71 Opposition to the formation of the water district was particularly strong in Hale County, which had more acres in irrigation than any other part of the region. One week before the election a spirited meeting was held at Edmondson in which local farmers debated the issue with officials of the HPWCUA. Although one farmer from Abernathy spoke out in favor of the plan, the majority opposed it. One irrigator declared frankly: "No­ body’s going to cut my well off. I think it’s time we stood up for our rights.” Another farmer stated: "I think this talk about government con­ trol is just a threat they [supporters of the plan] are holding over the 68 C. V. Woolley, Amarillo, August 21, 1951, to Paul Mathews, in 1951 Corre­ spondence File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 69 By 1951 the total investment in irrigation wells and pumping equipment on the High Plains was estimated to be about $67 million (William F. Hughes, * Controversial Plains Water Picture,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 5 [January 1951]: 8 ). 70 Arlee Gowen, "Economics of Irrigation,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (Septem­ ber 1948): 50. 71 Raymond Lee Johns, "Publishers Page,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 2 (May 1948): 35.

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irrigation farmers. I don’t think it can be done.” Among influential county leaders who spoke out against the district was H. S. Hilburn, landowner and publisher of the highly influential Plainview Evening Herald. The effect of the debate upon farmers in the audience was evidently to push many of the previously undecided ones into the camp of the opposition. For example, a farmer who had taken no part in the discussion told a newspaper reporter at the meeting, "I did not know when I came to this meeting how I was going to vote, but I know—well now— I’m going to vote against it.”72 In the election on September 29,1951, portions of eleven counties and two entire counties— Lubbock and Parmer—voted to join the district. The others were Lynn, Lamb, Hockley, Deaf Smith, Floyd, Castro, Bailey, Armstrong, Randall, Potter, and Cochran. Among those areas which voted against joining the underground-water district were three of the most extensively irrigated counties— Hale, Swisher, and Crosby. But because voting was on a precinct basis, two towns of Hale County— Abernathy and Petersburg—were included in the district.73 Voter turn­ out was light, but the advocates for establishing a ground-water district won by a comfortable, although not an overwhelming, vote of 2,346 for the district and 1,820 against the proposal.74 The new High Plains Water Conservation District No. 1 did not, there­ fore, enjoy an overwhelming mandate as it began operations. The organi­ zation did not fully begin to function until late 1952 when collections of special property taxes began to flow in. In the meantime, the elected board of directors hired a general manager and opened an office at Lubbock in April, 1952.75 The first rules set forth by the district went into effect February 1, 1953. These regulations required drilling permits for wells producing in excess of 100,000 gallons per day, which of course included 72 Luron Brown, "Farmers Debate on Water District Plan,’' Amarillo Sunday NewsGlobe, September 23, 1951, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 73 C. W . Ratliff, " Water District Okayed,” Lubbock Avalanche-]ournal, September 30, 1951, in Clippings File; Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Littlefield, August 20, 1952, to John Hammermann, Jr., In re Water 1952 File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers; "13 Counties Vote Water District Approval,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 5 (November 1951): 7 3 74. In Hale County the measure suffered its most overwhelming defeat. The vote was 122 for and 537 opposed. 74 "13 Counties Vote Water District Approval.” 75 Memorandum, n.d., in Tom McFarland File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers.

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all irrigation wells; they also required drillers to maintain complete, accu­ rate logs of all wells. The next rules were made public in January, 1954. These consisted of general statements forbidding water waste and specific rules governing the spacing of wells and the replacement of old wells.76 Within the next few years two other districts were organized in the new and less-developed irrigation area north of the Canadian River. Local voters approved formation of the North Plains Ground Water Conserva­ tion District No. 2 in March, 1955, and the Dallam County Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 in April, 1959.77 In spite of initial optimism of the supporters of High Plains Under­ ground Water Conservation District No. 1, ground-water depletion con­ tinued at a rapid rate. Between 1951 and 1958 the average decline in ground-water level was 27.92 feet.78 There were many weaknesses in this program of water conservation. First, and perhaps most obvious, the method of establishing a ground-water district in a kind of checkerboard pattern based upon local option left some very important areas of ground­ water withdrawal out of the district. It was simply not logical for one part of a county to limit its well-spacing while another part of the same county continued punching wells at random. Second, the program relied too much upon the value of voluntary co­ operation of irrigators through the district’s information-dissemination services. The Underground Water Conservation District sent out articles to newspapers with such titles as "Wise Water Use Now Means Plentiful Supply for Future.”79 Thomas J. McFarland, the general manager, and other officials delivered lectures, showed films on water-conservation practices, and answered questions in dozens of small communities throughout the Plains in order to impress upon farmers the need for 76 The spacing provisions provided the following minimum distances from existing wells according to the size of the pump: four-inch or smaller— 200 yards, five-inch— 250 yards, six-inch— 300 yards, eight-inch— 400 yards. In addition, no old wells could be replaced with larger wells without a permit ( Rules of High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 [ca. 1954], in Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers). 77 W . H. Alexander, Jr., Geology and Ground-W ater Resources of the Northern High Plains of Texas, Texas Board of Water Engineers Bulletin, no. 6109, pp- 9-10. 78 Hughes and Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, p. 6. 79 News copy of article by Thomas J. McFarland, in Tom McFarland File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers.

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reducing tail water and other wasteful practices.80 But by the end of the 1950’s there was some evidence that a policy of voluntary compliance was not working. In I960 McFarland stated: "The time has come when the District must take a more positive control over the waste of water or remove the rule from the rulebook. If we remove the rule, we are neglect­ ing part of the duties the law sets out as a conservation practice.” More­ over, he noted that "we are being subjected to some very severe criticism for the hands-off attitude we have tried to use in the past.” Consequently, the district board, according to McFarland, intended to enforce by judicial injunction provisions in the law of 1949 against wasting ground water.81 Another problem the district faced was compliance with well-spacing regulations. Although farmers seem to have generally complied with these rules, some county committeemen, who had the responsibility of initially approving all well-drilling permits, at times disregarded well-spacing provisions. In 1954 McFarland wrote, "W e have been a little disturbed about some applications that have been coming through approved by com­ mitteemen in three or four counties in violation of the spacing regula­ tions.”82 Thus, at least part of the problem was that the district failed to use its few powers to enforce water conservation much of the time, choos­ ing instead to rely on persuasion and "education.” Third, the District Ground Water Law was weak in that it allowed districts to make rules dealing with conservation, but did not require them to make or enforce such regulations. Although the law declared that own­ ership of ground water was still vested in the ownership of the land, the act appeared to inconsistently espouse the doctrine of correlative rights, allowing the regulation of water withdrawal for beneficial purposes on the basis of equity.83 But one observer noted that as late as 1959 no

80 Garland Smith, "Conservation Is Sold on Man-to-Man Basis,” Amarillo Daily News, January 22, 1954, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 81 Form letter, Thomas J. McFarland, Lubbock, May 11, I960, to county committeemen of the district, in General Correspondence File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 82 Thomas J. McFarland, Lubbock, September 2, 1954, to committeemen, in Rules and Regulations of High Plains Water District File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 83 Jack R. Barnes, "Hydrologic Aspects of Ground-Water Control,” in Proceedings, Water Law Conference, University of Texas School of Law, May 25-26, 1956, pp. 142143.

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ground-water district created under the law had attempted to exercise its authority over ground-water withdrawal.84 Fourth, no effective recharge program was started in the 1950,s. Much experimentation was still required, and as late as the 1960’s the program was still in the experimental stages.85 Finally, conservation of ground water began too late and never had the support of most High Plains irrigators during the 1950’s. In 1954 the general manager of High Plains Underground Water Conservation Dis­ trict No. 1 stated that he knew "of at least six farmers who started 1953 as irrigation men but ended up as dryland operators. Their wells played out.” At the same time he admitted: "Our conservation program is about 25 years or more too late. That’s why something must be done now about the habitual water waster.”86 If an effective law had been enacted in the 1930’s, when people of the Great Plains were feeling strongly about all types of conservation practices, farmers would have drilled their wells in the 1940’s and 1950’s within an institutional framework of ground­ water conservation. Even as late as 1946, when the region had 650,000 irrigated acres, an effective conservation program might not have been too late. But by 1954, when the High Plains district was beginning its opera­ tions, there were 2.692 million acres under pump.87 It was understandable by that time, as one opponent of the formation of the district put it, that "where the farmers themselves have provided the irrigation system at a cost of many millions of dollars” those same farmers would resist efforts to regulate their investments or cut down on their irrigated acreage.88 As irrigators viewed the proposition, they had developed their irrigation plants without the assistance of governmental aid, and they intended to continue using them without governmental regulation. Few irrigators saw the issue as did one small-town newspaper editor 84 W . L. Matthews, "Ground Water Rights and Regulations,” in Proceedings, Water Law Conference, University of Texas School of Law, May 22-23, 1959, pp. 13-14. 85 Victor L. Hauser and Donald C. Signor, Water Conservation and Ground-W ater Recharge Research, Texas High Plains, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. MP-850. 86 Smith, "Conservation Is Sold on Man-to-Man Basis.” 87 Hughes and Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, p. 4. 88 Brown, "Farmers Debate on Water District Plan.”

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who warned that "lack of water control would destroy the enormous in­ vestments of most of our irrigation farmers. Some form of water control seems necessary to protect what we have.” The same editor put the di­ lemma of irrigation on the High Plains rather bluntly when he asked, "Which is better, a super abundance for a few years and then nothing or reasonable abundance for many years?”89 High Plains farmers chose "a super abundance for a few years.” By I960 it was apparent that numbers of irrigators were making significant adjustments to a rapidly declining water level. It was reported that many farmers had already lowered their pumps deeper into the ground as many as six different times. Others were drilling additional wells. In attempting to use declining water resources more efficiently, a number of irrigators were installing closed-conduit systems. Other changes in practices in­ cluded watering every other row of some crops, putting smaller pumps into older wells, planting more crops to be irrigated in the fall and win­ ter season and fewer acres of summer-irrigated crops, making two or more plantings of grain sorghum at intervals of ten to fourteen days in order to stagger irrigation, reducing the number of irrigated acres, and similar practices.90 One study of the economic effects of diminishing water re­ sources concluded, "The most widespread and pronounced effect of ad­ justing to a changing water-supply situation is reflected by an increase in the investment required to maintain and supply the irrigated acreage.”91 Economically, the irrigation farmer, faced with declining crop prices and rising costs, was put in an even more disadvantageous position because of his declining level of ground water. Summary By the end of the 1950’s a comprehensive program of water conserva­ tion had failed to emerge on the Texas High Plains. Although declining ground-water levels in the 1940’s demonstrated the need for such a pro­ gram, only some regional urban interests, by and large, came out strongly in favor of some type of effective conservation legislation. The District 89 Tulia Herald, June 8, 1950, in Clippings File, Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers. 90 Hughes and Magee, Some Economic Effects of Adjusting to a Changing Water Supply, pp. 13-18. 91 Ibid., p. 18.

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Ground Water Law enacted by the Texas legislature in 1949 suited the wishes of most High Plainsmen because it lacked any strong regulatory provisions for ground-water conservation and because it was a means of preventing a state board from controlling ground-water resources. In other words, rural interests on the High Plains supported the act because it promised to be an effective means for preventing rather than estab­ lishing a system of ground-water conservation. Subsequent to the provisions of the law of 1949, when the movement for a ground-water district emerged, rural forces divided. Much strong op­ position against the creation of the district existed primarily because of the regulatory powers which the district could exercise under the law if it so desired. Those rural interests which supported the district, however, did so primarily because they believed that the district plan would be an effective means for maintaining local control and warding off state regula­ tion over any program of water conservation. High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 became a reality, but because of weak­ nesses both in the structure of the district plan and in the means for en­ forcing conservation measures, ground-water levels continued to decline rapidly through the 1950’s. By I960 diminishing ground-water resources had begun to have serious economic consequences upon High Plains irrigators. Texas High Plainsmen had opposed water-conservation measures in the 1940’s because most of them still believed that their ground water was inexhaustible. But by I960 those inhabitants of the region who still embraced the myth of the inexhaustible supply accepted it on the basis of irrational hope rather than firm evidence. Farmers no longer needed to be acquainted with scientific geological findings which showed that their ground water did not originate in the Rocky Mountains or some distant glacier. They only had to observe the empirical evidence of deeper pump settings, of fewer acres being watered from their wells year by year, and of the discouraging sight of an eight-inch discharge pipe spewing out only half its capacity of water.

11. The Contemporary High Plains

D u rin g the decade of the 1960’s irrigation farmers faced a period of difficult adjustment caused in part by depressed prices for wheat and short-staple cotton (two of the region’s three most impor­ tant irrigated crops), but due primarily to declining water resources. Ir­ rigators responded to these problems in a number of ways. They experi­ mented with other crops and increased their production of livestock. Many became more conscious of the need to conserve water. While ground-water levels were steadily declining in the older irrigated area of the South Plains, irrigation expanded in the North Plains. The average irrigated farm grew larger in size. In addition, the irrigation economy and the problem of diminishing water resources influenced some new de­ velopments. Attracted by the massive production of grain sorghum, cot­ tonseed oil, and other feedstuffs, large cattle feedlots appeared on the scene. Ground-water districts began to play a more aggressive role in water conservation. And finally, plainsmen began to look to other distant regions as possible sources for future imported water.

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In number of acres, irrigation continued to expand slightly during the decade. In 1964 there were 5,366,545 acres under pump. By 1969 the acreage had edged upward to some 5,449,937, an addition of only 83,392.1 Contrary to this trend, total acreage decreased in the older irrigated region of the South Plains. During the period 1958-1969, in the area covered by High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1, the acreage under irrigation decreased from 3.333 million to 3.135 mil­ lion. During the same period the number of irrigation wells in the dis­ trict increased substantially from 35,833 to 45,365, indicating (1) an effort to obtain more water to augment supplies from older wells or to replace depleted wells and (2) a decrease in the number of acres watered by each well. A survey published in 1964 showed that 65 percent of the wells on the High Plains pumped less than seven hundred gallons per minute. By the next year this number had increased to 67 percent. One Dawson County farmer reported in 1963 that his wells were pump­ ing about 75 percent as much water as they had produced in I960. An­ other farmer, who had drilled his first well in Hockley County in 1956, noted that his best well in 1970 pumped less than 50 percent of the water which his first well had produced.2 The South Plains’ vast Ogallala ground-water formation, which early settlers had termed inexhaustible, was gradually being depleted. As in a giant lake, the shallow or thin areas were drying up first. In places where the formation was thick (in some areas the water-bearing sands constitu­ ted a thickness of three hundred feet or more), wells remained strong. But in weaker areas, the water output of wells steadily declined. Every year or so, farmers watered fewer rows at each "set,” lowered their pumps, and drilled more wells, which produced less water than their original wells. 1 This acreage does not include that of the adjacent rolling plains on the east and south­ east of the High Plains which lay outside the Ogallala aquifer. Irrigated acreage in this region, drawing from more limited and irregular ground-water sources, increased in this period from 71,015 to 128,367 ( Southwestern Crop and Stock 17 [July 1963]: 6 -7 ; Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, Texas Water Development Board Report, no. 127, pp. 9-34, 4 9 -5 1 ). 2 Southwestern Crop and Stock 17 (July 1964): 6 -7 ; Albert W . Sechrist, "Irrigation Inventory,” The Cross Section (publication of High Plains Underground Water Conserva­ tion District No. 1, Lubbock) 17 (June 1971): 4; Southwestern Crop and Stock 17 (May 1963): 20; The Cross Section 16 (January 1970): 4.

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The rate of depletion was not uniform in the region. Between 1955 and I960 the average annual decline in the water table of Hale County was 3.76 feet. In High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1, more than 73 percent of the acreage showed some decline. The annual drop in different observation wells varied from less than one foot to more than eight feet. One well in Deaf Smith County, for example, declined only 0.36 feet per year. In the same county an extreme, but not uncom­ mon, drop in water level occurred in a well wherein the decline averaged 5.34 feet annually. The water table in the latter well in 1962 was 210 feet below the surface. By 1969 it was 241 feet, a drop of 30 feet within seven years.3 The decrease in irrigated acreage within the most extensively watered counties of the South Plains clearly reflected the decline in ground-water resources. In 1958 Hale County, with its 533,455 acres under pump, was foremost in irrigated acreage within the Texas High Plains. By 1964 Hale had dropped to 461,800 acres. Five years later the acreage stood at 352,520, a loss of more than 180,000 acres during the decade. Swisher County in 1958 had 319,000 acres. By 1969 its total had diminished to 249,700. Farmers of Parmer County, who had 404,222 acres in 1958, were irrigating 318,647 acres by 1969. Some other counties experienced smaller declines. Lubbock, which had begun to lose irrigated acreage in the 1950’s, dropped from 350,000 to 325,000 during the decade. A very few counties made modest gains between 1958 and 1969. For example, Lamb ascended from 292,460 to 317,847. Such counties, however, were in a small minority.4 Although irrigated acreage decreased in most of the South Plains during the decade,5 it expanded on the North Plains, the region north of the Canadian River. Irrigation development had long been retarded in that area because of the greater depth to ground water, three hundred feet or more not being uncommon. During the drouth of the early 1950’s 3 Southwestern Crop and Stock 15 (February 1961) : 50; The Cross Section 15 (March 1969): 2 -8 ; 16 (March 1970): 1-3. 4 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958 , 1964 , and 1969, pp. 9-34. 5 An exception was the development in Gaines County, southwest of the older irrigated region. Between 1958 and 1969 the irrigated acreage in that county increased from 108,000 to 319,920 (ibid., p. 17).

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some wells were drilled there, but it was during the 1960’s that the move­ ment picked up momentum. Sherman County in 1958 watered 50,000 acres. By 1969 the acreage stood at 252,578. In 1958 Moore County had 81,280 acres in irrigation; by 1969 the acreage had more than doubled to 212,780. Ochiltree County had only 16,820 acres in 1958, but in 1969 the county boasted some 107,060 acres under pump. Hartley, which had 18,330 acres in 1958, had 121,990 by 1969. In the northwestern corner of the Texas Panhandle, Dallam County increased its acreage during the period from 42,225 to 128,600.6 One of the largest irrigation projects on the North Plains was that undertaken by Frank Sharman, former banker from Amarillo. In 1965 Sharman leveled and began to irrigate 1,400 acres in northern Hartley County. The next year he hired an earth-moving contractor to level an additional rectangular block of land containing 2,600 acres. It was esti­ mated that by 1967 Sharman would be producing grain sorghum and wheat on 4,000 irrigated acres. The land would be watered by 20 eightinch wells. Total cost of Sharman’s investment was estimated at one mil­ lion dollars.7 Indications of the new irrigation movement were apparent to any ob­ server driving through the North Plains in 1970. Huge new industrial engines linked to large gear-heads indicated the great depth to water. Uniform rows of reddish brown grain-sorghum heads shot upward from lush green stalks and leaves. Occasionally the pungent fragrance of an alfalfa field would drift across a highway. Brown patches of temporarily fallow soil pincushioned with last season’s wheat stalks lay here and there on the landscape. Most fields, like Sharman’s, were leveled for flood-furrow irrigation. Northwest of Dalhart, however, huge auto­ mated sprinkler systems watering large circles carved out green geo­ metric designs in a setting of bluish gray sagebrush. Sprinkler irrigation was not confined to the North Plains. Indeed, by 1970 it was one of the more significant innovations in irrigation through­ out the High Plains. This method, using aluminum movable pipe and revolving sprinkler heads, had only appeared in the region in the 1950’s. 6 Ibid., pp. 9-34. 7 Orville Howard, "Dryland Falls Prey to Irrigation,” Irrigation Age 1 (December 1966): 35-38.

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Land of the U nderground Rain

Sprinkler systems were well suited for land which could not be watered by the conventional flood-furrow method due to slopes or overly absorb­ ent sandy soils. Because the sprinkler method used water more efficiently, it also proved to be useful on many farms with weak wells. In the extreme southwestern part of the High Plains where the soil was predominantly sandy, sprinklers were especially popular. For example, of the 322,309 acres under irrigation in Gaines County in 1969, 316,309 were watered by this method. By that same year in Dawson County all but 560 acres out of a total of 74,570 were watered by sprinklers. By the end of the decade some 1,061,949 acres, almost one-fifth of the irrigated High Plains, were under sprinkler systems. Early sprinkler units required a great deal of labor. The farmer or his hired hand had to carry each segment of aluminum pipe, some thirty or forty feet in length, sixty or eighty feet and lock the end of it into another joint of pipe before making a new "set.” With two "sets” per day, two to four hours of labor or more were required. Increased shortages and costs of farm labor made the more expensive mechanized or automated sprinkler systems more attractive in the 1960’s. A farmer in Gaines County complained in 1964 that "it is not too hard to find a tractor driver but no one wants to move pipe any more. It leaves the farmer with no choice. He either has to mechanize or quit irrigating.” To meet the demand, various kinds of units appeared on the market. Types ranged from models on wheels which could be pushed by hand or pulled by tractor to wheeled systems moved after each "set” by small gasoline or electric motors to automatic wonders powered by hydraulic cylinders which propelled themselves at a snail’s pace in great circles or in straight lines. One of the earliest units of the latter type was the famous Valley system manufactured by Valmont Industries of Valley, Nebraska. It was easily identified by its tall towers standing above each of its sets of tandem wheels. Guy wires from the towers supported the pipe in the same way that cables support bridges.8 By the mid-1960’s irrigation farms on the High Plains were relatively 8 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, pp. 4 9 -5 1 ; "Irrigation Efficiency with Self-Propelled/’ Southwestern Crop and Stock 17 (October 1 963): 23; "Farm, Ranch Briefs of Productive Plains,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 18 (April 1964): 12; "Sprinkler Irrigation’s Big Show,” Irrigation Age 1 (March 1967): 47-53.

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large. The "quarter-section” irrigation farmer was almost as nonexistent as the horse-drawn implement. Living in an era of rising costs and con­ stant or even shrinking profits, many farmers tended to increase their land holdings, thereby increasing their productivity. In 1948 the average irri­ gated grain-sorghum or wheat farm in the region had consisted of 250 acres. Cotton farms had averaged about 160 acres. By contrast, an insurance-company appraiser of agricultural loans said in 1967 that "if a per­ son lives on and operates a section [640 acres] of irrigated land I consider that just barely a unit [italics mine].”9 According to the agricultural census returns of 1964, the average acre­ age of irrigated farms by county ranged from 449.8 in Lubbock County to 7,895.6 in Hutchinson County. The smaller averages were common in the older irrigated South Plains. The larger averages on the North Plains probably reflected numbers of ranchers and other large landholders who were now irrigating part of their land. It should be noted that these aver­ ages do not designate the number of acres actually irrigated, but rather the size of farms which had irrigated land. The smaller average acreages of the South Plains counties, however, were much closer to the number of actual irrigated acres because that area was more extensively under irri­ gation. The average irrigated farm in Lubbock County contained 449.8 acres, smallest on the South Plains. Average farms in terms of acreage among the more extensively irrigated counties of the South Plains were Hale— 527.9, Floyd— 753.6, Swisher— 712.5, Parmer— 672.4, Hockley — 544.6, Lamb— 565.6, Crosby— 767, and Castro— 923.1. In Moore County, which had the largest irrigated acreage on the North Plains, the average farm with some irrigation consisted of 1,929.9 acres. Not only were average irrigated farms large, but also there were hundreds of units which contained one thousand acres or more. For ex­ ample, Castro County boasted forty-six irrigated farms of one thousand acres or more, Deaf Smith had thirty-four, Floyd numbered thirty, Lub­ bock listed twenty-nine, Moore had thirty-nine, and Hale counted forty, to name only a few. The average value per acre varied from county to county, reflecting 9 "Putting a Worth on Property,” Irrigation Age 2 (August 1967): 28; William F. Hughes and Joe R. Motheral, Irrigated Agriculture in Texas, Texas Agricultural Experi­ ment Station Miscellaneous Publication, no. 59, p. 17.

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actual irrigated acreage per farm, type of soil, quantity of ground water, types of crops, improvements, and probably even government crop allotments. The most expensive land was in Hale and Lubbock, which had average valuations in 1964 of $454.06 and $441.71 per acre respectively. Among the cheaper lands were those of Deaf Smith, valued at an average of $198.44 per acre. In most counties, however, the average valuation ranged from about $250 to $350 per acre. As examples, Crosby lands were valued at $250.37, Castro farms averaged $296.53, and Parmer County boasted an average of $361.02. Average valuation per irrigated farm also indicated that plains irriga­ tors were no longer small farmers. In some instances, the average farm was valued at less than $200,000. An average farm in Lamb County was worth $175,733; in Hockley County the figure was $167,226; and in Lubbock it was $190,053. Most counties, however, had average valuations per farm of more than $200,000. A few sample averages were Hale— $237,594, Swisher— $230,049, and Castro— $279,360.10 The majority of High Plains irrigation farmers owned land and improvements worth a quarter of a million dollars and could hardly be called simple "dirt farmers” by the middle 1960’s. Those who had at one time recorded their accounts on scraps of paper or the backs of used envelopes filed in the pockets of their khaki shirts or overalls now used the services of local certified public accountants. By the mid-1960’s declining ground-water resources were undoubtedly affecting the value of land. Since World War II land valuations through­ out the United States had risen steadily. This rise was not an outgrowth of increased agricultural profits; rather it indicated a demand for land for purposes other than agriculture, such as speculation, rural homesites, tax write-offs, and recreation. Prices for agricultural land in Texas rose 189 percent in the period 1947-1965. During the same period agricul­ tural income declined 15 percent in the state. This pattern of rising valu­ ations continued through the 1960’s in Texas. The South Plains, how­ ever, proved to be the exception. Between 1963 and 1965 that area’s land values, dry land and irrigated lumped together (based on actual 10 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Agri­ culture, 1964, Texas, I, Part 37, 312-347.

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sales rather than on tax rolls), declined 5 percent from an average of $265 per acre to $252 per acre. It was noted in a study released in 1967 that land valuation on the High Plains, contrary to the general trend, was "closely related to agricultural production, commodity prices and net in­ come.’’ Of course, production was directly related to the quantity of ground water available for irrigation. The study also suggested that de­ clining land prices were related to a drouth in 1964 and to higher costs of farming, as well as to diminishing ground-water resources. There is some evidence, however, that ground water may have been the most im­ portant cause for the drop in land values. In contrast to the South Plains, the North Plains, subject to the same drouth and the same rising costs but with its ground-water resources barely tapped, experienced a 17 per­ cent rise in its average land values between 1963 and 1967, from $169 to $197 per acre.11 The principal crops planted on irrigated farms during the 1960’s were still grain sorghum, cotton, and wheat. Some 2,207,191 acres were planted in grain sorghum. Cotton accounted for 1,285,451 acres. Wheat was in third place with 855,205 acres.12 Cotton was the major crop for the South Plains in terms of gross in­ come. In 1966, even though the crop was planted on only 38.9 percent of the acreage, cotton produced 65 percent of the total gross agricultural income for that area. But the future for cotton was far from secure. Mar­ ket demand for the short-staple upland varieties produced by the region had sharply declined. This type of cotton, which required less time to ma­ ture than the long-staple varieties grown in the South and arid South­ west, was well adapted to the relatively short growing season of the Plains. Although suited to the High Plains climate, the crop was at a 11 The average price of land on the South Plains is for all land sold, dry land as well as irrigated. This study was based upon statistics gathered from Dawson and Hockley counties on the South Plains and Sherman and Hansford counties on the North Plains. No statistics are available for irrigated land alone, but the decline in the valuation of all land is even more revealing in view of the fact that dry-land farms in non- or littleirrigated counties in the rolling plains region adjacent to the High Plains on the east enjoyed an increase in land values of 31 percent between 1963 and 1965 (F. B. Andrews and Alvin B. Wooten, Trends in the Texas Farm and Ranch Land Market, Texas Agri­ cultural Experiment Station and Extension Service Bulletin, no. B-1063, pp. 3-4, 7 - 8 ) . 12 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, pp. 103-187.

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disadvantage in the cotton markets of the 1960’s. Textile mills now pre­ ferred long-staple varieties, which were stronger, more uniform, and less likely to break in the newer high-speed spindles and looms of American mills. By the beginning of 1967 the Commodity Credit Corporation had a surplus of five million short-staple bales in storage with no immediate prospect for marketing the raw product. Competition from both synthetic fibers and foreign cotton producers added to the woes of South Plainsmen. Between 1939 and 1967 synthetic fabrics captured more than two-fifths of the domestic textile market. Dur­ ing the same period, more than one-half of the foreign market was lost to synthetics, while foreign-produced cotton gained a greater share*of the world market. Between 1955 and 1965 cotton production in the Western world, exclusive of the United States, increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent. During the same period U.S. cotton exports fell 5.8 percent each year. Because of the loss of markets and the resulting problem of over­ production, the U.S. Department of Agriculture decreased acreage allot­ ments. Especially hard hit were plains cotton farmers who could no longer compete with domestically produced long-staple cotton, much less with foreign and synthetic producers.13 Many, perhaps most, West Texas cotton farmers put the primary blame for American cotton producers’ ills upon the farm policy of the federal government rather than upon agricultural overproduction and declining markets. Those who adhered to this point of view believed that the fed­ eral government should gradually withdraw its price-support program in order to allow the price for cotton to drop to the world-market price. Then, with a market based upon "supply and demand,” and with all production controls removed, American cotton farmers would be able to compete with foreign producers, recapture their lost markets, and make adequate profits. This point of view appears to ignore the fact that depressed farm prices existed long before the New Deal initiated a farm program of subsidies and allotments. From about 1920 to the present, the last half-century, American farmers have, by and large, suffered from depressed prices caused by overproduction. The only "golden years” for 13 Peggy J. Wheeler, "West Texas Cotton: Can It Solve Its Problems?” Irrigation Age 1 (January 1967): 14-18.

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farmers during this period were from about 1940 through 1952, when the temporary dislocation of foreign producers occasioned by World War II and its aftermath created very favorable international market conditions for American farmers.14 Wheat farmers, like cotton producers, were also in difficult times. In 1968 farmers were receiving about $1.27 per bushel for the crop at High Plains elevators, a price which could not justify the cost for producing wheat through irrigation. Two factors, however, gave the irrigator a slight margin of profit. First, he received a direct subsidy from the federal gov­ ernment in the form of "certificates” on 40 percent of his acreage allot­ ment (theoretically, that part of his crop which flowed into domestic markets). His remaining 60 percent had to compete in the world market. A farmer in Deaf Smith County estimated that by adding the certificates to the price realized for the entire crop, the producer got about $1.80 per bushel for his crop. As that farmer put it, "Without the government sub­ sidy we couldn’t raise wheat and irrigate it.” Second, winter wheat was also used to pasture livestock in the fall and winter. One livestock pro­ ducer in Bailey County believed that, if a farmer would pasture one hun­ dred cattle on 160 acres of irrigated wheat for the period of November through March, he could make a net profit of about $2500 on the animals. If an irrigator simply chose to rent his wheat pasture to some livestock producer for the same number of cattle, he could make $3.50 per head per month.15 A new crop which made significant acreage gains in the 1960’s was soybeans. An important source of edible vegetable oils as well as protein for livestock feed, the soybean was imported from Asia where it had been an important food for many centuries. The crop had been grown commercially in the United States since the 1940’s. In addition to the do­ mestic market, farmers found a ready market in Japan. By 1966 the Japa­ nese were importing 65 million bushels annually from the United States. 14 A. B. Slagle, "Cotton Industry Fighting for Life," Southwestern Crop and Stock 19 (August 1965): 3, 27; Wheeler, "West Texas Cotton: Can It Solve Its Problems?” pp. 17-18; Gilbert C. Fite, "The Farmers’ Dilemma, 1919-1929,” in Change and Conti­ nuity in Twentieth Century America, the 1920’s, ed. John Braeman, pp. 67-102; idem, "Abundance: The Farmers’ Problem,” Current History 39 (July I9 6 0 ): 11-16. 15 "Can We Afford to Irrigate Wheat?” Irrigation Age 3 (August 1968): 8-10; "Growing Cattle for Growing Profit,” Irrigation Age 4 (February 1970): 40-48.

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Due to excellent markets and a lack of surpluses, there were no acreage restrictions on production. Consequently, High Plains farmers planted the crop on surplus acreage which federal controls had whittled away from cotton and wheat. In 1966 some 130,000 irrigated acres on the Texas High Plains were planted in soybeans. Three years later the acreage stood at 203,694. In a study conducted at the High Plains Research Foun­ dation in Hale County, it was concluded that the profit from a yield of 40 bushels per acre of soybeans compared favorably with the profit made from the production of 6,500 pounds per acre of grain sorghum. Using the prices of $2.60 per bushel for soybeans and $1.70 per hundred-weight for grain sorghum, the study concluded that, while the latter would yield a net profit of $60.38 per acre, the former would rank a close second with a net $58.37. Although there was no indication by 1970 that soybeans would replace any of the more important crops, they had become an im­ portant supplementary crop on the High Plains.16 A number of minor crops grown by irrigation included alfalfa, sugar beets, Irish potatoes, and various shallow- and deep-rooted vegetables. Deaf Smith and Castro counties constituted the primary area for sugarbeet, potato, and vegetable production. Out of a total of 43,109 acres planted in beets on the High Plains, Deaf Smith boasted 18,900 and Castro had 8,900. Sugar beets had become important enough in Deaf Smith by the early 1960’s to cause the Holly Sugar Company to open a large processing plant at Hereford in 1964. In addition, Deaf Smith had 6,000 acres of potatoes and 9,000 acres in other vegetables, while Castro irrigated 5,000 acres of potatoes and 7,000 acres of various vegetables.17 The most important crop in terms of acreage was still grain sorghum. It was somewhat ironic that a crop imported from Africa into the Great Plains in the nineteenth century because of its drouth-resistant qualities should become the most extensively irrigated crop on the High Plains. By 1969 this grain, adapted to harvesting by combine through scientific 16 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, pp. 103-187; "The Soybean,” Irrigation Age 1 (February 1967): 15-18; “Soybeans for Plains,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 21 (June 1 967): 32-33. 17 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, pp. 103-187; "Sweet Hum of Holly Sugar Plant Handles One Million 100Pound Sacks,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 22 (January 1968): 7.

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breeding, was planted on 2,207,191 irrigated acres, primarily in the central and northern counties of the High Plains.18 The production of vast quantities of grain sorghum was primarily responsible for the growth of an important new industry for the High Plains—the cattle-feedlot industry. Before the 1960’s the High Plains had few feedlots. As part of the Great Plains the region had been a major supplier of calves and yearlings to feedlots of the Midwestern corn belt since the late nineteenth century.19 By the 1950’s the Midwest was divid­ ing Texas-grown feeder cattle with feedlots of southern California and Arizona. Feedlots began appearing on the High Plains of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Kansas as well as Texas in the early 1960’s. It was on the High Plains of the Lone Star State, however, that the majority of these enterprises sprang up. Several factors were responsible for this trend. First, by I960 the bonanza period in High Plains irrigation agriculture was over for many and rapidly decelerating for others. The steady decline in markets for American cotton, resulting in depressed prices, and the low price for wheat, coupled with accelerating farming costs, forced many irrigators to diversify into livestock production. For many who had been making profits solely through irrigated cash crops for more than two decades the transition was undoubtedly difficult. Second, the region had long been a desirable area for feedlot production because of the tremendous produc­ tion of irrigated feed grains and cottonseed oil. Third, adjacent range­ land areas, such as the Texas Panhandle region from the breaks of the Canadian River into the gypsum hills of western Oklahoma, the dense mesquite-covered rolling plains of northwest Texas, and the sagebrush country of eastern New Mexico, had long been major producers of calves and feeder cattle. This was the land of John Chisum’s "Jinglebob” herds, Charles Goodnight, the JA, the 6666, the Matador, the Spur, the Mill Iron, and many other legendary ranches and cattlemen. Some observers began to suggest in the early 1960’s that the High Plains possessed the potential for developing a major feedlot industry. The editor of a regional farm journal remarked that, while visiting Cali18 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, pp. 103-187. 19 Edward Everett Dale, The Range Cattle Industry, pp. 147-170.

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fornia in I960, he met feedlot owners who were importing both cattle and grain sorghum from Texas. Those Californians were of the opinion that livestock could be "fed out” just as cheaply in West Texas as in Cali­ fornia. Indicating an interest in such prospects, two groups of West Texas businessmen and farmers toured feeder operations in the Middle West, California, and Arizona in 1961 and returned full of enthusiasm. One businessman remarked that the only thing needed on the High Plains was experience in feedlot management. In a speech to a meeting of bankers at Texas A&M University, Jay L. Taylor, prominent cattleman-banker from Amarillo, predicted that "in less than 10 years, we will be feeding all the calves and yearlings raised in Texas right here in Texas. So demand for credit will be tremendous. Get ready.”20 As Taylor prophesied, between 1965 and 1971 the feedlot industry expanded at a phenomenal rate on the High Plains, primarily in the production of heavy beef cattle weighing from seven hundred to one thousand pounds or more when marketed. In 1965 about 436,000 head of cattle were "fed out” by High Plains lots. This number increased at a phenomenal annual rate until by 1970 some 2,881,159 were being pro­ duced annually. The new feedlots by 1970 consisted of seventy-three gi­ gantic commercial enterprises ranging in capacity from 5,000 to 70,000 head. Although the feedlots were scattered through twenty-three counties, twenty-six, or more than one-third of the total, were concentrated in the tri-county area of Deaf Smith, Parmer, and Castro, three of the most productive feed-grain counties. Thirty-nine, or more than one-half, of the feedlots had a carrying capacity of 20,000 head or more, and six had a capacity of 40,000 or more.21 Even to a casual tourist driving down one of the straight, sparsely 20 See the following articles in Southwestern Crop and Stock: "Farm, Ranch Briefs of Productive Plains,” 15 (May 19 61): 20; Jess F. Blair, "Success in Feed Lot,” 15 (January 1961): 12; Thelma Wilson Porter, "Midwest Tour Group Inspects Cattle Feeding,” 15 (May 1961): 43-44; "West Texas Chamber of Commerce Plans Feeding Tour to Western Lots,” 15 (November 1961): 48; "Bankers and Future Farm-Ranch Credit,” 19 (December 1965): 15. 21 Figures for 1965 are found in Nilah Rodgers, "Community Feedlot at Earth,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 19 (December 1965): 7. The statistics for 1970 are taken from two brochures published by the Agricultural Development Department of the South­ western Public Service Company, an electric utility corporation which services the Pan­ handle-High Plains region: Sam A. Thomas, comp., Fed Cattle Industry and Growth of Fed Cattle Industry (Amarillo, both printed in 1971), in possession of author.

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traveled highways lacing the plains in gridiron patterns, these large enter­ prises were not difficult to locate. Occupying a quarter- or half-section of once-fertile farmland, the feedlot, with its earthy smell of manure, could be detected a mile or more away. Hundreds of pens made of steel pipes, each loaded with dozens of beefy animals, stood in straight rows back to back. The rows were separated by graveled lanes on which "feed wagons” (trucks with large hopperlike beds) slowly rolled down several times per day, funneling a feed mixture into concrete troughs adjacent to the pens running the length of the lanes. The operation was dominated by a num­ ber of tall, round steel feedbins. It was a complex automated affair which in some instances even utilized computers to determine feed mixtures. Good profits were largely responsible for the phenomenal growth of the feedlot industry. The profit made on each animal, however, was low, thus encouraging the entrepreneur to deal in volume. The general man­ ager of one of the larger enterprises, Caprock Industries, Inc., a subsidiary of Amarex, stated in early 1970 that an investor who purchased 600pound steers, fed them for 150 days, and sold them as 1,025-pounders could make a net profit of $19-99 per animal. An investor who "fed out” 1,250 animals per year could conceivably (under favorable cattle-market prices) earn a total net profit of $24,987.50, or a net return of 20 percent on his investment.22 The small net profit per animal contributed to the rise of the "super” feedlot enterprise. A study published in 1966 showed that feedlots which doubled their carrying capacity could increase their profits through greater efficiency of existing feeding facilities. In 19621963 the fledgling feedlot industry in Texas had suffered from losses due to low market prices. Low prices and high overhead costs forced many small feedlot operators out of business.23 Those conditions contributed significantly to the rise of the large lots. The new feedlot industry attracted a number of large packing plants to the region. By 1971 there were eleven such concerns on the Texas High Plains. Three were in Amarillo, two were located in Lubbock, and the remainder were at Hereford, Friona, Plainview, Pampa, and Etter. In 22 "Commercial Feeding: Another Marketing Tool for Irrigation Farmers to Use,” Irrigation Age 4 (February 1970): 36-37. 23 Edward Uvacek, Jr., Economic Trends of Texas Cattle Feeding, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. B-1055, pp. 13, 22.

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addition, two other packing plants were located in Clovis and Guymon on the nearby High Plains of New Mexico and Oklahoma respectively. If a packing plant at nearby Roswell, New Mexico, was also included, the total annual capacity of the fourteen plants was 2,492,800 head. Yet even this number lacked the capacity to process the more than 3.6 million head of cattle fed on the High Plains of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico in 1970.24 The thriving industry not only created a need for more packing plants at the finished stage of the livestock industry, but also generated a need for grazing areas to pasture yearlings up to the 600-pound level prior to putting the animals into feedlots. "Stalk” pastures, in which the grainsorghum heads had been harvested, and winter-wheat fields not only were well suited for this need, but also served to supply irrigation farmers with supplementary income.25 Good market prices for cattle caused many irrigation farmers to diversi­ fy in order to raise more livestock. The pioneer High Plains irrigation farmer D. L. McDonald had emphasized stock farming in the early precarious period of the irrigation movement. He used irrigation pri­ marily to raise forage crops for his livestock rather than cash crops. He once referred to this practice as "Irrigation Live Stock Farming.”26 The 1 9 6 0 ’ s witnessed a trend among many irrigation farmers to raise or pasture livestock as an integral part of their irrigation economy. Farmers began to turn some of their fields into permanent irrigated pasture with the potential of running three head to the acre and to increase their production of feedstuffs. By 1969, 78,792 acres on the High Plains were in permanent irrigated pasture. One observer noted in 1962 that a number of cotton farmers in Terry County now had small five- to ten-acre plots of irrigated Bermuda or Sudan grass. In other counties farmers were irrigating not only those grasses but also native grasses. Between 1958 24 Thomas, Fed Cattle Industry and Growth of Fed Cattle Industry. 25 John Mette, "An Argument in Favor of Added Prosperity,” Irrigation Age 2 (June 1968): 4 -8 ; "Beef and Irrigation, Cows and Calves,” Irrigation Age 4 (February 1970): 15; "Ogallala Slim Sez,” North Plains Water News (publication of North Plains Ground Water Conservation District No. 2, Dumas) 13 (July 1 969): 1; "Growing Cattle for Growing Profit,” Irrigation Age 4 (February 1970): 40-48. 26 D. L. McDonald, Where Crops Never Fail, sales promotional pamphlet, Hereford, ca. 1917 or 1918, pages not numbered, Files of McDonald Drilling Company, Amarillo, Texas; Amarillo Globe, May 11, 1925, p. 8.

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and 1964 permanent pasture acreage in Terry County grew from 250 to 5,000. Deaf Smith County was another example of the trend. Its total irrigated acreage declined from 282,660 in 1958 to 278,000 in 1969. During that same period its irrigated acres in permanent pasture increased from zero to 3,000, and its production of forage crops, excluding grain sorghum, increased from 7,750 to 25,000 acres. Between 1958 and 1969 permanent irrigated pastures in Lamb County ascended from 5,000 to 9,500 acres.27 The most dramatic indication of the growing importance of livestock production and its relation to irrigation farming lay in the sharp rise in the acreage of irrigated forage crops, exclusive of grain sorghum, which was raised primarily as a cash crop. In Castro County, for example, the acreage in irrigated forage crops increased from 15,000 to 171,400 acres between 1958 and 1969. On the entire High Plains of Texas in 1958 there were 119,023 acres of irrigated forage crops and 74,085 acres of corn, grown primarily for ensilage purposes. By 1969 forage crops were surpassed in irrigated acreage only by grain sorghum, cotton, and wheat. Ranking fourth, some 415,363 acres were planted in forage crops. In addition, irrigated corn ranked fifth with 237,329 acres. If forage crops and corn are combined, more than 650,000 irrigated acres were being used to supply farmers with feed for their livestock.28 While increased livestock production remained an important new strength in the irrigation economy of the High Plains, the declining ground-water resources of the region constituted its gravest challenge. Various conservation experts and spokesmen issued a barrage of informa­ tion on water conservation. In such regional publications as Southwestern Crop and Stock and Irrigation Age, articles dealing with the more efficient use of water in growing crops appeared regularly. For example, in one article, a USDA Soil Conservation Service specialist pointed out that water conservation was related to soil conservation. Such practices as 27 "Farm, Ranch Briefs,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 16 (March 1962): 23; Barry Love, "Forage in Plains Economy,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 17 (May 1963): 10, 45; "Irrigating Native Grass,” Irrigation Age 2 (August 1967): 19-21; Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, pp. 103187. 28 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation, pp. 103-187; Love, "Forage in Plains Economy,” pp. 10, 45.

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leveling and terracing not only would prevent soil erosion but also would hold both rainfall and irrigation water on the soil, making for maximum efficiency in the use of available water resources.29 Another article in­ formed irrigators that experiments with computers in determining when crops should or should not be watered offered the possibility of significant savings in water.30 The new editor of Irrigation Age, Tom Milligan, pleaded in 1971 for some kind of institutional framework to meter or possibly even prorate ground-water withdrawal. Alluding to the oil industry as a good example of an economic group conserving its vital resources through proration, Milligan said that farmers would do well to heed that industry’s example "so [that] a lush, green and rolling-in-money area like the High Plains area of Texas won’t dry up, blow away and return to a desert state.” The editor warned, "If farmers, bankers, local businessmen, manufacturers and others making their living off the land don’t take a giant step on land and quit irrigating all day and all night even under the full moon, there just ain’t gonna be a tomorrow for a bunch of us.”31 Conservation measures, where they did exist on the High Plains, usual­ ly centered around "no-waste” practices or economic motives rather than any conscious effort to decrease the amount of water applied to crops pure­ ly for the sake of conserving water. One study of irrigation practices showed that farmers’ decisions to apply water were based solely upon economic considerations. In other words, if a farmer did apply less water or irrigate a crop fewer times, he did so because he was convinced that maximum crop production could be achieved with less water. Conse­ quently, irrigators who had learned from reading the results of irrigation 29Virgle L. Cunningham, Jr., "Wise Handling of Water,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 19 (August 1965): 22-23. Other good examples are Roland R. Willis, "Farmer’s Adjustment to a Declining Water Supply,” unpublished paper presented to Fifth Annual West Texas Water Conference, Texas Technological College, February 3, 1967, copy in W . C. Holden Papers, Materials Pertaining to Water, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. 30 "A Hardcore Look at Irrigation Efficiency,” Irrigation Age 5 (June 1 9 71): 7-10, 18; "W ill Computer Scheduled Irrigation Work?” Irrigation Age 4 (April 1970): 5-7; Dick Wilson, "Can Computer Scheduled Irrigation Stretch Water Supplies?” Irrigation Age 4 (April 1970): 8-10. 31 Tom Milligan, "Call the Law!” Irrigation Age 5 (June 1971) : 6, 16, 23.

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experiments that two * postplant” waterings for cotton was a more eco­ nomical practice than three applications would use less water.32 Although such information made many farmers more water conscious, there is some evidence that farmers in weaker-water areas were actually less informed about water-conservation practices and more wasteful with water than farmers in stronger-water areas. This conclusion, reached in a survey of the irrigation practices of 262 farmers, prompted the re­ searcher to remark that "weak water areas apparently had experienced a selective migration of the better farmers.”33 Although most irrigators without abundant water may have been less informed and less conscious of the need for conservation measures, ex­ ceptions were to be found. One farmer, H. H. Miller of Deaf Smith County, collaborated with Roy M. Anderson of Clovis, New Mexico, in the invention of a special type of irrigation system in order to use his water more efficiently. Miller had drilled his first well in 1936. By 1970 he had eight wells on his 816-acre farm, but two of them had been pumped dry. Since the drilling of that first well his water table had dropped seventy-nine feet. Miller, who reasoned that "we have been watering our land more than we have been watering our crops,” designed a system using a long boom with sprinkler heads set on a four-wheel rig. It moved itself through a field while straddling an irrigation ditch. A pump on the rig sucked water from the ditch and applied it to some forty rows in one-half of a round. The automated rig needed human hands only when it reached the end of the rows and had to be turned around and started back down forty more rows. Realizing that irrigators were faced with a rapidly declining ground-water supply, Miller summed up his reason for using a rig which applied water more sparingly than the traditional furrow-flood method: "If we farmers will adopt some method to save a lot of water then we will have water in our water bank to be used later.” Miller estimated that he got the same production using

32 Arthur John Hawley, "The Decision to Irrigate: Irrigation Practices and the Water Supply in the South Plains of Texas,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1968, pp. 41-46, 71-75. 33 Ibid., p. 71.

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one-fourth the amount of water he had previously employed using furrow-flood.34 The experience of H. H. Miller and other sprinkler irrigators prompted the publisher of Irrigation Age to suggest in strong terms that local bankers had an obligation to do their share for water conservation and the economy by "promoting and financing more sprinkler than flood ir­ rigation in your area.”35 Some farmers became more conscious of the need to conserve rainfall to supplement their declining ground water. Because water- and soil-conservation practices were closely related, some kind of government aid requiring the farmer to pay part of the cost was usually available through the Great Plains Conservation Program enacted by Congress in 1957 and administered by the Soil Conservation Service. One practice gaining in popularity by the middle of the decade was the construction of parallel terraces, described by a government soil conservationist as "one of the greatest water stretchers ever to come to West Texas.” Unlike the conven­ tional curved terraces, which made their appearance on the Great Plains more than thirty years before, the new terraces were adapted to compara­ tively level land rather than to sloping terrain. The objectives of the in­ novation were to prevent any runoff from precipitation and to spread moisture evenly over fields. A farmer in Lynn County believed that "money I spent on parallel terraces has been a better investment than money spent on small irrigation wells. My first terraces paid for them­ selves with the first crop.” Farmers slowly began to adopt the innovation. For example, it was reported in Lynn County that 14 miles of terraces were built in 1965. Added to this small number were 120 miles in 1966 and 313 miles by the end of the summer of 1967. In 1966 about 40 miles were laid out in Crosby County. Soil Conservation Service officials esti­ mated that another 80 miles would be constructed in that county in 1967.36 34 Nelda C. Thomas, “Nobody Built Sprinkler to Suit Hereford Man,” Irrigation Age 5 (October 1970 ): 11-13. 35 ''Publisher Lays It on the Line about Irrigation Financing,” Irrigation Age 5 (November 1970): 36. 36 "Terraces as Water Stretchers,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 21 (February 1 967): 37; "Parallel Terraces Popular,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 21 (October 19 6 7 ): 9.

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Under the same program the Soil Conservation Service assisted irriga­ tors in other ways. In 1963 aid was broadened to include the installation of sumps to drain the numerous playa lakes of the region. The govern­ ment also shared costs with farmers to construct pipelines from sumps to water distribution systems, thereby supplementing ground water with rainfall runoff. An even more significant step was taken by the SCS when in 1971 it included installation of tail-water return systems under the program. For approved applications the federal government would pay 50 to 80 percent of the total cost for installation.37 Water conservation was also aided by the emergence on the High Plains in the late 1960’s of a new farming technique called the "notillage” or "minimum-tillage” method. Under experimentation in the Middle West for a number of years, especially in the production of corn, no-tillage farming required a minimum usage of one of the oldest imple­ ments known to farmers—the plow. In the planting process both soil and the residue of dead plant stalks were left relatively undisturbed. Using preemergent chemicals to control weeds, the special planter sliced a thin slit through vegetation mulch and soil, deposited the seed, and covered the narrow opening, all without conventional lister bottoms or disk plows. After planting, postemergent chemicals were applied, but the soil was left completely undisturbed. Experiments in the corn belt had demon­ strated that crop yields using the new method were equal, and in many cases superior, to conventional cultivation techniques. No-tillage offered the High Plains irrigator several advantages. First, it significantly cut costs in labor, machinery, fuel, and repairs because cultivation during the growing stage of crops was not required. Even more important, the cumulative vegetation mulch greatly decreased evap­ oration of water from the soil and also reduced rainfall runoff. Finally, because the mulch so effectively conserved winter moisture after harvest, it lessened the need for "preplant” irrigation, which accounted for an estimated one-third to one-fourth of the total water applied to grain sorghum. Although agricultural scientists warned farmers that not all

37 "Irrigation Pits Now in ASC Aid Program,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 17 (April 1963)-. 19; "Federal Programs to Aid Irrigation Farmers,” The Cross Section 17 (March 1971): 2.

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soil types were suited to no-tillage, a large part of the High Plains ap­ peared to be suitable for the innovation.38 One approach to the problem of a dropping water table was to re­ plenish the ground-water formation through artificial recharge, that is, by pumping water back into the ground. According to geologists, the formation had originally been "charged” with water through the slow accumulation of percolated rainfall over a period of thousands of years. Advocates of artificial recharge believed that experimentation would pro­ vide some method of recharging rainfall runoff from the more than nine­ teen thousand playa lakes into the Ogallala formation. The idea was not new. As early as 1914 the Texas Land and Development Company had drilled a well in a modified playa called Lake Plainview. R. S. Charles, ir­ rigation engineer for the company, had conceived the plan in order to pre­ vent an overflow threatened by the continuous use of a demonstration pump which sucked water from the ground and into the "lake.” A pro­ vision in the Ground Water District Law of 1949 had given ground-water districts the authority to carry out recharge experiments and, wherever practical, to engage in artificial recharge.39 In 1953 the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 (HPUWCD) began recharge experiments using a well in south­ eastern Floyd County. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Texas Board of Water Engineers and some other agencies, started ex­ perimentation programs the next year at Amarillo and Plainview. The early tests, consisting of pumping sediment-clear water from and back into the Ogallala formation, were labeled successes. Recharging the formation with the muddy water of playa lakes was a more difficult problem to solve. The High Plains Research Foundation’s experimental farm at Halfway in Hale County injected playa water into its recharge well in 1959. After putting some 38.3 acre-feet of water into 38 Tom Milligan, "No-Tillage May Improve Your Trading of Water for Crops,” Irrigation Age 6 (October 1971): 12. Other articles in the same issue of this journal which deal with this new farming method are: Milligan, "Minimum Tillage Farming Could Extend Water Supply,” pp. 14-18; "Sandhill Farmers Grow Corn in Sod,” pp. 19-20; Milligan, "Minimum Tillage Defeats Sandburs,” pp. 22-23; Allen H. King, "SCS Guides No Tillage Farming on High Plains,” pp. 26-27; "100,000 Acres of NoTill Corn Grown in Ohio,” pp. 30-32. 39 B. R. Brunson, The Texas Land and Development Company: A Panhandle Pro­ motion, 1912-1956, pp. 69-72. See chapter 6 above.

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the formation, the farm reported only limited success. Soon afterward other experiments were carried out at the USDA experiment station at Bushland near Amarillo, and by scientists at Texas Tech University. Results, though encouraging, were far from successful. The basic problem stemmed partly from the variable permeability of the aquifer in different areas of the region and partly from the suspended sedimentation in "lake” water. In areas where the aquifer was more permeable due to a matrix of larger particles of sand and gravel, recharge efforts were generally more successful. Suspended sedimentation also posed a problem. In sev­ eral experiments it was found that putting muddy water into a well over a long period of time gradually sealed off the well from the formation because the sedimentation particles acted as cementing agents. Experiments in removing suspended sedimentation by mechanical and chemical means were carried on at both Halfway and Bushland. Chem­ ical experiments conducted at Bushland appeared to be the most promis­ ing. In this process, relatively inexpensive chemicals were introduced to induce flocculant action, thereby precipitating the particles in suspen­ sion into "flocks,” which then settled to the bottom. In spite of some success in experimental recharge, by 1966 there were only two hundred recharge wells in the region, most of which were pri­ vately owned by innovative farmers.40 For example, a farmer in Swisher County whose eight-inch wells had dwindled to three- and four-inch streams installed a successful recharge system in 1966. His unit pumped water from a playa into five wells, which were also used for pumping from the formation. Another farmer, J. R. Hutchens of Lamb County, began experimenting with his system as early as 1954. After meeting with only limited success, he constructed in 1966 a complex mechanical sepa­ rating system using one well and a holding pond. This irrigator controlled the suspended-sediment problem through dilution with clear water. He 40 An excellent brief account of recharge experiments and associated problems is found in Frank A. Rayner, "Artificial Recharge,” The Cross Section 13 (January 1967): 1-4. Also see "They’re Giving Serious Thought to Putting Water Back into the Ground,” Irrigation Age 1 (May 1967): 34-37; William F. Schwiesow, "Playa Lake Use and Modification in the High Plains,” Studies of Playa Lakes in the High Plains of Texas, Texas Water Development Board Report, no. 10; Victor L. Hauser and Donald C. Signor, Water Conservation and Ground-Water Recharge Research, Texas High Plains, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. M P-850.

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recharged his well only when he was pumping from other wells and mix­ ing some of the fresh water with his playa water. The mixture prevented an excess of sedimentation particles from being forced into the Ogallala aquifer. The farmer was able through recharge to stabilize his ground­ water level at that particular well. Not content with his own success, Hutchens encouraged other farmers to install recharge systems. He strongly suggested that irrigators "need to . . . leave that domino table, set that coffee cup down and go to work and put this water back into the ground.”41 The most recent experiment in ground-water recharge is that now being sponsored by the International Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Land Studies (ICASALS) at Texas Tech University. Under the direction of petroleum engineers Duane Crawford and Philip Johnson of Tech’s school of engineering, the current approach utilizes techniques of highpressure recharge developed by the petroleum industry for use in the secondary recovery stage of extracting oil from oil fields. Experimenting with five different wells located in three counties, sixty-five acre-feet of "raw” playa water were pumped into the aquifer at 1,000 to 1,600 gallons per minute at a pressure of up to eighty pounds per square inch during the summer of 1971. Unlike earlier methods which used gravity flow or low pressure, the new method appears to prevent clogging by widely dispersing the particles into the formation. As of 1971, Frank B. Conselman, director of ICASALS, expected the project to continue in the experimental stage, with possible expansion into other areas of the High Plains, for another three to five years.42 Ground-water conservation-district officials not only demonstrated an interest in cheap, effective means for recharging the formation, but also showed an interest in finding effective means for conserving their remain­ ing ground water. In 1951 the first district— High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 (HPUW CD)—was established pur­ suant to provisions in the Ground Water District Act of 1949. The act of 1949, providing for local control of ground-water resources, was a tri­ 41 "Conserving Our Water,” Irrigation Age 2 (August 1 967): 15; "Recharge,” Irri­ gation Age 3 (October 1968) : 6-12. 42 "Pressure at Well Head Promotes Faster Recharge,” Irrigation Age 6 (October 1971): 25.

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umph for High Plainsmen who feared control by some state agency. After creation of the district, its early primary objective was to educate its constituency to conserve water.43 At that time ground-water resources in the region still appeared to many to be inexhaustible. Most plainsmen probably thought that conservation was desirable, but not absolutely necessary. By 1969 there were six water districts on the High Plains, but only three were actively functioning with a board of directors, a general manager, and rules of conservation drawn up by the directors. Those three were the HPUWCD, the North Plains Ground Water Conservation District No. 2 located north of the Canadian River, and Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District No. 3 just south of the Canadian in the counties of Carson, Gray, and Potter. The largest in area and the most extensive in irrigated acreage remained HPUWCD. That district by 1969 had annexed to its original area parts of Crosby County, as well as other precincts in three of its original thirteen counties, Hale, Bailey, and Cochran. The only important county of the older irrigated area which remained completely outside the district was Swisher.44 Dissemination of information pertaining to conservation continued to be an important objective of HPUWCD and the other active districts. Almost every issue of HPUWCD’s The Cross Section, published every other month, contained articles about the wise use of water. In most issues of the North Plains Ground Water Conservation District’s North Plains Water News there appeared essays written by local high-school students on the importance of water conservation. Both districts publicized the use of tail-water return systems installed by individual farmers. The North Plains Ground Water Conservation District even published a comic book dealing with conservation in 1961 in an effort to inform young as well as older folks.45 Although education remained an important objective, the HPUWCD, 43 See chapter 10 above. Relative to the policy of the district, Frank A. Rayner, general manager of HPUWCD stated in 1969: "The District has relied heavily upon the principle of its creed, ‘Dedicated To The Principle That Water Conservation Is Best Accomplished Through Public Education’ ” (Rayner, “Ground Water Management on the High Plains of Texas,” unpublished paper presented before meeting of Irrigation and Drainage Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Austin, Texas, November 5, 1969, p. 10; in possession of Frank A. Rayner, Lubbock). 44 Ibid., pp. 1-2. 45 See North Plains Water News 5 (January 1961).

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under the leadership of General Managers Thomas J. McFarland and Frank A. Rayner (who succeeded McFarland in 1969), moved more decisively in the 1960’s toward enforcing its regulations dealing with water waste and well spacing. Between 1962 and 1966 some 150 to 200 petitions for judicial injunctions against violators were filed by HPUWCD. By 1969 the district had sent more than 1,500 cease-anddesist orders to water wasters. Most violators readily agreed to cease their wasteful practices. Subsequently, only about fifty injunctions were actually issued by the courts. The district took only one case against a recalcitrant irrigator to court, and the court decided in favor of HPUWCD. The usual procedure of the district, after thoroughly investigating a report of wastage on more than one occasion, was to send a letter to the irrigator notifying him of his violation of district rules. He was allowed seven days to reply to the charge and thirty days to cease the practice. If the irrigator agreed to comply, no other action was taken except an occasional check on his irrigation practices. If the violator refused to comply with a cease-anddesist order, the Board of Directors would hold a public hearing. After reaching a decision unfavorable to the irrigator, the board could then secure a judicial injunction to enforce its ruling.46 Another area in which the HPUWCD played an important role was that of experimenting with water reuse systems. Much water was usually wasted by allowing tail water to flow out the ends of field rows and into drainage ditches. This kind of waste was so prevalent in the late 1940’s and 1950’s that one observer reported: "It’s not an uncommon sight on the High Plains to see water running down a roadside ditch with not a cloud in sight. That’s waste water.”47 Some farmers took the time to erect low, temporary dikes on the low side of fields to hold the water on the land. But many, perhaps most, did not. Early in 1962 officials of HPUWCD installed water meters in public ditches of several counties. Data gathered from the meters indicated that an average irrigation well wasted about one hundred gallons per minute in runoff. In an effort to combat this loss, officials of the district, in cooperation 46 "Water Waste Punishable by Law in Texas!” Irrigation Age 1 (December 19 6 6 ): 31; Rayner, "Ground Water Management on the High Plains of Texas,” p. 8; "Board of Directors Holds Public Hearing,” The Cross Section 17 (May 1971): 3. 47 C. A. Reichenthin, "Proper Systems Eliminate Heavy Waste of Water,” South­ western Crop and Stock 3 (May 1949): 7.

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with a few farmers of Parmer County, began experimenting with tailwater return systems in 1962. The return system was constructed by dig­ ging a long, narrow sump in the lowest corner of the field. Water flowed into the sump by gravity or was pumped out of an adjacent drainage ditch and into the sump. A second pump pushed the water back into an irriga­ tion ditch or conduit for reuse. A typical tail-water return system con­ served about 22 percent of the total amount of water from an irrigator’s wells. Some farmers supplemented their ground-water supply in a similar way by sucking water from playa lakes into their delivery lines and ditches. In spite of the availability of some government aid, however, relatively few irrigators constructed either tail-water return or "lake” systems. By the end of 1968 there were only 661 "lake” and 494 tail-water units in the key counties of Lubbock, Deaf Smith, Parmer, Bailey, Floyd, and Castro.48 Another way in which the HPUWCD aided irrigation farmers was through obtaining a ground-water cost-depletion tax allowance from the Internal Revenue Service. Officials of the district initiated a move in 1954 to obtain recognition by the IRS of such a tax break. The IRS at that time refused to sanction the allowance. Subsequently, a former member of the Board of Directors for the district, Marvin Shurbet, brought a test case before the U.S. District Court at Lubbock in January, 1962. The battery of attorneys for Shurbet, including J. Chrys Dougherty of Austin, who had argued the Texas tidelands case before the U.S. Supreme Court, con­ tended that ground water was both a valuable "mineral” and a capital in­ vestment which was gradually depleted through irrigation. Among the witnesses called by the plaintiff were the president of a Lubbock bank, who testified that the price of land on the High Plains was directly related to the quantity of its remaining ground-water resources, and W. L. "Bill” Broadhurst, formerly with the U.S. Geological Survey and now hydrologist for HPUWCD, who stated as an expert that the formation was being slowly but surely depleted. The District Court decided in favor of Shur­ bet. Three years later the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the de­ cision. The government chose not to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. 48 Irrigation Age 1 (July 1967): 27-29; 3 (December 1968): 6-G 22; Schwiesow, "Playa Lake Use and Modification in the High Plains,” p. 7; personal observations.

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By 1966 irrigators in the district were filing forms with the IRS asking for retroactive and current tax refunds on the basis of the court deci­ sion. The IRS, using geological and hydrological data supplied by the HPUWCD, arrived at a rather complex formula using three criteria: (1) thickness of the Ogallala formation under the irrigator’s land at the time of purchase; (2) the average annual decline in the water table for those years in which the depletion allowance was claimed; (3) that part of the original price for the land which represented the investment in ground­ water resources. To clarify the last criterion, the IRS ruled that land pur­ chased prior to 1948 on the High Plains reflected no ground-water value in the original price paid for the property. Farmers could file retroactive claims only to 1962, the year the tax case was ruled upon by the district court. As a hypothetical example, if a farmer purchased a 160-acre farm in 1954 at a price of $300 per acre, it might be determined by the IRS that without water the land at the time of purchase would have been worth $150 per acre. Thus, the value in water resources was $150 per acre, or a total of $24,000 subject to the tax-allowance depletion. In the summer of 1966 Shurbet received $3,661.30 in refund checks from the IRS for the years 1962-1964. It was estimated that the tax-depletion allowance would save High Plains irrigators $5 million to $8 million per year in federal income taxes,49 The HPUWCD played an important role in preparing and disseminat­ ing to farmers information which aided them in applying for the tax break. Hydrologists of the district prepared two types of charts. One showed the thickness of the Ogallala aquifer for the years 1938, 1958, and 1968. Another chart, prepared annually, illustrated the decline of ground water for the year. Both utilized the device of contour isometric lines superimposed on maps of the HPUWCD. The district gathered in­ formation for the latter chart in January each year by measuring the dis­ 49 "Suit Filed by Irrigation Water User,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 15 (May 1961): 4; Jerry Hall, "Irrigation Water and Depletion Allowance,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 16 (January 1 9 62): 9, 46 -4 7 ; "Federal Court Holds Water Is Depletable Asset,” North Plains Water News 9 (July 1 965): 1, 4; "Landowners Win Water Depletion Scrap,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 19 (November 1 9 65): 5; "W ater De­ pletion Tax Deductions Now Being Felt in Plains Area,” The Cross Section 13 (Septem­ ber 1966): 1; Frank A. Rayner, "Claiming the Cost-in-Water Depletion Income-Tax Allowance,” The Cross Section 14 (February 1968): 1-3.

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tance from ground surface to water in hundreds of observation wells scat­ tered throughout the region.50 Estimates by district officials and others that the tax break would bene­ fit the region by several millions of dollars annually were exaggerated. About 2,500 claims were filed for the year 1966. That figure represented less than half the number of land owners eligible to claim the allowance. Total tax refunds for the period 1962 (the earliest year allowed by the IRS) through 1964 amounted to a total of $1.4 million, the average claim being $226. In 1965 the total dropped to $1 million, but the average claim of $400 was larger. The average depletion allowance jumped to about $480 per claimant in 1966.51 Due to the new tax break, some farmers living in Hale and Crosby counties, outside the HPUWCD, began petitioning in 1966 for inclusion in the district because the HPUWCD provided the expertise for charting and disseminating the hydrological and geological information needed to qualify for the depletion allowance. Although the majority in both coun­ ties defeated annexation in an election held in 1967, one precinct in Hale County elected to join that year. In 1969 a thin slice of western Crosby County also voted to annex itself to HPUWCD.52 A search for additional formations of underground water was one re­ sponse to the problem of a diminishing Ogallala aquifer. As early as 1930, a few wells supplying municipal water for the town of Canyon in Randall County, located on the outer edge of the Ogallala, were drilled into the Triassic "red beds,” which form the impervious layer on which the Ogallala lies. Water was discovered below the "red beds” in the Santa Rosa sandstone. By 1963 only a few Santa Rosa wells existed. In a report concerning the formation published that year, only four such wells used for irrigation were listed on the Texas High Plains. One was in Randall County. The 50 Rayner, “Claiming the Cost-in-Water Depletion.” 51 Ibid.; Frank A. Rayner, “Tax Guideline Maps Released,” The Cross Section 15 (December 1 969): 1-3. Officials of HPUWCD also hoped to use the water-depletion tax allowance and charts showing the annual decline of the water table as instruments to make irrigators more conscious of the need to conserve water. See Rayner, “Claiming the Cost-in-Water Depletion IncomeTax Allowance,” p. 1. 52 “Hearings Held for Annexation,” Southwestern Crop and Stock 20 (November 1966): 7; “Water District Election Time,” The Cross Section 14 (December 1967): 3; “Annexation Election,” The Cross Section 15 (March 1969): 1, 8.

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other three were in Deaf Smith County. Though confronted with de­ pleted ground-water resources, farmers did not rush en masse to tap this new source. Why? Three obstacles prevented mass utilization. First, the Santa Rosa lay at a much greater depth than the Ogallala. Its few wells were from six hundred to eight hundred feet or more in depth. Although the water had artesian qualities which sometimes pushed the liquid to within five hundred to three hundred feet from the surface, the cost of drilling such a deep well was high. It was estimated in 1963 that the cost for drilling and equipping such a well with pump and power plant would be $20,600. Five years later one of the partner-owners of the old, prestigious McDonald Drilling Company of Amarillo stated that his company would not drill one for less than $40,000. Thus, a Santa Rosa well was much more expensive than an Ogallala well. Second, the deep water contained a greater concentration of minerals and salts than the relatively soft Ogallala water, making it necessary, or at least desirable, to mix it with water from the shallower formation before using it for irrigation purposes. Finally, the Santa Rosa appeared to be a more fragile aquifer than the Ogallala. Actual pumping of two wells in Deaf Smith County indicated that wells spaced a mile or less from each other would lower the amount of water yielded by both. This phenomenon strongly implied that, if mass exploitation of the formation were attempted, the Santa Rosa would be rather quickly depleted. Although water from the newly discovered formation, if sparingly used, might supplement the Ogallala resource, one geologist warily concluded, "The availability of the water contained in the Santa Rosa sandstone is not sufficient to replace the diminishing water supply from the overlying Ogallala formation.”53 53 Bruce E. Fink, Ground Water Geology of Triassic Deposits, Northern Part of the Southern High Plains of Texas, High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 Report, no. 163, pp. 19-29; conversation with Bill McDonald of McDonald Drill­ ing Company, Amarillo, summer, 1968. Following is a breakdown of the estimated cost for a Santa Rosa well given by Fink: Test hole @ $1.00 per foot Drilling a 20-inch hole @ $5.00 per foot Steel casing— 800 ft. @ $4.00 per foot Cement work to seal off upper ground-water formation

$ 800 4,000

3,200 1,200

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Faced with the depletion of the Ogallala formation within twenty to forty years or less, with no other comparable local source of water avail­ able, and with ground-water recharge still very much in the experimental stage, High Plainsmen by the middle of the decade began to consider the possibility of importing water from sources outside their region. Plains­ men had at one time embraced the myth that their aquifer contained an in­ exhaustible supply of water fed by a huge underground river from such possible distant sources as the Rocky Mountains or some great arctic gla­ cier. Prominent geologists had for some time discounted the idea as pure myth, but many inhabitants continued to believe in the concept until a de­ clining water table demonstrated that the Ogallala was indeed exhaustible. It is ironic that in the 1960’s, as their myth crumbled, High Plainsmen once again began to think of utilizing a water supply from some distant source. Even if their mythical underground river never existed, perhaps in the future they could build a surface canal system to bring the precious liquid from afar.54 Influenced by the rapidly expanding needs of water users throughout Texas, as well as by the massive water-importation project already under construction in California, leadership in the Lone Star State moved to­ ward a comprehensive water-utilization plan for the future needs of the state. The Texas Board of Water Engineers (later renamed the Texas Water Commission) outlined in 1961 an initial plan for meeting such needs by the year 1980. Three years later Governor John Connally, wish­ ing to use federal assistance recently made available under the National Water Resources Act of 1964, pressed for a more detailed, more compre­ hensive, and longer-range water-development proposal. The governor wrote to the Texas Water Commission in August, 1964: "The Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers have proposed broad water de­ velopment projects for Texas far beyond the plans of the Texas Water Commission report. . . . In my opinion, these [the Texas Water ComEight-inch pump set at 600 ft. Power plant Well development and miscellaneous Total 54 For a discussion of the myth see chapter 10.

9,000 2,000 400 $20,600

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mission’s] plans fall short of satisfying the water needs for all of Texas.”55 Subsequent to the governor’s request, the newly created Texas Water Development Board (TW D B) was charged on September 1, 1965, with the responsibility for the study. A preliminary report published in May, 1966, projected water needs to the year 2020 for cities, industrial de­ velopment, navigation, hydroelectric power plants, and recreation, as well as for irrigation.56 But the report gave no encouragement to those High Plains irrigators who hoped to import water from East Texas. According to the preliminary study, "there is not sufficient surplus water in East Texas in excess of higher priority needs [municipal, industrial, and do­ mestic] to make it feasible to transport water from those sources for irri­ gation in West Texas. Therefore, we must look elsewhere for water to supply the irrigation requirements of Texas lying generally west of 99° west longitude.”57 The preliminary Texas Water Plan evoked only anger and bitterness from plainsmen. John Ben Shepperd, president of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, commented acidly that "no plan that stops East of the 100th Meridian can be called a statewide plan.” West Texans re­ sented being "treated like a stepchild,” concluded Shepperd. In defense of the report, Joe G. Moore, Jr., executive director of the TWDB, said that the expense of importing the water to West Texas was excessive for irrigation purposes. Moore advised plainsmen to look outside the state for cheaper sources of water. West Texans were given ample opportunity to attack the preliminary report in two hearings held at Lubbock on June 17 and September 9, 1966 . G. H. Nelson of Lubbock, chairman of the Water for the Future Committee of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, said he believed the estimated cost to be incorrect. But even if the estimate were correct, "you just don’t know how much we can pay for water out here,” Nelson said to Moore. Among those who spoke out against the preliminary 55Victor W . Bouldin, "Social and Legal Problems in Water Resources Planning,” in Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Conference on Water for Texas, p. 18; Letter of Gover­ nor Connally reprinted in Texas Water Development Board, Water for Texas: A Plan for the Future (Preliminary), p. 4. 56 Texas Water Development Board, Water for Texas, p. 2. 57 Ibid., p. 15.

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Texas Water Plan was Representative George Mahon, longtime congress­ man of the South Plains area. A few weeks prior to the June 17 hearing, Mahon had been responsible for the inclusion of West Texas in a study of the future water needs of most of the southwestern United States to be conducted by the Interior Committee of the U.S. House of Representa­ tives. While testifying before the Interior Committee the congressman had bitterly remarked: "We must look outside of Texas. We looked first to the State of Texas and the [Texas Water Development] Board, but they have written us off. That has struck a sour note with me.” At the Lubbock hearing, however, Mahon emphasized that "if we can’t get Texas water out here, our chances of getting it from other sources are very remote.” According to Mahon, other states were unwilling to give up their "surplus water.”58 In addition to the TWDB, two federal agencies— the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation— were involved by 1966 in studies of future water development for Texas. For example, the Bureau of Reclamation was studying the feasibility of four possible routes for water importation to the High Plains: (1) from the Missouri River, (2) from the Mississippi River via the Arkansas River through Oklahoma to Texas, (3) from the Mississippi River through the Red River to the Texas Panhandle, and (4) from the Mississippi via Louisiana, East Texas, and up the Colorado River of Texas.59 A private firm, the Ralph M. Parsons Company of Los Angeles, Cali­ fornia, offered the most ambitious water-importation proposal of all. In 1964 that construction-engineering firm prepared its plan for a compre­ hensive North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), in which the three nations of Canada, Mexico, and the United States would 58 Copy of address by John Ben Shepperd before Texas Water Development Board, Lubbock, September 9, 1966; Water for the Future Committee of the West Texas Cham­ ber of Commerce, Lubbock, November 10, 1965, to Loyan H. Walker; K. B. Watson, Abilene, September 2, 1966, to West Texas Chamber of Commerce directors. All of the above are located in the West Texas Chamber of Commerce Records, Water Resources File, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. Amarillo Daily News, May 31, 1966; Abilene Reporter-News, May 11, 1966; Odessa American, June 18, 1966; L. D. Brown, "State Water Proposals Termed Inadequate for Area,” Plainview Daily Herald, June 19, 1966. Clippings in West Texas Chamber of Commerce Records, Water Resources File. 59 Joe G. Moore, Jr., "The Texas Water Plan— Progress to Date,” Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Conference on Water for Texas, pp. 7-8.

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join hands to satisfy the future water requirements for regions within all three nations. The Parsons proposal was submitted to the U.S. Senate’s Special Subcommittee on Western Water Development. This plan called for feasibility studies of importation routes not only from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, but also from the Columbia River and the major rivers of northwestern Canada and Alaska. A massive reservoir five hun­ dred miles long would be created by inundating the Rocky Mountain Trench stretching from Canada into the United States. Total cost of the project would be $100 billion. Thirty years were needed for completion. In addition to the interest shown in NAWAPA by spokesmen from several southwestern states, High Plainsmen became avid enthusiasts of the scheme. K. D. McFarland, director of public relations for Parsons, was invited to address a meeting of the West Texas Chamber of Com­ merce on January 14, 1966, in order to explain the project, answer ques­ tions, and pass out promotional brochures. Irrigation Age, at that time a regional journal for plains irrigators, came out strongly for the plan.60 If NAWAPA became a reality, West Texans would one day be watering their fields with the melted accumulation of distant snows and glaciers. A serious weakness of the importation proposals was that of cost. In a report done for the Texas Water Development Board in early 1966, it was estimated that the maximum cost for irrigation water which could be paid by High Plains irrigators was $28.74 per acre-foot. The preliminary Texas Water Plan, released the same year, indicated that the costs for building such an importation system from East Texas and transporting the water to the Plains would amount to $68.00 per acre-foot.61 After the 60 Stuart Long, "Water and the Budget,” Irrigation Age 1 (December 1966): 12. Water Our Number One Problem, brochure, in possession of author. Speech of Sen. Frank E. Moss of Utah at Northwest Water Conservation Congress, Wenatchee, Wash­ ington, March 7, 1967; introduced into Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 1st sess., March 21, 1967, by Sen. Joseph M. Montoya of New Mexico; reprint in West Texas Chamber of Commerce Records, Water Resources File. K. D. McFarland, Los Angeles, October 22, 1965, to Loyan H. Walker, West Texas Chamber of Commerce Records, Water Resources Committee File. "NAWAPA, A Water Plan with Vision,” Irrigation Age 1 (September 1 9 66): 13-14. A detailed account of the proposed system is found in W . Eugene Hollon, The Great American Desert: Then and Now, pp. 247-249. 61 Herbert W . Grubb, Importance of Irrigation Water to the Economy of the Texas High Plains, Texas Water Development Board Report, no. 11, p. 22. In Texas Water Development Board, Water for Texas (Preliminary), p. 18, the figure of $168 per acrefoot is obviously an error in printing and should be $68. For the correct figure see Stuart

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opposition to the preliminary study by West Texans, Joe G. Moore, Jr., of the TWDB modified this estimate downward to approximately $38.00 to $53.00 per acre-foot, still well above the figure considered by the TWDB as the maximum cost for irrigation purposes. The finalized Texas Water Plan, made public in 1968, concluded that the cost for con­ structing an irrigation-distribution system on the plains would be more than $1.1 billion. That estimate did not include the initial construction of reservoirs and canals, which would be utilized by municipal and industrial users as well as by irrigators. One observer believed that the only way in which water importation could be financed was through some form of subsidy by regional taxation or through the assistance of the federal gov­ ernment.62 Another difficulty associated with importation was that of storing the water at some point on or near the High Plains prior to usage. Because of its level topography and few streams, the region had very few possible reservoir sites. One engineering firm even suggested making the pictur­ esque Palo Duro Canyon, located several hundred feet below the plains on the headwaters of the Red River, into a reservoir. Perhaps the most practical idea, advanced by some, was to recharge the Ogallala formation with the imported water through the thousands of irrigation wells already in existence.63 The gigantic importation project in California, which upon completion would bring massive quantities of water from the Sacramento River system to southern California, served to spur on West Texas importation planners. K. B. Watson of Amarillo, chairman of the West Texas AdLong, "Texas Water News,” Irrigation Age 1 (January 1967): 8. One engineering com­ pany reported to the board that water imported from East Texas to the High Plains would cost approximately $23 per acre-foot just for the cost of installing pumping facilities and pipelines and transporting the water. This estimate did not include costs for purchasing the water from reservoir facilities in East Texas or the costs for storage and distribution on the High Plains (Stuart Long, "Texas Water News,” Irrigation Age 1 [July 1967]: 1 9 -2 0 ). 62 "A Tentative Price on Imported Water,” Irrigation Age 2 (September 1967): 48; Texas Water Development Board, The Texas Water Plan, p. 1-27; Stuart Long, "Texas Water News,” Irrigation Age 1 (January 1967): 8. 63 Long, "Water and the Budget,” p. 12; idem, "Texas Water News,” Irrigation Age 2 (August 1967): 52-53; Frank A. Rayner, "Potential for Storage of Water in Southern High Plains of Texas,” The Cross Section 13 (February 1967): 1, 3; continued in 13 (April 1967): 1, 3.

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visory Committee of the Texas Water Development Board, went to Cali­ fornia in 1967 to view the progress of the California plan. Observing "the similarity between West Texas and California’s San Joaquin Val­ ley,” a beneficiary of the project, Watson remarked, "It is more impres­ sive than I thought it would be.”64 John Mette, editor of Irrigation A ge, wrote, "W e must make known— and understood— examples of accom­ plishment . . . like California’s massive water development plan where far-sighted conservationists became master of tomorrow’s water fears, yesterday, and find beneficial use commending their judgment, today.”65 In order to consolidate High Plains leadership into a campaign to pro­ mote water importation, a group called Water, Incorporated, was or­ ganized in 1967. Water, Incorporated, held its initial organizational meeting on May 24 at Lubbock. An estimated crowd of fifteen hundred interested persons, not only from the Texas High Plains but also from the plains of adjacent Oklahoma and New Mexico, were present at the session. Among the speakers were Joe G. Moore, Jr., of the Texas Water Development Board; Marvin Nichols, an engineer from a Fort Worth engineering firm; John Thompson, assistant regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; Gen. W. T. Bradley of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and A. C. Verner, president of the First National Bank of Lubbock. All speakers stressed that West Texans must begin a massive promotional campaign in order to enlist the support of various federal agencies as well as the populace of other Texas regions and other states having abundant water resources for possible export. Some participants also outlined such serious obstacles as the feasibility of various routes and reservoir sites, the purchase of water from other states and regions, methods of financing projects, interstate cooperation, and legal prob­ lems.66 A dilemma as difficult to surmount as the engineering and cost ob­ stacles was that of establishing new, but necessary, institutions. Whereas pump irrigation lent itself to individual exploitation, canal irrigation for the High Plains would require not only cooperative efforts, but also, 64 "California Proves Big Things Can Be Done with Water,” Irrigation Age 1 (May 1967): 11. 65 "Stockholders Statement,” Irrigation Age 1 (March 1967): 3. 66 "And the People Came,” Irrigation Age 1 (June 19 67): 2-3.

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perhaps, limitations on water usage. Joe G. Moore, Jr., warned, "There will be no import of water into West Texas, unless we have the wisdom and fortitude to provide the legal, political and financial structure neces­ sary to contract for repayment of the costs and distribution of that water.”67 Moreover, he suggested that a master water district would have to be created by the Texas legislature to administer and regulate the dis­ tribution of water. And if the Ogallala formation could be used to store the imported water, the district would need the power to regulate the withdrawal of water by the individual irrigator, to curtail water wastage, and to prevent ground-water pollution. With obvious reference to the Ground Water District Act of 1949, Moore concluded that the privilege of a county or a precinct to vote itself into or out of a water district would have to be ended.68 High Plainsmen generally opposed such concessions to the state or to a master water district which they could not control. The vice-president of the Parmer County Water Association stated that his group recognized the need for forming a single master water district, but he also believed "in maintaining local autonomy as much as possible.”69 Even more revealing were the attitudes expressed by some plainsmen when the Interim Water Study Committee of the Texas House of Repre­ sentatives held a hearing on the proposed Texas Water Plan at Hereford in late 1968. Almost all who spoke were against the state ownership of ground water for purposes of regulation even if the Ogallala formation were to be used as the reservoir for imported water. Thomas J. McFar­ land, general manager of HPUWCD since its beginning in 1 9 5 1 , recalled how High Plainsmen, joined by other agricultural interests in the state more than twenty years before, had defeated a similar plan in the Texas legislature. McFarland concluded, "With this historical background, and our beliefs in the rights of the individual, our answer . . . is a r e s o u n d ­ i n g N O .” 70

Another problem was that, if the Bureau of Reclamation assumed re­ sponsibility for the importation project, the traditional 160-acre limita­ tion for each farmer who used the water (under the Newlands Act of 67 "Before the Need Is Critical,” Irrigation Age 1 (May 1967): 23. 68 Stuart Long, "Texas Water News,” Irrigation Age 1 (February 1967): 969 "Water Stands Up to Be Heard,” Irrigation Age 3 (November 1968): 16-G18. 70 Ibid., p. 16-G13- See chapter 10 above.

226

L and of the U nderground Rain

1902) would apply to the High Plains. The average irrigated farm, how­ ever, already consisted of 449 acres or more, varying from county to county. Speaking for Water, Incorporated, the executive director, a re­ tired army colonel named "Clif” Chamberlain, said that the maximum acreage should be increased or abandoned altogether.71 By the end of the decade, however, there was no indication that the federal government was willing to do either. Although problems of cost, engineering, and institutions were formid­ able, the opposition of citizens of other regions whose abundant water re­ sources were coveted by West Texans appeared to be an insuperable obstacle. The Memphis-Shelby County Port Commission of Tennessee passed a resolution opposing the exportation of any water from the Mis­ sissippi River. Similar protests were voiced by groups in Louisiana, Arkan­ sas, and Missouri.72 The government of Canada, with its own regions of arid and semiarid lands, was far from enthusiastic over the NAWAPA proposal. Arthur Laing, Minister for Northern Affairs, said in 1966 that the exportation of Canadian water to the United States was "not now negotiable, and I am not certain that it will ever be.” Citizens of the Pa­ cific Northwest also jealously guarded their Columbia River water. E. Roy Tinney, director of the Water Research Center for the state of Washing­ ton, predicted in 1967 that the northwestern states in the near future would develop their own "northwest plan” in order to utilize fully their water resources. As Tinney pointed out, Washington alone had some nine million acres which could be irrigated, as well as the water to do the job. Moreover, an irrigation boom appeared to be in the making along the Columbia by 1969, as many new, privately financed irrigation systems sprang up along the river.73 Recognizing the political obstacles inherent in any scheme to import water from outside the state, the editor of Texas Water, publication of the state-wide membership of the Texas Water Conservation Association, ad­ vised his readers that "Texas is going to have to get along on the water 71 Irrigation Age 2 (July 1968): 16-G16. 72 Stuart Long, "Texas Water News,” Irrigation Age 1 (February 19 6 7 ): 9; idem, "Texas, Quit Scaring People,” Irrigation Age 2 (February 1968): 34. 73 Texas Water (Austin) 22 (August 1966): 2; "Irrigation Opinion,” Irrigation Age 1 (April 1 967): 19; Wanda Lamade, "Columbia the Gem of the Pacific Northwest,” Irrigation Age 4 (November 1969): 37-40.

T h e Contemporary H igh Plains

227

resources within its own borders for a long time to come/’74 West Texans, however, could derive little comfort from the possibility of utilizing wa­ ter from the eastern area of the state. East Texans guarded their water as jealously as the Canadians. One group meeting at Nacogdoches resolved that all the irrigable lands along the Neches River must have priority to the water of that river before exporting any to West Texas.75 By the late 1960’s the need for beginning an importation project in the near future was critical for the High Plains. In a timetable released by the Texas Water Development Board, it was shown that, even if construction could start as early as 1976, water would not reach the High Plains until 1985.76 In the summer of 1969 Water, Incorporated, began urgently campaigning for state-wide approval of a proposed $3.5 billion bond is­ sue which would provide for the construction of reservoirs and canals to supply imported water from East Texas rivers to certain metropolitan regions, such as San Antonio and Houston, for industrial and municipal uses. The plains organization viewed the facilities to be constructed under the project as necessary initial steps toward the realization of their im­ portation needs. Hopes of High Plains irrigators received a severe setback, however, when on August 5,1969, the bond issue was narrowly defeated in a state-wide referendum by a vote of 315,793 to 309,516. Primary cause for defeat of the water-bond issue was opposition to the plan by inhabitants of the East Texas and Gulf Coast regions. Even though some cities in those areas were to be beneficiaries of the project, there is evidence that many voted against the measure because of the threat which water exportation posed to the ecology of the Gulf Coast re­ gion. A group calling itself The Committee of 1,000 argued effectively that the proposed reservoirs on East Texas rivers would greatly decrease the flow of water to estuaries and bays, thereby posing a serious threat to the wildlife, fisheries, and vegetation along the Texas coast. Coastal in­ habitants were aware of the new national interest in ecology occasioned by publicity given to the abuse of pesticides, to coastal oil slicks, to the threat to wildlife in the Florida Everglades caused by the projected build­ 74 Texas Water 22 (August 19 6 6 ): 1. 75 Long, "Texas, Quit Scaring People,” p. 34. 76 "The Time Table for Imported Water,” Irrigation Age 3 (November 19 6 8 ): 16G21.

Land of the U nderground Rain

228

ing of a large jet airport, and to water pollution from various sources. Consequently, the water-bond issue was defeated not only because most East Texas counties voted against the plan, but also, even more important, because every county of the coastal area voted against the issue. Houston, for example, which would have been one of the primary recipients of wa­ ter under the plan, turned down the bond issue by a vote of 66,719 to 13,431.77 Defeat of the bond issue did not necessarily mean that the Texas Water Plan and water importation for the High Plains were now dead. If im­ portation could be financed solely by West Texans or the federal govern­ ment, there was still hope. The Texas Water Development Board, with a new executive director appointed by Governor Preston Smith of Lubbock, continued to study the feasibility of water importation. To facilitate a many-faceted approach, Smith put Harry P. Burleigh, who had been with the Bureau of Reclamation in Texas for twenty-four years, in the office of executive director. Using engineering computer specialists and staff mem­ bers of Texas A&M University, the board by 1971 was deeply involved in studies to determine the highest possible cost irrigators could afford to pay for imported water and the actual quantity of water required from rivers to maintain the Gulf Coast ecology. In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation were also conducting more feasibility studies. When the results of these efforts are available by 1972 or 1973, the Texas Water Development Board expects to move ahead with its master water plan, hopefully with the support of most Texans at that time.78 Summary By 1970, however, the outlook for water importation was far from encouraging. Technologically, the massive project may have been feasible, but it required intrastate and interregional cooperation and the molding of new institutions for purposes of water conservation and distribution. 77 Stuart Long, "W hat Happens Now to the Texas Water Plan?” The Progressive Parmer 84 (November 1969): 15. The viewpoint of environmentalists who oppose the plan, as well as a critical analysis of the project, is found in Robert H. Boyle, John Graves, and T. H. Watkins, The Water Hustlers. 78 Stuart Long, "Texas Water Plan Alive,” Irrigation Age 5 (April 1971): 29-32, 42.

T h e Contemporary H igh Plains

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Plainsmen showed a reluctance for changing their institutions. Even more important, inhabitants of other regions were unwilling to export water which they believed would be needed in their own areas in the future. Finally, the initial phase of the Texas Water Plan received a severe set­ back from within the state when forces concerned about damage to the ecology of the Gulf Coast region mobilized their strength to defeat the water-bond issue. Throughout the 1960’s irrigation was the lifeblood of the High Plains. A study, released in 1966, of the High Plains economy as of 1959 esti­ mated that irrigation was directly or indirectly responsible for $330 mil­ lion annually, or 21 percent of the total income of the region. The same study showed that irrigation had a multiplier effect on the nonagricultural sectors of the economy. While primary benefits (income to irrigators) amounted to $74 million, secondary and tertiary benefits to businesses dealing either directly or indirectly with irrigated agriculture totaled $256 million. The study projected that by 1970 primary benefits would amount to $106 million while profits to business would total $364 mil­ lion annually.79 A good example of the influence exerted by irrigation on the business sector is furnished by the growth of Dumas, county seat of Moore County on the North Plains. Originally the economy of Dumas rested on petroleum. The Shamrock Oil and Gas Company had a major refinery there, and the town had enjoyed a steady growth before the com­ ing of irrigation. In I960 its population was 8,477. Then came the great expansion of irrigation into the North Plains. In 1958 Moore had 81,280 acres in irrigation. By 1965 the county boasted 171,500 acres under pump. Four years later 219,965 acres were being watered in Moore County. The population of Dumas increased to 12,000 by 1965. Between I960 and 1965 some 118 new business enterprises, 31 of which were directly re­ lated to irrigation, were opened in Dumas.80 Driving through the High Plains in the 1960’s one could easily ob­ serve the economy built upon the precious fluid from the Ogallala forma­ 79 Grubb, Importance of Irrigation Water to the Economy of the Texas High Plains, P- 2 L

80 Texas Water Development Board, Inventories of Irrigation in Texas, 1958, 1964, and 1969, p. 26; Jack Porter, "Irrigation Triggers Agribusiness Boom,” Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, June 6, 1965, clipping in scrapbook, J. W . Buchanan Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University.

230

Land of the U nderground Rain

tion. In such cities as Lubbock, Plainview, Amarillo, and Dumas, plants manufacturing fertilizers, pumps, gear-heads, underground concrete and plastic pipe, and specialized farm implements were in much evidence. Gigantic grain elevators, packing houses, a sugar-beet processing plant, well-drilling concerns, machine shops, implement dealers, irrigationequipment outlets, feedlots, and other businesses related to the irrigation economy hovered on the edges of cities and towns. Towns which at one time had space available for more businesses on the squares around their courthouses now imitated neighboring cities in sprouting miniature shop­ ping centers away from the downtown areas. The contemporary High Plains, although still prosperous, no longer rests its economy upon an "inexhaustible” supply of "underground rain.” A declining ground-water level has forced plainsmen to recognize that the very cornerstone of their economy may cease to exist within a decade or two. As one farmer put it: "Irrigation and plenty of water is the key to the future. Without it we return to dryland farming and a much, much weaker economy which will not support our present living standards.”81 Although farmers have made such adjustments as applying less water to crops, utilizing improved methods of farming, raising more livestock, and using water-conservation measures, these are merely stopgap measures. Because of the massive depletion of the formation, unless additional wa­ ter resources are supplied by importation, large-scale irrigation will one day be only a part of the past. The irrigation frontier, like the old rangecattle frontier, will be only a part of the history of the Llano Estacado. In spite of the bleak outlook for the future to an outsider, many High Plainsmen remain optimistic about the future. Their optimism is essen­ tially a faith in the efficacy of American technology. As the mayor of Lub­ bock, W. D. Rogers, put it: "The history of this country is that as the need arose for anything, somebody was there with the right tool to take care of it. This is the way this country was built.” Rogers reasons that when "the absolute need reaches us, as far as irrigation and domestic water is concerned,” importation will then be a reality.82 This faith in technology to pull the region through troubled times is 81 John L. McCarty, "Big Project Water: Now They Know It’s Possible,” Irrigation Age 2 (January 1 968): 59. 82 "Lubbock, Texas,” Irrigation Age 1 (February 1967): 38.

T h e Contemporary H igh Plains

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understandable. Technology, after all, provided the pump, power plant, and well-drilling tools which initially tapped the 'underground rain” of the region. A High Plainsman who in 1910 was clearly impressed with the massive discharge of water from one of the early pumping plants near Hereford had exclaimed, "It is a wonderful sight to see.”83 Through the years technology improved the pumping plant, making it less expensive and more efficient; supplied cheap fuel; manufactured pipe which re­ placed open ditches; provided chemical fertilizers; and improved farm­ ing techniques. Men weaned and nurtured on such marvelous innovations refuse to believe that their region will return to either dry-land farming or one vast pasture for cattle. The future economy, however, will not be determined, as has been much of the past, by technology. It will be de­ termined by social and political decisions of other regions and states, which may or may not choose to share their water with the Texas High Plains. 83 C. W . Hunt, Hereford, December 14, 1910, to Arthur B. Duncan, Arthur B. Duncan Papers, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University.

Conclusion

T h e lack of streams on the Texas High Plains pre­ sented a formidable barrier to its settlement. In the late nineteenth cen­ tury early settlers found it necessary to tap its vast ground-water resources in order to provide water for livestock, human consumption, and irri­ gation purposes. But the utilization of subsurface water for irrigation was at first restricted by serious technological problems. In the late 1880’s and early 1890’s a severe drouth struck the Great Plains. Many leaders of the region became involved in the western irri­ gation movement which ultimately culminated in the passage of the National Reclamation, or Newlands, Act of 1902. But Great Plains in­ habitants lost interest in the movement by 1896 for several reasons. First, the end of the drouth by the middle 1890’s left little need for irrigation for the time being. Second, most irrigation promoters were thinking in terms of developing projects in the mountainous West rather than on the Great Plains. Third, even if a farmer had wanted to irrigate with under­ ground water, there was no relatively inexpensive pumping plant yet de-

Conclusion

233

signed for this purpose. Attempts to use ground water for irrigation, in the absence of adequate pump technology, led to efforts at finding artesian-well water, which would flow to the surface under its own pres­ sure, as well as a few unrealistic schemes. But subsequent investigations by the federal government failed to discover significant resources of artesian water in the semiarid zone between the ninety-eighth meridian and the western edge of the High Plains. Another drouth emerged on the Texas High Plains in 1908. By this time irrigation pumping plants, which had been developed primarily in the humid Gulf Coast rice belt, were available to bring large quantities of water to the surface from relatively shallow ground-water resources. Land speculators, who had done much to colonize the region in the early twentieth century, assumed the leadership in a pump-irrigation move­ ment on the Texas High Plains which extended from 1910 to about 1920. They employed pumping plants to enhance property values and to attract land buyers. But fewer than three hundred wells were drilled during this period. The movement for irrigation failed to expand because of several factors. World War I created demands for wheat and meat products, thereby stimulating dry-land farming. The world crisis also caused an in­ crease in costs and shortages of irrigation equipment manufactured from iron and steel products. Although the early irrigation pumping plants proved to be troublesome and most irrigators were inexperienced with techniques of artificial watering and with pump technology, irrigation might still have expanded if it had not been for other obstacles. The drouth which had at first stimulated the desire for irrigation ended; cash crops suitable to the unstable plains climate had not been adapted to irri­ gation; pumping plants were too expensive; and, finally, long-term credit facilities for the installation of irrigation units were not available to average farmers. The irrigation frontier emerged again on the Texas High Plains in the early 1930’s during the era of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. As in the earlier movement, local townsmen furnished the initial leader­ ship. Stimulus for the revival was supplied by long-term credit supplied at first by a plains banker-entrepreneur through some federal assistance pro­ grams, then by irrigation-equipment manufacturers and pump dealers.

234

Conclusion

Several circumstances were responsible for the renewed interest in irri­ gation. Cotton appeared on the scene as an irrigated cash crop. Recent technological developments contributed cheaper, more efficient pumping plants. An extended drouth and the depression created a sense of des­ peration in High Plains farmers who were willing to take economic chances with irrigation because, already deeply in debt, they believed that they had little to lose. Moreover, farmers exhibited new attitudes toward the uses of irrigation, stressing its utility for achieving maximum pro­ duction rather than for crop insurance. In the 1 9 4 0 ’s and 1 9 5 0 ’s the irrigation frontier expanded on the Texas High Plains to include several million acres. Its expansion was assured by favorable crop prices caused by World War II, the postwar economic boom, and the Korean War. Good crop prices, in turn, stimulated maxi­ mum production on irrigated farms. Expansion was also facilitated by the use of cheaper fuels for irrigation power plants, the emergence of grain sorghum as the most extensively irrigated crop in the region, greater farm mechanization, and the increased use of chemical fertilizers. The success of irrigation contributed substantially to prosperity, stabilized population, and affected habits of farming and society. In the later 1950’s, however, serious problems began to threaten the permanency of irrigation in the region. Lower farm prices and higher costs adversely affected High Plains irrigators who already had heavy investments in farm machinery and irrigation equipment. But even more important was a problem which sprang from the very success of the move­ ment— diminishing ground-water reserves. In the late nineteenth century, the primary obstacle to irrigation of the High Plains was that no cheap pumping plant capable of producing a large volume of water yet existed. But by the late 1950’s, the very effi­ ciency of over forty thousand irrigation plants on the Texas High Plains, each of which could suck five hundred to one thousand gallons or more per minute from the earth day after day threatened what settlers had once called an inexhaustible supply of ground water. Although declining sub­ surface water reserves indicated the need for water-conservation meas­ ures, no effective program emerged. Moreover, High Plains irrigators generally opposed such controls and were successful in defeating a ground-water conservation bill in 1947.

Conclusion

235

Texas lacked any conservation legislation dealing with nonartesian ground-water reserves until 1949. The District Ground Water Law en­ acted that year, however, was largely ineffective because it retained the private-ownership concept of ground water and because it emphasized local initiation and administration of ground-water conservation and con­ trol. The law was favored by rural interests of the High Plains which wanted little or no regulation of ground-water withdrawal. Fed by a myth of the inexhaustible supply of ground water flowing under the High Plains from some distant source and making good profits from extensive irrigation farming, most plainsmen in the late 1940’s refused to believe that effective conservation was necessary. An underground-water con­ servation district was set up in the region in 1951 after a struggle be­ tween two different rural viewpoints, one of which wanted the district in order to stave off ground-water controls through state administration, while the other wanted no controls, either state or local. The drawing of the district boundary lines through local-option elections within county precincts excluded some important areas of concentrated irrigation acre­ age which voted against inclusion. Moreover, the effectiveness of the ground-water conservation district was further hindered by emphasis upon voluntary compliance with its regulations rather than upon en­ forcement. By I960 irrigation was no longer a frontier on the Texas High Plains. By that date the economy of much of the region rested significantly upon the recovery of massive volumes of pumped water. An irrigation-based society emerged in which working habits of farmers changed, rural popu­ lation was stabilized, and other changes were effected. But diminishing ground-water resources which required more expensive means for utiliza­ tion, at a time when high costs and low farm prices were affecting all American agriculture, did not promise a bright future for the plains irrigator. The development of irrigation on the Texas High Plains was signifi­ cant from several viewpoints. First, land speculators were directly re­ sponsible for initiating and promoting irrigation in the abortive earlier period. Second, townsmen rather than farmers of the region assumed the leadership in promoting irrigation in both the earlier and the later periods. Third, the thesis of Walter Prescott Webb’s The Great Plains is

236

Conclusion

that settlement of the Great Plains was facilitated by such technological innovations as barbed wire and the windmill, invented in other regions but adapted to the needs of a semiarid region. Like the windmill, the ir­ rigation pumping plant was originally designed for utilization of ground­ water resources in other areas but was adapted to the needs of the High Plains. Thus, the pumping plant was one more invention which inhabi­ tants of the High Plains used in order to tap its resources. Fourth, the irrigation frontier demonstrated that several circumstances were required to make irrigation a reality. The interrelationships of technological inno­ vations, crops, credit, climate, town and rural interests, and even attitudes produced irrigation on a vast scale in the region. Fifth, experience also showed that local control and long-range con­ servation of resources are sometimes incompatible. Indeed, the concept of local control of each water district was used at first to blunt effective ground-water conservation. Only the later drastic decline of ground-water levels in many areas forced ground-water districts into serious waterconservation measures. Sixth, the irrigation experience has demonstrated an ambivalent attitude of High Plainsmen, who have demanded local con­ trol of water resources and yet have depended upon outside interests and institutions for the development and perpetuation of irrigation. Newly ar­ rived speculators first promoted irrigation. The first successful financing of pumping plants for farmers could not have been accomplished had it not been for the New Deal and federal programs. And after insisting solely upon local control of ground-water resources, the region has turned to state and federal government in hopes of assistance in importing water from other regions. Moreover, in every phase of the irrigation frontier— from hope to reality— state, national, and even international forces have affected the movement. In the contemporary High Plains, diminishing ground-water resources have caused farmers to make several adjustments. The High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 is now enforcing rules and regulations governing well spacing and water wastage as well as con­ tinuing its earlier emphasis on educating its constituency about waterconservation measures. Many farmers, utilizing the results of experi­ ments by agricultural scientists, are using less water and less tillage (which conserves soil moisture). The average irrigated farm today con­

Conclusion

237

sists of a section of land (640 acres), more or less, varying from county to county. One of the most significant new developments is the appear­ ance of a massive livestock-feeding industry in which the basic unit is the super feedlot capable of holding thirty thousand head or more of cattle. Accompanying the feedlots have been several new packing plants. The cornerstone of the High Plains economy is more than five million acres of irrigated crops. Without irrigation the region cannot support its present population. Because many of its industrial and business concerns derive their prosperity either directly or indirectly from irrigation, leaders of the region are deeply concerned over the future. The steady decline in ground-water resources has kindled an interest, and indeed an expecta­ tion, that water will one day be imported into the plains from some other region by means of massive pipelines and canals. Not content to wait, High Plainsmen have initiated a concerted movement to import such water. The future appears to be rather uncertain for the Texas High Plains. The odds for building an importation system to meet the present irri­ gation needs are very slim. At the same time, state passage of a new ground-water law which would prorate the withdrawal of remaining water would be much like locking the proverbial barn door after the horse's departure. Without water importation the High Plains within the next ten to twenty years will be making a transition to another economy. If it returns to dry-land farming, even larger farms will be required by individual farmers. The primary emphasis of such an economy will prob­ ably be stock farming. Returning to dry-land agriculture, the region will be unable to support its present population. Larger agricultural units will require fewer farmers, less population, and smaller towns and cities. The transition period will not suddenly descend upon the region, nor will all ground water be totally exhausted. Gradually, farmer after farmer will simply find it uneconomical to spend more money in order to get less water from the ground.1 1 For model analyses of the economic alternatives open to farmers faced with declin­ ing water resources, see Wyatte L. Harman, William F. Hughes, and James W . Graves, An Economic Analysis of Alternative Water Supply Programs in a Specific Resource Situation, Texas High Plains, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, no. M P822.

238

Conclusion

For the region to continue as an irrigation economy without imported water will require that farmers cut their irrigated acreage drastically in the near future, a move which few would willingly take. If, however, ir­ rigators would become stock farmers and use their water resources only for growing feed for livestock rather than for cash crops, the acreage could possibly be cut by two-thirds or even more. A farmer who now irrigates 300 or 400 acres would then water 100 to 160 acres. The Ogallala forma­ tion then might last well into the twenty-first century, especially if farmers on the edge of playa lakes would add to their ground water by means of cheap and successful recharge methods in the not-too-distant future. This, however, cannot be accomplished by the individual farmer whose neighbor continues to water his entire farm from the same ground-water reservoirs and whose notes at the bank require him to irrigate the maxi­ mum number of acres. It might be accomplished, however, through co­ operation among farmers, water districts, and credit institutions. On the other hand, if farmers continue to irrigate the maximum number of acres until their wells are reduced to two-inch streams, the region will probably still revert to a livestock economy, but without the benefit of water re­ sources for growing feedstuffs. Regardless of what the future has in store for the Texas High Plains, it seems that the rise and decline of irrigation in that region serve to illus­ trate fully one of the most basic characteristics of America’s history— the exploitation of our resources with little consideration of the conse­ quences. As mute testimony, the face of the land is scarred with soil erosion, strip mining, overgrazing, and destruction of forests and wild­ life. Many of its water resources have been polluted or exhausted. The experience should impress upon us that the time to conserve our resources is before exploitation, not afterward, that technology which aids in ex­ ploitation may also be an accessory to exhausting that resource, and that water which may appear in the early stages of use to be inexhaustible is one of the most irreplaceable of all resources when it is exhausted.

APPENDIX A n Estimate of the N u m b er o f W ells D rilled, 1 9 1 0 -1 9 2 0

No reliable statistics on the number of irrigation wells drilled during this period are available. Local boosters almost always exaggerated the number of wells. For example, Zenas E. Black, executive secretary of the Plainview Com­ mercial Club, reported that there were already more than 300 wells by June, 1913. But Charles L. Baker, who made an agricultural and geological survey of the region in 1914, reported only 139 wells by that date. There were, however, more wells drilled after the Baker report. The available evidence indicates that there were at least 232 wells drilled and in use sometime between 1910 and 1920, and possibly more. The wells were distributed in the following areas : Area The Texas Land and Development Company wells in Hale, Floyd, and Swisher counties Other wells in Hale and Floyd counties Other wells in Swisher County Bailey County Deaf Smith County (vicinity of Hereford) Oldham County (the Matador Ranch) Lamb County (Littlefield Lands) Lubbock County Randall County

Number of Wells 127 33 4 22 30 3 5 7 1 Total 232

Sources for estimate: Walter N. White, W. L. Broadhurst, and J. W. Lang, "Ground Water in the High Plains of Texas,” mimeographed, p. 12; Averlyne M. Hatcher, 'The Water Problem of the Matador Ranch,” West Texas His­ torical Association Year Book 20 (October 1944): 69-70; Ranch Manager’s

240

A ppendix

Diary, Alamocitas Division of the Matador Land and Cattle Company, Mata­ dor Ranch Papers, various entries from July, 1913, through September, 1914, in Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University; Charles L. Baker, Geology and Underground Waters of the Northern Llano Estacado, p. 6; David B. Gracy II, Littlefield Lands: Colonization on the Texas Plains, 1912-1920, p. 40; Amarillo Daily News, April 18, 1913, p. 2; February 5,1913, p. 6; Febru­ ary 18, 1912, section 2, p. 1; May 31, 1912, p. 2; telephone interview of Ozella M. Green with Marshall Vaughn, Tulia, Texas, November 25, 1968. An exaggerated estimate may be seen in Zenas E. Black, "Market Gardens of the Texas Plains,” The Earth 10 (June 1913) : 6.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A N o te o n S o u rce s The most important archival repository for materials on the history of irri­ gation on the Texas High Plains is the Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University. Among the more significant materials pertaining to irrigation in the earlier period are the Billy Ray Brunson Papers, Double U Company Papers, Arthur P. Duggan Papers, Arthur B. Duncan Papers, R. C. Hopping Papers, Ralph E. Huston Papers, Lone Star Land Company Papers, Matador Land and Cattle Company Papers, William P. Soash Papers, Spade Ranch Papers, Texas Land and Development Company Papers, and Yellow House Land Com­ pany Papers. For the problem of ground-water conservation in the later period, the Arthur P. Duggan, Jr., Papers are invaluable. The West Texas Chamber of Commerce Records were useful for the water importation movement of the 1 9 6 0 ’s. In addition, materials relating to activities of High Plains ground-water districts and publications on water resources are found in the J. W. Buchanan Papers and in the W. C. Holden Papers respectively. The Division of Manuscripts at the University of Oklahoma has materials on the geological surveys of the Texas Panhandle in the Charles N. Gould Papers. Some information on the problem of the utilization of ground-water re­ sources on the High Plains is found in the White Deer Lands Company Papers and the XIT Ranch Papers located at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas. The Chattel Mortgage Records of Machinery on Realty for Bailey, Deaf Smith, Floyd, Hale, Lamb, Lubbock, and Swisher counties were helpful for the later irrigation period. Many sources in private collections proved to be invaluable. Among them are the Littlefield Lands Company Papers in the possession of David B.

242

Bibliography

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INDEX

Abernathy, Texas: 183, 184 Abilene, Texas: 108 absolute ownership, doctrine of: 171 Ackroyd-Stuart, Herbert: 55 Acton v. Blundell: 171 Agricultural Act of 1948: 146 Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933: 123 agricultural agents, railroad: work of, among farmers, 71-72; speak at Hurley, 86; inspect irrigation wells, 92; men­ tioned, 71 n. agricultural depression (of 1920’s ): 119121

agriculture: national trends in, 65; impact of World W ar I upon dry-land, 102; stimulated by World War II, 145; pros­ perity of, stimulates irrigation expan­ sion, 145; overproduction of, 198, 199; ’ golden years” of, 198-199; Texas High Plains may return to dry-land, 237 Agriculture, Department of. See Texas De­ partment of Agriculture; U.S. Depart­ ment of Agriculture alfalfa: grown by X IT Ranch, 10; early irrigation of, 72; high value upon land producing, 81; unique profits in pro­ duction of, 84; price of land planted in, 91; on TL&D farms, 94; hogs fattened on, 102; relation of land value to, 111; irrigation farmers attracted to, 111-112; grown on Texas High Plains, 111-112; difficulties of, as a cash crop, 112, 115116; as forage crop, 113; costs for irri­ gation of, 115; estimated profits on, 115; grown by TL&D during drouth, 130; mentioned, 80, 98, 105, 108, 156, 193, 200 Alley, Robert: 91 aluminum irrigation pipe: 149, 150. See a l s o sprinkler irrigation Amarex: 203

Amarillo, Texas: established, 9; newspa­ per editor of, opposes irrigation, 29; rainfall at, 70, 74; dam interests citi­ zens of, 122; mentioned, 6, 34, 59, 63, 73, 80, 82, 138, 203, 210, 230 Amarillo Daily News: 84 Amarillo Machine Shop: 128, 138 Amarillo Oil Company: 152 American Crystal Sugar Company: 132 American Well Works: 59 n. Amherst, Texas: 121 Anderson, Dr. J. C : 91 Anderson, Roy M.: 207-208 anhydrous ammonia: 155-156 Arizona: 142, 202 Arkansas River: irrigation canals from, 23, 31; mentioned, xv, 54, 57, 221, 226 Arkansas River Valley: 40 Armstrong County: 184 "artesian and underflow waters” : 24 artesian water: Texas law on, 171; men­ tioned, 166, 170 artesian wells: in Yellow House Canyon, 6; Powell on, 23; defined, 23 n.; few, on Great Plains, 24; not found on High Plains proper, 25 n.; in South Dakota, 26; cost of, 26; movement for, in 1890’s, 36; in Dakotas, 49; in New Mexico, 75; attempts to drill, near Portales, New Mexico, 75, 78; mentioned, 33 n. Aughey, Samuel: 20 Aurora, Illinois: 58 Austin, Texas: 177 automobile: used for irrigating, 57; Winton, 76, 77 Bailey County: irrigated truck gardens in, 98; mentioned, 117, 132, 142, 143, 184, 213, 239 Bainer, Harry M.: appointed railroad agri­ cultural agent, 71; speaks at irrigation

278 demonstration, 86; views irrigation wells, 92; reports on rise in land values, 9 8 -9 9 ; adheres to ground-water-origin myth, 167; mentioned, 133 Baker, Artemus "Artie” : 136-139 Baker, Charles L.: on natural safeguard for ground-water conservation, 169; mentioned, 127, 239 Ballinger, "Tater Joe” : 133 barbed wire: 38 barley: 113 Barnett, C. A.: 142 barrier, geographic and hydrological, on High Plains: 3, 5 Barstow Irrigation Company: 108 Baskin and Hester: 84 beans: 16. See a l s o soybeans Beaumont, Texas: 50 Bedichek, Wendell: 181 Belle Plaine, Iowa: 67 Bessemer engine: 55, 79 n., 114 and n 115 n. See a l s o oil engines Biggers, Don H.: boosts Texas High Plains, 69; Lubbock Commercial Club activities of, 84; suggests central power plant for irrigation, 85; installs irriga­ tion well, 85; adheres to ground-waterorigin myth, 167 Black, Zenas E.: boosts cause of irrigation, 6 1 ; refers to pump as "rod of Moses,” 90; on land sold, 90; adheres to groundwater-origin myth, 1 6 7 ; mentioned, 239 Black Water Valley: 85 Blanco Canyon: 6 blizzards: 9 Bloomington, Illinois: 68 Boardman, Glenn: 133 boosters: attract settlers, 11; oppose irri­ gation on Great Plains, 28; promote ir­ rigation, 83-84 Boulder, Colorado: 17 Bowler, P. D.: 52 Bowman, J. R.: 131 Bradford, Clyde: 181 Bradford Supply Company: 140 Bradley, Gen. W . T.: 224 Brayton, George: 55 Brazos River: 5, 32 Bristow, Joseph L.: organizes irrigation association, 22; publishes Irrigation Farmer, 22; attends Los Angeles Irriga­ tion Congress, 22; leader of irrigation movement, 26; ceases publication of Irrigation Farmer, 29 Broadhurst, W . L. "Bill” : 215 Brotherton, H. A.: 142 Brown, Ralph: 131 Brownwood, Texas: 108 buffalo hunters: 3

Index Bureau of Reclamation: 74; mentioned, 219, 224, 225, 228. S ee a l s o water im­ portation Burleigh, Harry P.: 228 Burns, J. C.: 84 Burns, Rollie: 109 Burns, Willard: 86 n. Bushland, Texas: 210 Byron Jackson Pump Company: 126. See a l s o Jackson, Byron Cache la Poudre River: 17 California: imports cattle and grain sor­ ghums from Texas High Plains, 202; mentioned, 18, 20, 22, 47, 142, 2 23224 Cameron, R. A.: proposes irrigating from Canadian River, 72; mentioned, 11 Campbell, Hardy W .: 68, 70 Campbell system. See dry farming Canada: effect of agricultural depression on irrigation in, 120; opposes water ex­ portation, 226; mentioned, 21, 221 Canadian, Texas: 11 Canadian River: cuts through High Plains, 5; stops flowing during drouth, 12; ir­ rigation from, 72, 97; no irrigation from reservoir of, 122; mentioned, 6, 8, 10, 34, 78, 185, 192 Canadian Valley: 32 canals, irrigation: corporate, described, 1820; corporate investment in, risky, 19; in Finney County, Kansas, 23; on Ar­ kansas River, 23; near Garden City, Kansas, 31; said to be uncommon on Great Plains, 31; mentioned, 17 Canyon, Texas: 9, 152 Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company: 86 Cap Rock: ranches located below, 6; irri­ gation below, 72; mentioned, 13, 14, 32, 164. See a l s o escarpment Caprock Industries, Inc.: 203 Caprock Water Works Operators Asso­ ciation: 173 Carlsbad, New Mexico: 74-75 Carson County: 213 casing: irrigation well requires large di­ ameter of, 49; installation of, described, 59-60; mentioned, 137 Castro County: sugar-beet production in, 200; mentioned, 157, 184, 195, 196, 205 cattle: killed by blizzards, 9; price of, dur­ ing World W ar I, 102; relation of irri­ gation to production of, 113; mentioned, 11, 14. See a l s o feedlots, cattle; live­ stock

In dex cattlemen: dominate High Plains, 6; meet at Dallas, 9 Central Iron and Steel Company: 137 Central Lowland: 32 centrifugal pumps: evolution of, 43; de­ scription of, 43-46; types of, 45; weak­ nesses of, 45; powered by steam engine, 45, 46; early uses of, in irrigation, 4 5 47; near Garden City, Kansas, 46; costs of, 4 6-47; problems of, 47, 57; elec­ tricity used for, 53-55; on battery of wells, 57; on Texas High Plains, 57, 58, 83; in Kansas, 57; Black lauds, 61; in test well, 74; used by D. L. McDon­ ald, 78-79; installed in Slaton well, 90; mentioned, 46. S ee a l s o pumping plants cereals: 11 Chamberlain, Col. "Clif” : 226 Chamber of Commerce: of Amarillo dis­ cusses irrigation, 82; of Floydada insures drilling of deep well, 149; of Hereford promotes REA program, 150; of Lub­ bock advocates ground-water legislation, 172-173 Charles, R. S.: with TL&D, 96 n.; with Layne and Bowler Company, 96 n.; men­ tioned, 210 Charter engine: 55, 114. See a l s o oil en­ gines Chaves County, New Mexico: 78 Chicago, Illinois: 66, 69 Childress County: 8, 159 Chisum, John: 201 Chittenden, Hiram M.: 27-28, 30 Civilian Conservation Corps: 134 Clarendon, Texas: 5 Clawson, Carl: 150 Claypool, Indiana: 92 Clear Creek, Arizona: 15 climate: unstable on High Plains, xvi; claims of healthful, in Panhandle, 11; believed to be changing, 21 Clovis, New Mexico: 203, 207 Clowe and Cowan: 140 Cochran County: farm mechanization in, 123; mentioned, 157, 184, 213 Coldren brothers: 85 Coldren Land Company: 85, 86, 116 Coleman, L. G.: 6 Collingsworth County: 8 ,1 5 9 colonization agencies: 65-66. S ee a l s o land colonization Colorado: cooperative irrigation in, 17-18; doctrine of prior appropriation in, 18; water districts in, 18; mentioned, 27, 124 Colorado Doctrine: origins of, 18

279 Colorado River (of Texas): 5, 23, 32, 38, 221

Colt revolver: 38 Comanches: 3, 5 "combine maize” : 157. See a l s o grain sorghums combines: 158 Commercial Club: interested in irrigation, 81; at Floydada, 82; sponsors subscrip­ tion well at Hereford, 83; of Lubbock attends 'water carnival,” 84-85; mem­ ber of, installs irrigation well, 85; of Hurley holds irrigation demonstration, 86; of Plainview visits wells at Por­ tal es, 89; activities of, at Plainview, 90; mentioned, 167, 239 Committee of 1,000: 227 Commodity Credit Corporation: 137, 198 computers: 206 Concord, Pennsylvania: 77 concrete pipe. See conduit, irrigation conduit, irrigation: USDA subsidizes, 154; cost of, 154; growing usage of, 154-155; mentioned, 153, 161 n. Connally, John: 219 Conselman, Frank B.: 212 conservation, ground-water: warning of need for, 168; early natural safeguard for, 169; B. Knapp stresses need for, 169; Texas has no law on, 170; Texas Board of Water Engineers urges legisla­ tion for, 171-172; Great Plains Com­ mittee advocates laws on, 172; defeat of bills on, 172; movement for, 172-173; irrigation interests oppose legislation on, 173-174; Cunningham on, 175; ground-water district rules for, 184185; lacks support on High Plains, 187; no comprehensive program of, 188, 189; growing concern over, 205-206; com­ puters used for, 206; pleas for more ef­ fective, 206; motivated by economic considerations, 206-207; ignorance of, among farmers, 207; deemed desirable but not necessary, 213; mentioned, xvii. See a l s o Ground Water District Law conservation, water: by Spanish, 16; laws for, 170 n. Cooper, Charles E.: 117 Cooper, Paul: 141 cooperatives: 152 corn: grown by X IT Ranch, 10; early ir­ rigation of, 72; as a major High Plains crop, 205; mentioned, 8, 12, 16 Coronado, Francisco Vasquez: 16 correlative rights: 171, 175 cotton: early irrigation of, in Texas, 108; origins of, on Texas High Plains, 109; planted for demonstration purposes,

280 110; little produced by irrigation, 110; declining price of, 119; advantages of, on High Plains, 121; production of, 130-131; becomes important irrigated crop, 130-132; cost for raising irrigated, 131; profits from growing, 131-132; yields of, 150; little fertilizer used in production of, 156; ranks second in ir­ rigated acreage, 156; methods of harvest­ ing, 158; depressed prices for, 190; pri­ mary crop of South Plains, 197; prob­ lems for farmers of, 197-199; men­ tioned, 120, 139, 195, 207 cottonseed oil: 190 County-Wide News: 180 "Cow, Sow, and Hen” : 72 Cox, L. R.: 86 Cox, Paris: 8 Crawford, Duane: 212 Crawford, Royal: 139 credit: for purchase of irrigated farms, 116; offered by TL&D, 116; lack of, for in­ stallation of pumping plants, 116-117; unique problems of, for irrigation farm­ ers, 134; for installation of pumping plants, 134, 136-139; provided by Water Facilities Act, 135; needed for pump irrigation, 135-136; A. Baker sup­ plies for pumping plants, 136-139 Cresswell, Hank W .: 6 crops: irrigation of, for cash, xvi; at Esta­ cado colony, 8; at X IT Ranch, 10; fail­ ures of, on High Plains, 13; said to be no failures of, on High Plains, 69-70; drouth-resistant, 71; newly irrigated, for Texas High Plains, 130; cotton and wheat compared as irrigated, 132; over­ production of, 162-163; falling prices of, 163; government reduces acreages of, 163. S ee a l s o alfalfa; corn; cotton; for­ age crops; grain sorghums; millet; oats; orchards; potatoes; rice; sugar beets; truck gardens Crosby County: Quakers settle in, 8; early crops in, 12; number of early farms in, 12; increase of mortgages in, 13; average age of farmer in, 160; mentioned, 63, 70, 74, 109, 158, 162, 166, 184, 195, 196, 208, 213 Cross Section, The: 213 Culver, Garry E.: 24 Cumberland Gap: 163 Cunningham, J. E.: 174-175 Dakotas: 31-32 Dalhart, Texas: 193 Dallam County: early test well in, 73-74; expansion of irrigation into, 149; men­ tioned, 66, 111, 156, 193

Index Dallam County Underground Water Con­ servation District No. 1: 185 Dallas, Texas: 9 dams: 30. See a l s o reservoirs Dawson County: advertises for rainmaker, 70; subscription well in, 82-83; expan­ sion of irrigation into, 149; sprinkler ir­ rigation in, 194; mentioned, 191, 197 n. Day, J. Walter: installs irrigation well, 58, 91; on price of irrigated land, 91 Deaf Smith County: farmers in, 11; has shallow wells, 34; price of land in, 99; effort to promote truck farming in, 122; importance of irrigated potatoes in, 133; REA approves early program for, 150; produces sugar beets and potatoes, 200; sugar-beet processing plant in, 200; men­ tioned, 63, 68, 70, 73, 74, 83, 111, 117, 121, 132, 133, 143, 156, 159, 169, 184, 192, 196, 205, 207, 239 deep-breaking (plowing method): 147, 149-150 depression. See agricultural depression; Great Depression derrick: 59 Dingley Tariff: 48 "ditch commissioner” : 16 Donley County: 8, 159 Double U Company: 115 n. Dougherty, J. Chrys: 215 "draw” : 32-33 drouth: stimulates irrigation movements, xvi, 75-76, 125, 147-148; retards farm­ ing, 12; retards growth of High Plains, 12; increases number of mortgages, 13; fails to stop immigration, 13; on Great Plains, 21; in California, 48; effects of, 1907-1911, 70-72; Santa Fe Railroad responds to, 71; affects land values, 77; impact of, upon Hereford, 78; affects land sales, 88; end of, 102; effects of, during 1930’s, 123-124, 139; of 1950’s, 147; legislature’s response to, 147-148; contributes to decline of ground water, 170; mentioned, 74. S ee a l s o Dust Bowl; dust storms; sandstorm dry farming: land companies exploit idea of, 68; H. W . Campbell advocates, 68; demonstration farms, 68; probably few converts to, 6 9-70; railroad provides in­ formation on, 71; increased demand for, 103, 197 n.; requires less mechanization than irrigation, 158 Duggan, Arthur P.: comments on value of shallow water, 87; drills wells, 87; as sales manager of Littlefield Lands Com­ pany, 87-89; wants to sell developed irrigated farms, 87, 89

Index Duggan, Arthur P., Jr.: 176, 177, 178, 179, 181 Dumas, Texas: 229, 230 Dumble, Edward T.: 25 n. Duncan, Arthur B.: 6 Dust Bowl: 135, 159- S ee a l s o drouth "dust pneumonia” : 124 dust storms: description and effects of, 123-124; stimulate irrigation movement, 125; during drouth of 1950’s, 147. See a l s o drouth Dyer, Leigh: 6

281 Etter, Texas: 203 Europe: 146

Fairbanks-Morse: pumps and engines, 51, 55, 79; spokesman of, on pumps, 43 Fairview Land and Cattle Company: irriga­ tion plans of, 86; rents land to truck farmers, 98; builds cannery, 98 Farm Bureau, Texas: 175 farmers: land law favors, 8; begin to settle in Panhandle, 8, 11; withdraw from High Plains, 13; drawn to High Plains in 1890’s, 63; buy Panhandle lands, 67; Earth, T h e: description of ground water in, work of railroad agricultural agents 34; announces Santa Fe Railroad agri­ among, 71-72; leave because of drouth, cultural program, 71; advocates irriga­ 78; declining purchasing power of, 119; tion, 72; notes price of land, 91; men­ desperation of, during Dust Bowl era, tioned, 69 139; change attitudes toward irrigation, East Texas: High Plainsmen want to im­ 141; "domino-parlor,” 142; increased port water from, 220; opposition in, to wealth of, 146; irrigation changes work water exportation, 227; mentioned, 50, habits of, 161-162; caught in cost-price 221 squeeze, 163; difficult adjustment for, Eaton, Colorado: 45 190; selective migration of, from weakecology, interest in: 227-228 water areas, 207; mentioned, 69-70 economy, impact of irrigation upon: 162 farming, no-tillage method: 209-210 Edmondson, Texas: 183 Farm Land Development Company: 66 Edwards, S. B.: 84 farm products: price index of, 65; declin­ Edwards-McDonald Investment Company: ing prices for, 119; overproduction of, 84 120; wholesale index price rises for, 145 El Campo, Texas: 51 farms: number of, at Estacado, 8; descrip­ electricity: used to drive pumps, 48, 54-55, tion of those of TL&D, 94; declining 57; central power plant for irrigation by, valuation of, 119; large size of irrigated, 54, 85; extension of, into irrigated areas, 157; increase in size of irrigated, 194150; relatively cheap by 1940’s, 150; 195; average size of irrigated, 195. See reservations about using, for irrigation a l s o dry farming; irrigation pumps, 150-151 farms, demonstration: established by electric motors: power early irrigation ranches, 10; White Deer Lands Com­ pumps, 48, 54, 57; advantages and dis­ pany establishes, 10; dry farming, 68; advantages of, 54; costs of, 54-55; in­ Littlefield Lands Company establishes, creased usage of, 150. See a l s o elec­ 88; West Texas Gas Company establish­ tricity es, 152 El Paso, Texas: 16 farms, dry-land. See dry farming Emery, James S.: 22 farms, irrigated. S ee irrigation emigrants: 21 federal government: shows little interest in engines, electric. See electric motors Great Plains irrigation, 22, 135; irriga­ engines, internal-combustion: development tion investigations of, 27; Chittenden of, 55; power pumps on Texas High recommends financing of irrigation Plains, 57; improvements in, 126; pump­ works by, 27-28; agricultural policy of, ing plants driven by automobile types of, 145-146; restricts acreages of certain 126-127; prices for rebuilt, 127; cheap crops, 157; aids in construction of par­ fuels used in, 150-153; preferred over allel terraces, 208; aids in installation electric motors, 151; mentioned, 58, 90. of playa-lake sumps, 209; aids in instal­ See a l s o oil engines lation of tail-water return systems, 209 engines, steam: 45, 46, 53 Federal Housing Administration: 137 engines, steam-traction: 46, 50 n., 79 Federal Reserve Bank: 137 escarpment: as a barrier to High Plains, 3; feedlots, cattle: growth of, on High Plains, headwaters of rivers flow from, 5; men­ 201-203; attract meat-packing plants to tioned, 14. See a l s o Cap Rock High Plains, 203; generate need for Estacado, Texas: 8, 63

In d ex

282 grazing areas, 204; mentioned, 190. S ee a l s o cattle Ferguson, Carl: 139 fertilizer: 155-156 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals: 215 Finney County, Kansas: 23 Finney County Agricultural Society and Fair: 43 First National Company: 136, 140 Floydada, Texas: established, 9; little in­ terest in irrigation at, 82 Floyd County: population of, in 1890, 12; farms in, 13; inquiry about ground water in, 92; appearance of new irrigation wells in, 124; deeper wells in, 148-149; mentioned, 9, 59, 63, 109, 111, 117, 126, 131, 132, 136, 138, 139, 141, 143, 170, 184, 195, 210, 239 Floyd County Hesperian: 180 Food Machinery Corporation: 140 forage crops: on High Plains, 12; irrigated, in Swisher County, 98; success in irriga­ tion of, 113; increased importance of, on High Plains, 205; mentioned, 11, 102, 103, 132, 156. See a l s o crops Ford Motor Company: 138 Fort Collins, Colorado: 17 Fortenberry, W . O.: elected president of HPWCUA, 173; on ground-water bill, 177; mentioned, 179, 181 Fort Worth, Texas: 25, 102 Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad: breaks isolation of Panhandle-High Plains, 8, 64; publicizes Panhandle, 11; mentioned, 72. See a l s o railroads "Four Section” Act: 13, 64 Francklyn Land and Cattle Company: 8 Fremont, John C.: 16 Frio Draw: 57 Friona, Texas: 86, 98, 203 Frisco Railroad: 93 Fuller, P. E.: 76 Fuller, S. A.: 73 Gaines County: expansion of irrigation into, 149-150; deep-breaking in, 149150; sprinkler irrigation in, 194; men­ tioned, 192 n. Gaither, J. C .: 82 Ganado, Texas: 52 Gantzt Harry E.: 135-13 6 Garden City, Kansas: irrigation canals near, 31; windmill irrigation near, 40, 41; pump irrigation near, 45-46; mentioned, 22, 35, 54, 108 gardens. See truck gardens gas, natural. See natural gas Gates, Paul W .: 100 gear-head: need said to exist for, 127; im-

provement of, over drive belt, 127; G. E. Green designs, 127-128; manufacturers of, 128, 138, 140; increases pump effi­ ciency, 128-129 Gifford-Hill Company: 155 n. glacier myth: 166-167 goats: 11 Goodnight, Charles: 5, 201 Gould, Charles N .: directs geological sur­ veys of Panhandle, 34; on characteristics of ground water, 34; discovers naturalgas deposits in Panhandle, 151-152; on origin of ground water, 166 n., 168 Graham, E. E.: 91 grain sorghums: drouth-resistant, 14; rain­ fall sufficient for, 112; price for, during 1920’s, 120; rank first in irrigated acre­ age, 156-157; use of fertilizer in pro­ duction of, 156; reasons for expansion of acreage of, 157; described, 193; acre­ age of, 197, 200-201; production of, at­ tracts feedlots to High Plains, 201; men­ tioned, 8, 11, 12, 103, 113, 156 n., 190,

193

Grand Falls Irrigation Company: 108 grass, buffalo: 3 Gray, Walter: 154 Gray County: 213 Great American Desert: 20 Great Basin: 16-17 Great Depression: 122-123 Great Plains: drouth on, 9; believed most­ ly nonirrigable, 15; migration jumps over, 20; called Great American Desert, 20; semiarid nature of, 21; effect of drouth upon, 21; leaders of irrigation movement from, 22; few irrigation works on, 23; ignored in Powell survey, 24; few artesian wells on, 24; interest in irrigation lost by citizens of, 28; little surface water on, 31; irrigation survey on, 31-32; description of ground water of, 34; problems of irrigating, 36; wind­ mill irrigation on, 42; "pit-less” pump­ ing plants on, 60; increase of rainfall on, 68; lack of interest by federal govern­ ment in development of irrigation on, 135; drouth of 1950’s on, 147; men­ tioned, 26, 72, 134, 156 Great Plains, The: thesis of, 38; men­ tioned, xv, 235 Great Plains Committee: 135 Great Plains Conservation Program: 208 Greeley, Horace: 9, 17 Greeley Union Colony: 19 Green, George E.: early career of, 58; in­ stalls early pumping plants, 58 n., 89 n., 90; agreement of, with Henderson, 9 5 96; powers pumping plants with auto­

Index mobile engines, 126; designs gear-head, 127-128; mentioned, 113, 181. See a l s o Green Machinery Company Green Machinery Company: manufactures gear-heads, 128, 138; manufactures pumps, 140 n.; finances installations of pumping plants, 140 n., 159; mentioned, 96 n., 126 Green-McNaughton Drilling and Machin­ ery Company: 95 Gregory, J. W .: 22, 35 Groom, B. B.: 8 ground water: viewed as exploitable by High Plainsmen, xvi; declining level of, xvi, 174 and n., 185, 190, 191; High Plainsmen mine, xvii; on Great Plains, 27; High Plains resources of, 33; de­ scribed by Marcou and H. C. Smith, 33; described in surveys, 34; described by The Earth, 34; existence of, known, 34, 40; termed "inexhaustible,” 73; various depths to, 75, 78-79, 82; booster lauds existence of, 84; importance of, for land sales, 87; inquiry about, 92; advertised by TL&D, 95; said insufficient for irri­ gation, 135; irrigation from deeper, 148149; theories on origin of, 166; Gould on origin of, 166 n., 168; vastness of, on High Plains, 168; Meinzer on origin of, 168; variations in decline of, 169; judicial decisions on ownership of, 170171; legal doctrines on uses of, 171; Texas Board of Water Engineers urges legislation for conservation of, 171; Texas Board of Water Engineers advo­ cates state ownership of, 172; opposition to legislation for usage of, 173-174, 180; urban interests alarmed at decline of, 174-175; adjustments to decline of, 188, 191, 196-197; decline of, called grave challenge, 205; opposition to state ownership of, 225. See a l s o ground­ water depletion; Ground Water Dis­ trict Law; ground-water districts; Ogallala formation ground-water depletion: 215-217 Ground Water District Law: Texas legis­ lature enacts, 177; provisions of, 177— 178; urban industrial interests criticize, 178; weaknesses of, 185-187; lacks strong regulatory provisions, 189; criti­ cized, 225; mentioned, 210, 212. See a l s o proration, ground-water ground-water districts: establishment of, advocated, 173, 176, 179-180, 182; powers of, 178; debate over creation of, 180-184; referendum for creation of, 182, 184; on Texas High Plains, 184,

283 185, 213; disseminate water-conservation information, 213 and n.; mentioned, 190 Guthrie, Woody: 124 Guymon, Oklahoma: 203 Hage, Fred: 141 Hale Center, Texas: 91, 152 Hale County: various crops in, 11; early farms in, 11; population of, in 1890, 12; applications for school land in, 13; early pumping plants in, 58; rainfall in, 70; windmills in, 72-73; Commercial Club encourages irrigation in, 89; irrigation development in, 89-97; irrigation wells in, 91, 95-96, 97; land speculators in, 9 1 -96; real-estate agencies in, 92; price of land in, 99; hog production in, 102; population of, 121; irrigated acreage in, 132, 148; value of farms in, 159; men­ tioned, 59, 63, 109, 111, 117, 133, 143, 157, 158, 170, 183, 184, 192, 195, 196, 213, 239 Haley, J. Evetts: 176 Hall County: 8 Halsell, W .E .: 121 Hansford County: alfalfa grown for seed in, 111; expansion of irrigation into, 149; mentioned, 156, 197 n. Happy, Texas: 152 Harding, Charles E.: 84 Harmon, J. E.: 52 n. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: 137 Hartley County: 72, 193 Hay, M. E.: 83 hay: 11, 12. See a l s o alfalfa; forage crops; grain sorghums Hayden, Ferdinand V .: 20 Hazelwood, Sen. Grady: 175 Henderson, Milton Day: 93 and n., 95 Hereford, Texas: windmills at, 76; impact of drouth upon, 78; commercial club of, 83; land speculation near, 84; booster of, 84; sugar beets grown at, 108; men­ tioned, 9, 57, 82, 83, 89, 90, 142, 152, 203 Herr engine: 55, 114. See a l s o oil engines Hickox-Whyman Engineering Company:

86 Hicks, John D.: 66 Hicks, Lewis E.: 24 High Plains. See Texas High Plains High Plainsmen: view ground water as exploitable, xvi; demand irrigation, 74; optimistic about future, 230; have faith in technology, 230-231 High Plains Research Foundation: 200, 210

High Plains Underground Water Conser­ vation District No. 1 (H P U W C D ):

284 created, 182, 184; boundaries of, 184; water-conservation rules of, 184-185; decrease of irrigated acreage in, 191; de­ cline of ground water in, 192; recharge experiments of, 210; early objective of, 213; annexation to, 213; enforcement of water-conservation regulations by, 214; aids in obtaining ground-water-depletion tax allowance, 215; mentioned, 187, 225 High Plains Water Conservation and Users Association (H P W C U A ): organ­ ized, 173; objectives of, 174; groundwater-legislation proposals of, 176; forges ground-water bill, 177; cam­ paigns to create ground-water district, 178-180; mentioned, 181, 183 Hilburn, H. S.: 184 Hill, Robert T.: 24 Hinton, Richard J.: conducts first irrigation survey, 23; organizes Office of Irrigation Inquiry, 24; conducts investigation of artesian and underflow waters, 24; un­ derflow concept of, 34; understands problems of irrigating Great Plains, 36; mentioned, 31, 40, 166 Hockley County: 86, 132, 157, 159, 179, 184, 195, 197 n. hogs: fattened on irrigated alfalfa, 102; mentioned, 11 Holbrook, Winfield: 122, 131 Holly Sugar Company: 200 Holt, Rep. I. B.: 177 Hoover, Herbert: 134 Hornsby-Ackroyd engine: 55. See a l s o oil engines horses: 11 "hot-ball” engine. See oil engines Houston and T. C. Ry v. East: 171, 178 HPUWCD. See High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 HPWCUA. See High Plains Water Con­ servation and Users Association Huffman, RoyE.: 134 Hughes, Col. William E.: 9-1 0 Hurdle, E. F.: 45 Hurley, South Dakota: 49 Hurley, Texas: 82, 86 "Hurley Best” vegetables: 98 Hutchens, J. R.: 211 Hutchinson, Kansas: 46 Hutchinson County: 195 Idaho: 133 Illinois: 67 im portation of w ater. S ee w ater im porta­ tion Indiana: 8, 83

Index Indians: irrigation works of, 15, 16; men­ tioned, 74. See a l s o Comanches Interim Water Study Committee: 225 Intermediate Credit Bank: 137 internal-combustion engines. See engines, internal-combustion Internal Revenue Service: 215, 217 International Center for Arid and SemiArid Land Studies (ICASALS): 212 Interstate Irrigation Association: investi­ gates pumps and artesian water, 43; mentioned, 22, 26 Iowa: rise of land values in, 65; men­ tioned, 21, 50 Iowa State Agricultural College: 71 irrigation: acreage on Texas High Plains under, xvi, 99, 125, 143, 148, 191; from White River, 14; in ancient Arizona, 15; Iberian techniques of, 16; food supplied to miners by, 18; little, on Great Plains, 23; artesian water for, 25 n.; Great Plainsmen lose interest in, 28; described as "humbug,” 29; farfetched schemes for, 35; Great Plains problems of, 36; windmill not suited for large-scale, 3 8 40; efforts to adapt windmill for, 4 0 43; of rice, 47, 48, 50-53; in Colorado, 53; steam-power costs of, 53; by elec­ tricity, 53-55; in North Dakota, 54; by U .S. Sugar and Land Company, 54; elec­ tricity costs of, 54-55; boosters and speculators averse to, 68-69; by wind­ mill, 69-72; Biggers declares unneces­ sary, 69; as response to drouth, 72; early efforts at, in Texas Panhandle, 72; advised by S. A. Fuller, 73; in New Mexico, 74; development of, near Portales, 75; linked to land values, 78, 79; businessmen promote, 81, 82; little interest in, 82; speculators in­ terested in, 83-97; lack of experience in, 104-105; early difficulties with, 107; of early crops, 108; lack of suitable cash crops for, 108; relation of livestock farming to, 113; early cost per acre-foot, 115; decline of interest in, 119; regional interest in, during 1920’s, 122; efforts to promote, 122; viewed as crop insur­ ance, 125; automobile engines used for, 126-127; decrease in cost per acre-foot, 130; said to be of only minor importance for Great Plains, 135; High Plains farm­ ers turn to, 139, 140—141; more effi­ cient techniques used for, 141-142; "preplanting,” 142; expands at phenom­ enal pace, 145; exerts influence on econ­ omy and society, 145; emphasized as means for increasing production, 147; period of most rapid growth of, 148;

Index

285

deeper ground water used for, 148-149; ment in, 183 n.; run dry, 187; substan­ acreage of various crops under, 156tial increase of, 191; decrease in acreage 157; use of, said to be extensive rather watered by, 191. See a l s o casing; cen­ than intensive, 157-158; greater mech­ trifugal pumps; pumping plants; pumps, anization used in, 158; attracts young "pit-less” ; well-drilling; wells, subscrip­ men to farming, 159-160; social impact tion of, 159-162; adds to vocabulary, 160irrigator: believes in myth, xvii; identifi­ 161; changes working habits, 161-162; cation of, 162; called pioneer, 164 economic impact of, 162; dilemma caused by success of, 165; businesses de­ Jackson, Byron: invents "pit-less” pump, pendent on, 229-230; economic impact 47; pump company of, 126; mentioned, of, 229-230; called key to future, 230; 140 significance of development of, 235— James River Valley, South Dakota: 25, 26 236; called cornerstone of High Plains JA Ranch: 62, 201 economy, 237; will become uneconomi­ Jardine, William M.: 120 cal, 237; uncertain future of, for Texas Jeoffrey Manufacturing Company: 155 High Plains, 237-238; rise and decline Jessup, W . A.: 75 of, called characteristic of America, 238. Jester, Beauford: 177 See a l s o farms Jewell, M. B.: 133 irrigation, cooperative: 16-18 Johnson, L. L.: 86 Irrigation Age (o .s .) : 25 Johnson, Philip: 212 Irrigation Age (n .s.): favors NAWAPA, Johnson, Willard D.: on artesian wells, 222; mentioned, 205, 206, 208, 224 25 n.; on reservoirs for High Plains, 31 Irrigation Congress. See National Irriga­ Johnson Gear and Manufacturing Com­ tion Congress pany: 128 Irrigation Farmer: 22, 26, 29 Johnston Pump Company: 140 irrigation frontier: resemblance to mining Jones, Lovell: 148 frontier, xvi, 74; mentioned, 230, 235 Jowell, G. R.: 73, 76 Irrigation Inquiry, Office of: 24 Julch, A. C.: 151 irrigation movements: in American West, 15; differences between, 72, 117-118, kafir corn: 67, 98, 113. See a l s o forage 144; nature of, on Texas High Plains, crops; grain sorghums 81-82; said to be premature on Texas Kansas: irrigation in, 57; mentioned, 20, High Plains, 99; estimate of failure of, 21, 22, 26, 42, 124 101; criticism of, 120 and n.; in Canada, Kansas City, Missouri: 66, 85 120; impact of drouth upon, 147; ex­ Kansas River: 20 pand beyond "shallow-water belt,” 148; Kansas State Board of Agriculture: 60-61 on North Plains, 193 Karper, R. E.: 157 irrigation promoters. See boosters; land Katy, Texas: 52 n. speculators Keniston, R. E.: 130 irrigation survey: 22-23, 31-32 Kentucky: 83 Irrigation Survey and Experiment, Board Kimball-Krough Pump Company: 126, of: established in Kansas, 26; tests 138 pumping plants, 26; experiments with Knapp, Bradford: 169 windmill irrigation, 27; stripped of Knapp, H. E.: 132 function, 29; reports pump experiments, Korean W ar: 146 43 Kraenzel, Carl Frederick: 21, 81 irrigation wells: "fakir” of, 72; tested on Kress, Texas: 152 High Plains, 73-74; development of, near Portales, New Mexico, 75-76 and labor: irrigation requirements of, 161n.; early development of, 79, 82-92, 9 5 162; shortage of, for sprinkler irriga­ 98; early costs of, 79, 114 and n.; ef­ tion, 194 fects of publicity about, 92; effect of, on Lafayette, Indiana: 117 land prices, 98; average acreage watered Laing, Arthur: 226 by, 99; number of, 99, 146-147, 239; Lake Plainview: 210 appearance of new, 124; influence Lamb County: irrigation expansion in, of, on farmers, 142; increase of, during 148; mentioned, 86, 143, 160, 180, 184, drouth of 1950’s, 148; number of, per 192, 195, 205, 211,239 irrigated farm, 157; estimated invest­

286 Lamb County Water Conservation Associ­ ation: 173, 179 Lancaster, J. E.: 90 land: cheap prices for, 11, 64-65; demand for, 64; liberal credit terms for, 64; de­ mand for, increases, 65; rise in valu­ ation of, 65; profits from sale of, 67; Panhandle prices of, 68; drouth forces down price of, 70; foreclosures on, 70; drouth causes decline in value of, 71, 77; irrigation said to increase value of, 78, 79; value of, near irrigation well, 8 8 89; prices for irrigated, 91; news of ir­ rigation wells increases value of, 91, 9 8 99; increased sale of, 121; depressed price for, 121, 122-123, 159; prices for, in Gaines County, 150; rising value of irrigated, 158-159; valuation of irri­ gated, 195-196; effect of ground-water decline upon valuation of, 196-197 land agents: overly optimistic, 19-20; op­ pose irrigation in South Dakota, 28; in Hale County, 91; transport prospectors by train, 92; sell farms to inexperienced irrigators, 104; activities of, during 1920’s, 121; mentioned, 62, 93, 96. S ee a l s o land colonization; land companies; land speculators land buyers. See prospectors land colonization: 66, 87-89. See a l s o land agents; land companies; land spec­ ulators land companies: 10 land law of 1883: 8 and n - 9 n. Land Office, Texas General: 13 "land of the underground rain” : xvi landowner: Middle Western, described, 67; effects of drouth on absentee, 70-71 land seekers. See prospectors land speculation: George Tyng on, 62; en­ couraged by rising land values, 65 land speculators: buy lands on Texas High Plains, 66; reports of profits made by, 68; aided by rainfall, 68; on Texas High Plains, 83-86, 91 -9 6 ; install pumping plants, 98; Gates on, 100; role of, in irrigation movement, 118; mentioned, xvi, 10, 19, 62, 65 Laramie, Wyoming: 19 Lawrence, Kansas: 22 Layne, Mahlon E.: 49-51, 52 Layne and Bowler Company: installs early pumps in California, 48; Mahlon E. Layne forms, 52; growth of, 52; rhyme sent to, 52; number of pumps manufac­ tured by, 53; price of pumps of, 53, 115 and n.; drills wells on High Plains, 85, 88; last pumps shipped to High Plains by, 99; costs for drilling of well by, 114;

Index mentioned, 58, 79 n., 96 n., 126, 140. See a l s o Bowler, P. D.; Layne, Mahlon E.; Woodburn, O. P. Layne Keystone Screen: 50 Lenoir, Jean Joseph Etienne: 55 Lenox, Iowa: 67 Lincoln, Nebraska: irrigation meeting at, 22; mentioned, 66 Lindsey, Washington Ellsworth: 75-76, 78 liquified-petroleum gases (L P ): 151 Littlefield, Maj. George W .: early ranch of, 6; colonization activities of, 66; buys Yellow House Division of X IT Ranch, 86; contracts with Santa Fe Railroad, 86-87; organizes Littlefield Lands Com­ pany, 86-87; agrees to put down demon­ stration well, 87; mentioned, 117, 121 Littlefield, Texas: 130, 154, 178 Littlefield Lands Company: Littlefield forms, 66, 8 6-87; grows demonstration cotton, 110; mentioned, 117, 239 Livermore, Captain: 166 livestock: pastured on wheat, 199; irriga­ tion farmers increase production of, 204; mentioned, 11, 190. See a l s o cattle; hogs Llano Estacado: few streams on, xv; pumps tap ground water of, xv; Spaniards called Texas High Plains, xv; windmills on, xv; Whipple on, 5; Pacific railroad survey party on, 5; semiarid nature of, 5; scarcity of water on, 5; early crops grown on, 8; ground water on, 33; edi­ tor proposes irrigation of, 73; "father of irrigation” on, 77; mentioned, 32, 75, 230 Lockney, Texas: established, 9; appearance of irrigation wells near, 124; mentioned, 136, 140 Lockney Beacon: 142 Long, Stephen: 20 Longmont, Colorado: 17, 73 Los Angeles, California: 16, 22 Los Angeles Irrigation Congress: 22 Lough, J. W .: 57, 60 Louise, Texas: 52 n. Louisiana: early use of rotary drilling rigs in, 50; mentioned, 221, 226 Loveland, Colorado: 17 Loyd, Roland: irrigation difficulties of, 107; mentioned, 113 Lubbock, Texas: established, 9; activities of commercial club of, 8 4-85; men­ tioned, 59, 64, 82, 83, 86, 90, 102, 138, 152, 184, 203, 220, 224, 230 Lubbock Agricultural Experiment Station: 157 Lubbock Avalanche-]ournal: 182

Index Lubbock County: population of, 63, 68, 121; production of cotton in, 109; irri­ gated acreage of, 148; value of farms in, 159; mentioned, 131, 132, 133, 142, 143, 156, 170, 184, 192, 195, 196, 239 Lubbock Irrigation Company: publicizes well, 85; irrigates wheat, 108; irrigates cotton, 110-111; mentioned, 88 L X Ranch: 6 Lynn County: expansion of irrigation into, 149; mentioned, 184, 208 McCauley, J. B.: 133, 142 McDonald, D. L.: role of, in development of irrigation on Texas High Plains, 57, 76-79, 83-84, 98, 115 and n.; as land agent, 77; called “father of irrigation on the Staked Plains,” 77; career as well-driller, 79 and n., 98, 120; forms McDonald Farm Company, 84; activi­ ties of, in Edwards-McDonald Invest­ ment Company, 84; on early attitudes of farmers toward irrigation, 141; men­ tioned, 89, 108, 113, 132, 142, 204, 218 McDonald, John: 142 McDonald Farm Company: 84 McFarland, K. D.: 222 McFarland, Thomas J.: emphasizes vol­ untary compliance with conservation rules, 185-186; opposes state ownership of ground water, 225; mentioned, 181, 187, 214 McGehee, Tom: 139 McKenzie, Murdo: 98 McNaughton, J. N.: 58 and n., 90 McWhorter, Burton O.: 85 Mahon, Rep. George: 221 Mally, Frederick W .: conducts agricultural investigation, 80; on alfalfa lands, 111 Marcou, Jules: notes ground-water forma­ tion, 33; mentioned, 33 n. Matador Ranch: irrigation on, 97-98; mentioned, 62, 201, 239 Maxwell, George W .: 28 Mead, Elwood: on corporate canals, 19; as consulting engineer, 48 meat-packing plants: 203-204 mechanization, farm: 158 Meeker, Nathan C.: 17 Meinzer, O. E.: 168 melons: 8 Memphis-Shelby County Port Commis­ sion: 226 Meriwether, A. R.: 131 Meriwether, George T.: 131 Mesa, Arizona: 46, 53 Metropolitan Street Railways: 93 Mette, John: 224 Mexicans: 74

287 Mexico: 221 Middle West: reports of Panhandle land prices in, 68; mentioned, 66-67, 202 migration: 13 Miller, H. H.: 207-208 millet: 8, 10, 11, 12 Milligan, Tom: 206 Mill Iron Ranch: 201 milo maize. See grain sorghums Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 48 mining frontier: compared to irrigation frontier, xvi, 74 Minneapolis, Minnesota: 127 Minnesota: 50 Mississippi River: xvi, 221, 226 Missouri: 58 Missouri Pacific Railroad: 71 n. Missouri River: xv, 20, 221 Mobeetie, Texas: 5, 78 Mohler, J. C : 60 Moody, Sen. Gideon: 23, 24 Moody, Robert: 6 Mooney, Mrs. J. A.: 98 Moore, Joe G., Jr.: 220, 223, 224, 225 Moore, T. J.: 152 Moore County: expansion of irrigation into, 149; mentioned, 192, 195, 229 Moors: 16 Mormons: 16-17 Morrisville, Missouri: 95 mules: 11 Muleshoe, Texas: 83, 85, 142 Murphy, S. J.: 53 "myth of the desert” : xvii, 20, 21 "myth of the garden” : xvii, 20, 21 "myth of the inexhaustible supply” (of ground water): 166-167 and n., 168, 189 Nacogdoches, Texas: 227 National Irrigation Association: 28 National Irrigation Congress: 22, 35 National Reclamation Act: 74. See a l s o Newlands Act National Resources Committee: 135 National Water Resources Act: 219 natural gas: 151-153 Nauvoo, Illinois: 16 NAWAPA. See North American Water and Power Alliance Nebraska: irrigation movement begins in, 22; mentioned, 20, 21, 24, 25, 31, 50,

135

Nebraska, University of: 20 Nebraska State Irrigation Association: 35 Neches River: 227 New Deal: provides little direct aid for pump irrigation, 134; initiates farm pro­ gram, 198; mentioned, 123, 134

288 Newell, Frederick H.: on surface water of Great Plains, 30-31; on irrigating the Great Plains, 36; on windmills, 40; on costs of operating centrifugals, 46-47; on work habits of irrigation farmers, 161 New Jersey: xvi Newlands Act: establishes national recla­ mation policy, 28; designed for moun­ tainous and arid West, 28; importation group opposes acreage limitations of, 225-226. See a l s o National Reclama­ tion Act New Mexico: High Plains adapts irriga­ tion from, xvi, 74; mentioned, 5, 22, 75, 80, 83, 86, 89, 203, 224 New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts: 71 Newsom, Eli: 35 New York City: 93 New York Evening Post: 67 New York Tribune: 17 Nichols, Marvin: 224 Nobles, M. C.: 152 Norbeck, Peter: 49 North Africa: 16 North American Water and Power Alli­ ance (N A W A PA ): 221-222; 226 North Dakota Agricultural College: 36 Northern Colorado Power Company: 53 North Plains: expansion of irrigation into, 149, 190, 192-193; mentioned, 197, 229 North Plains Ground Water Conservation District No. 2: 185, 213 North Platte, Nebraska: 26, 43 no-tillage farming: 209-210 oats: 8, 10, 12, 113 Obar, C. P.: 131 Ochiltree County: 192 Ogallala formation: description of, 33; early inhabitants use, 33; believed inex­ haustible, 165; decline of, 165, 169170, 216-217; myth blamed on massive­ ness of, 168; origin of, 168; compared to lake, 191; rate of depletion of, not uniform, 192; future depletion of, 219; possibility of recharging with imported water, 223; mentioned, 210, 218, 212, 225, 229-230. See a l s o ground water; ground-water depletion; Ground Water District Law; ground-water districts; Santa Rosa formation Ohio: 77 oil engines: development of, 55; advan­ tages of, 55-56; prices and operating costs of, 56; description of, 56, 60; in Southwest, 57; booster lauds merits of, 61; difficulties with, 106-107; manu-

Index facturers of, 114; prices of, 114 and n 115 n.; mentioned, 51, 57, 79 n. Oklahoma: 204, 224 Oklahoma, University of: 34, 151 Oldham County: 97, 239 Omaha Bee: 22 Omaha Irrigation Convention: 43 orchards: irrigated from White River, 14; irrigated in Panhandle, 69; early irriga­ tion of, 72; on TL&D farms, 94; men­ tioned, 11, 108 Oregon: 18, 20 Otto, Nikolaus August: 55 Pabst Brewing Company: 47-48 Pacific Northwest: 226 Palo Duro Canyon: Goodnight establishes ranch in, 5; suggested as reservoir, 223; mentioned, 8 Pampa, Texas: 124, 203 Panhandle (of Texas): said to be para­ dise, 11; U.S. Geological Survey inves­ tigations of, 34; cheap price of land in, 68; profits made by speculators in, 68; climate said to approach perfection in, 69; may "blossom as the rose,” 122; as important petroleum and gas producer, 152; mentioned, 10, 29, 32 Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District No. 3 :2 1 3 Panhandle Immigration Convention: 11 Panhandle Water Works Operators: 173 Parker, South Dakota: 49 Parmer County: 66, 157, 184, 192, 195, 215 Parmer County Water Association: 225 Parrish, Gus: 179 Parsons, Ralph M. See Ralph M. Parsons Company pasture, irrigated: 204-205 Pearson, Frederick Stark: 93 Pearson Engineering Corporation: 93. S ee a l s o Pearson Syndicate; Texas Land and Development Company Pearson Syndicate: 93, 95. See a l s o Texas Land and Development Company Pecos River: 74 Pecos Valley: cotton irrigated in, 108; mentioned, 32 Peerless Pump Company: 126, 140 Permian Basin Water Works and Sewage Association: 173 Permian formation: 168 Perrin, C. C.: 34 Petersburg, Texas: 109, 184 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition: 55 Phillips, J. T.: 109 Pickrell, Charles: 130 Pierce, Texas: 50

Index Pigman, J. W .: 74 n. Pike, Zebulon: 20 pipe, gated: 154 Pitcher Creek: 6 "p it-less” pump. Se e pumps, "p it-less” plains, rolling: 191 n.

Plainview, Texas: local booster from, xvi; established, 9; evolution of pumping plant near, 58; rainfall in, 69; activities of commercial club of, 89; holds "water carnival,” 91-92; irrigation promoted by Board of City Development of, 122; mentioned, 57, 58, 61, 63, 64, 80, 82, 83, 102, 126, 142, 152, 181, 203, 210, 230 Plainview Evening Herald: 184 Platte River: homemade windmills in val­ ley of, 41; mentioned, xv, 17, 18, 20 playa lakes: used in land sales promotion, 96; possible ground-water recharge from, 176, 210; modified for irrigation needs, 209; irrigation from, 215; men­ tioned, 211 plows, chisel-type: uses for, on High Plains, 147; used to apply anhydrous ammonia, 155-156 Pomona Pump Company: 126 population: of various High Plains coun­ ties, 63, 68; loss of, on High Plains, 70; increase in, on High Plains, 121, 159; loss of, in nonirrigated counties, 159 Portales, New Mexico: development of pump irrigation near, 75; irrigation on Texas High Plains influenced by irriga­ tion near, 84-85; has central power plant for irrigation motors, 85; holds "water carnival,” 85, 89; irrigated truck farms near, 122 Post City, Texas: 115 n. potatoes: in Crosby County, 12; as irri­ gated crop on Texas High Plains, 133; in Deaf Smith County, 133; mentioned, 8 , 200 Potter County: 11, 111, 184, 213 poultry: 11 Powell, John Wesley: conducts irrigation survey, 23; at odds with Great Plains congressmen, 23; on artesian water, 23, 24; focuses attention on reservoir sites, 30; mentioned, 135 precipitation. S e e rainfall Primm engine: 55, 114. S e e a ls o oil en­ gines prior appropriation: Colorado doctrine of, 18; theory of ground-water rights, 171 Production and Marketing Administration (P M A ): 154 proration, ground-water: A. P. Duggan, Jr., on, 176-177; opposition to, 176-

289 177; need for, implied, 206 prospectors: inspect White Deer lands, 10; brought into Texas High Plains by colonization agencies, 66-68; flow of, into High Plains ceases, 70-71; D. L. McDonald brings in, 77; transported by railroad, 92; TL&D brings in, 96-97; no intent to defraud, 118; mentioned, 83 n. pumping plants: evolution of, on Texas High Plains, xv, xvi, 57, 58, 73; early usage of, on High Plains, xvi, 58 and n., 9 7 -99; experimentation with, and problems of, 26, 40, 43; required for irrigating High Plains, 35; disadvan­ tages of, 35; Webb fails to mention, 3 8 40; inefficient type of, 47; used for irri­ gation of rice, 50-53; number of, on Texas High Plains, 59, 99, 143, 146147, 148, 191, 239; description of early, 59-60; land agent impressed by, 79; re­ ferred to as "rod of Moses,” 90; make land more attractive to prospectors, 93; Pearson impressed by, 93; on TL&D farms, 94; effect of World W ar I upon manufacture and cost of, 103; used only as last resort, 104; difficulties with, 106-107; costs for installation of, 113— 115, 122; lack of credit for financing, 116-117; development and advantages of deep-well turbine type of, 125-126; technological improvements in, 125130; automobile engines used in, 126127; increased efficiency of, 129; average acreage watered by, 129; decrease in in­ stallation cost of, 129 and n.; decrease in operating costs of, 130; credit for financing installation of, 134, 136-139, 140; loans for, insured, 136; turn-key price for, 137; farmers invest increased profits in, 146; increased demand for, 146-147; increase in costs of, 148. See a l s o casing; centrifugal pumps; der­ rick; electricity; electric motors; engines, internal-combustion; gear-head; irriga­ tion wells; pumps, "pit-less” ; welldrilling; windmill pumps pumps, centrifugal. See centrifugal pumps pumps, "pit-less” : need for, 47; invented, 47-48, 51; early installations of, 48, 57, 58, 60 and n., 79; price of, 53; number of, 53; costs for installation of, 114115; mentioned, 49, 59 n. See a l s o cen­ trifugal pumps; irrigation wells; pump­ ing plants Quakers: 8, 63 Quebe, Ben: 126

290 racism: 110 railroads: attract settlers, 11; break isola­ tion of Texas High Plains, 64; coloni­ zation activities of, 66; prospectors transported by, 66, 77, 92. See a l s o Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad; Frisco Railroad; Santa Fe Railroad; Union Pacific Railroad rainfall: years of sufficient, 3; belief in increase of, 20; percolates into ground­ water formation, 33; as a settlement fac­ tor, 63; amounts of, on High Plains, 63-64, 74, 102; aids speculators, 68; increase of, on Great Plains, 68, 69-70; boast of, 69; dampens enthusiasm for irrigation, 83; sufficient for grain sor­ ghum production, 112; encourages im­ migration into High Plains, 121; said to be plentiful, 147; sufficient for produc­ tion of dry-land crops, 147; farmers be­ lieve soil conservation no substitute for, 147-148; farmer advocates praying for, 148; irrigators conserve, 208 "rain follows the plough” : 20 rainmaker: 70 "rainmakers, modern” : 142 Ralph M. Parsons Company: 221-222 ranchers: on Texas High Plains, 6; below Cap Rock, 6; overstock range, 9; called visionary, 9; establish farms, 10; domi­ nate Texas High Plains, 62; colonize lands, 66 Randall County: farmers in, 11; early ir­ rigation in, 98; mentioned, 63, 111, 184, 239 Randolph, H. D .: 94 Rathjen, F. H .: 72 Ratliff, R. D.: 52 Rayner, Frank A.: 213 n., 214 recharge, ground-water: experimentation with, favored, 173; proposed, from playa lakes, 176; responsibility for ex­ perimentation with, 178; no program for, 187; law on, 210; experimentation with, 210-212; from operational wells, 211-212 Reconstruction Finance Corporation: indi­ rectly aids irrigation development, 137; mentioned, 134 "red beds” : 33 Red River: Prairie Dog Town Fork of, 5; headwaters of, 5; Salt Fork of, 5; men­ tioned, 32, 221 Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States: 23 Republicans: 48 reservoirs: Chittenden reports on sites for, 27, 30; called impractical, 31; possible

Index sites for, on Canadian River, 122; men­ tioned, 35 Resettlement Administration: 134 Reynolds Land and Cattle Company: 72 rice: irrigation of, 47-48; drouth strikes production of, 48; irrigation of, provides stimulus for invention of pump, 50-53 Rio Grande: 74 Robinson, J. R.: 113 Rocky Ford, Colorado: 132, 133 Rocky Mountains: belief that ground water originates from, 166-167; mentioned, 25 Rocky Mountain Trench: 222 Rogers, W . D.: 230 Romero, Casimero: 5 Roosevelt, Franklin D.: 134 Ropesville Resettlement Project: 134 Roswell, New Mexico: artesian basin near, 75; mentioned, 204 rotary drilling rigs: origins of, 50; de­ scription of, 50; Mahlon E. Layne uses, 50 n.; Layne and Bowler Company uses, 88; TL&D uses, 96; mentioned, 57, 79 n. See a l s o Green, George E.; McDonald, D. L.; well-drilling Rural Electrification Administration (R E A ): supplies cheap electricity for irrigators, 150; mentioned, 174, 175 Rush, S. S.: 110 Ryan, W . W .: 66 Sacramento Valley: 46 Sageser, A. Bower: 42 n. Salina, Kansas: 22 Salt Lake City: 66 Salt River: 15 San Angelo, Texas: 108 San Antonio, Texas: 16 sandstorm: 12. See a l s o dust storms San Joaquin Valley: 223 San Saba, Texas: 108 Santa Fe Railroad: breaks isolation of Panhandle, 8; brings prospectors into Panhandle-High Plains, 10; crosses White Deer lands, 10; publishes The Earth, 34; breaks isolation of South Plains, 64; crosses Littlefield lands, 66, 86-87; responds to drouth, 7 1-72; sponsors agricultural demonstration train, 7 1-72; tests well in New Mexico, 75; activities of agricultural agents of, 86; shows interest in irrigation, 92; runs special "hog train,” 102; men­ tioned, 35, 64, 133 Santa Rosa formation: 217-218, 218 n .219 n. See a l s o ground water; Ogallala formation Scheele, M. C.: 139

Index

291

school lands, Texas: 13 servation District; Soil Conservation Scott County, Kansas: 57, 60 Service Seagraves, C. L.: 92 Soil Conservation District: 154 "search for water” : on Great Plains, xv; Soil Conservation Service (SCS): admin­ termed technological quest, 40 isters Great Plains Conservation Pro­ Secretary of the Interior: 23 gram, 208; aids in construction of water semiarid: Llano Estacado described as, 5; conservation systems, 209; mentioned, definition of, 21; mentioned, 14 134, 205 "set” : 153 and n., 154 sorghum. See grain sorghums settlers: use pumps on Llano Estacado, xv; South Dakota: artesian wells in, 25, 26; obstacles to, on High Plains, 3; settle abolishes irrigation office, 28; opposi­ below High Plains, 5; farm on High tion to irrigation in, 28; well-drilling in, Plains, 9, 63; attempts to attract, 11; 49-50; value of land rises in, 65; men­ discouraged by drouth, 12-14; believe tioned, 23, 24, 58 climate is changing, 2 0 - 2 1 ; mentioned, South Pass: 163 10. See a l s o farmers; Mormons; pros­ South Plains: first settlers on, 5; Quakers pectors; Quakers settle on, 8; population of, in 1890, 12; "shallow-water belt” : boundaries of, 83; railroad breaks isolation of, 64; new land agent uses map of, 93; mentioned, tractors on, 123; Resettlement Admin­ 34, 81, 82 istration Project on, 134; drouth on, Shamrock Oil and Gas Company: 229 147; decline of ground water on, 190, Sharman, Frank: 193 191, 192; average size of farms on, 195; sheep: 11 mentioned, 70, 197 n. sheepmen: 5 Southwestern Crop and Stock: compares Shepperd, John Ben: 220 High Plains irrigators to CarthageniSherman County: 193, 197 n. ans, 176; opposes ground-water prora­ Shurbet, Marvin: 215 tion, 176; on ground-water bill, 177; Sickel, H. B. Allen: 52 n. mentioned, 183, 205 siphon tubes: 153 Southwestern Public Service Company: 174 6666 Ranch: 201 soybeans: as new crop for High Plains ir­ Slaton, John H.: installs subscription well rigation, 199; markets for, 199-200; in Hale County, 89; protests advertising acreage of, 200; profits of, compared to of land sales, 97; cost for pumping plant those of grain sorghums, 200 of, 113; mentioned, 58, 93-94, 95, 111 Spanish: use irrigation, 16; mentioned, 74 "Sliding Pit Head” : 107 n. Spanish-American War: 48 Smith, "Bessemer” : 106 speculation. See land speculation; land Smith, E. J.: 95 speculators Smith, H. C. "Hank” : settles in Blanco Spindle Top: 50 Canyon, 6; digs well for Quaker set­ sprinkler irrigation: used on sandy soils tlers, 8; believes rainfall is increasing, and rolling land, 149; aluminum pipe 20-21; reports on ground water, 33; used in, 149; acreage of, in Gaines adheres to ground-water-origin myth, County, 150; on North Plains, 193; ad­ 166 vantages of, 193-194; locations of, on Smith, Henry Nash: xvii, 20 High Plains, 194; mechanized systems Smith, Preston: 228 of, 194; labor problems with, 194; Smythe, William E.: leads irrigation move­ unique type of, 207-208; suggested that ment, 21-22; edits Irrigation Age, 25; bankers promote and finance, 208 called Jeffersonian, 25; on windmills, "spudder” drilling rig: 49. See a l s o ro­ 40-41 tary drilling rigs; well-drilling Soash, William P.: 66 Spur Ranch: 201 social mobility: 159-160 society, impact of irrigation upon: 159— squash: 16 Staked Plains. See Llano Estacado 162 State Fair, Texas: 10 soil: said to be rich in Panhandle, 11; de­ Statewide Ground-Water Conservation pletion of, through irrigation, 155; an­ meeting: 168 hydrous ammonia used to fertilize, 155— steam engine: 45, 46, 50 n., 53, 79 156 Sterling, Texas: 108 Soil Bank: 162 Stevenson, Mrs. J. B.: 139 soil conservation: 147. See a l s o Soil Con­

292 stock farmers: 14. See a l s o cattle; cattle­ men; livestock streams: few on Great Plains, xv; irriga­ tion from, in Panhandle, 72 stubble-mulching: 147 "sucker-rod” : 41 sugar beets: 108, 132-133, 200 Sweetwater Creek: 5 Swepston, J. E.: 83 Swisher County: depth to water in, 34; irrigation promotion in, 83; irrigation in, 98; mentioned, 59, 70, 105, 117, 121, 132, 139, 143, 151, 159, 180, 184, 192, 195, 196, 211, 213, 239 tail water: definition of, 160 n.; return sys­ tems for, 209, 213, 214-215; average waste of, per irrigation well, 214; men­ tioned, 186 Talley, Lynn P.: 137 "tanks” : 6, 8 Tascosa, Texas: established, 5; sandstorm at, 12; report of immigrants through, 63; mentioned, 6 Tascosa Pioneer: 11 Taylor, Jay L.: 202 tenant farmers: 70-71 Tennessee, Memphis-Shelby County Port Commission of: 226 terraces, parallel: 208 Terrell, Clinton: 159 Terry County: 131, 156-157, 205 Tertiary period: 32 Texas: artesian wells in, 25; interested in artesian wells, 25 n.; early irrigation of cotton in, 108; mentioned, 22, 24 Texas A&M University: 202, 228 Texas Agricultural Experiment Station: 153, 157 Texas Board of Water Engineers: surveys Canadian River for reservoir sites, 122; notes decline in ground water, 169; issues warning on ground-water-withdrawal rate, 170; creation of, 171; urges ground-water legislation, 171-172; ad­ vocates state ownership of ground water, 172; holds hearing at Plainview, 181— 182; state water plan of, 219; West Texas Advisory Committee of, 223224; mentioned, 174, 178, 182, 210. S e e a l s o Texas Water Development Board Texas Department of Agriculture: investi­ gates agricultural resources of Panhan­ dle-High Plains, 80; encourages irriga­ tion, 81; mentioned, 111 Texas High Plains: surface water scarce on, xv, 32; unstable climate of, xvi; phases in irrigation development of, xvi; early pump-irrigation plants on, xvi;

Index land speculators on, xvi, 66, 68, 83-86, 9 1-96; irrigation frontier on, xvi, 74, 230, 235; irrigated acreage on, xvi, 99, 125, 143, 148, 191; as a barrier to set­ tlement, 3; appearance of, 3; cattlemen push herds onto, 6; new towns on, 9; price of land on, 11, 64-65, 68, 70, 71, 77, 88-89, 91, 98-99, 121, 122123, 158-159, 195-196, 196-197; pop­ ulation of, in 1890, 15; description of, 32; geological origins of, 32; ground­ water resources of, 33, 34; problem of irrigating, 35; necessity for irrigating, 37; evolution of pumping plant on, 57; number of pumping plants on, 59, 99, 143, 146-147, 148, 191, 239; large ranches dominate, 62; movement of settlers into, 63; factors retarding settle­ ment of, 63; railroads break isolation of, 64; few converts to dry farming in, 69-70; drouth causes loss of population on, 70; drouth on, 70-72, 77-78; early irrigation on, 72; test wells on, 73-74; nature of irrigation movement on, 8 1 82; cotton culture on, 109-110; effect of agricultural depression on, 120-121; increase of immigration into, 121; agri­ cultural advantages of, 121; increased sales of land on, 121; desperate farmers of, 139; significance of irrigation devel­ opment on, 235-236; uncertain future of, 237-238; mentioned, 8, 14. See a l s o High Plainsmen Texas House of Representatives: 225 Texas Land and Development Company (TL& D ): installs pumping plants, 58 and n.; number of irrigation wells of, 59; organization of, 93; capital invest­ ment of, 94; prices for farms of, 94; ir­ rigation development plans of, 94-95; credit terms for sale of farms of, 95; sales promotions by, 95, 96; irrigation wells of, 95 and n.-96, 97; well-drilling by, 96; brings in prospectors, 9 6-97; ceases sales promotions, 99; original buyers turn farms back to, 101, 116 and n .-1 1 7 n .; unimproved land sold by, 103; shortage of pumping plants for, 103-104; dissatisfaction with farms sold by, 105-106; irrigation of wheat on lands of, 108; difficulties with alfalfa on lands of, 112; credit for land buyers by, 116; price of lands of, 116; markets al­ falfa during drouth, 130; mentioned, 96 n., 117, 120, 122, 139, 141, 210, 239 Texas legislature: 177 Texas State Soil Conservation Board: 147 Texas Tech University: 211, 212

Index Texas Water: 226-227 Texas water-bond issue: 227 Texas Water Commission: 219. S e e a l s o Texas Board of Water Engineers; Texas Water Development Board Texas Water Conservation Association (T W C A ): advocates correlative rights for ground-water legislation, 175; pre­ pares bills on ground-water control, 175-176; compromises on ground-water bill, 177; holds little hope for importa­ tion projects from outside Texas, 226227 Texas Water Development Board: water plan of, 220; West Texas Advisory Committee of, views California project, 223-224; continues feasibility studies for water importation, 228 Texas Water Plan: hearings on, 220-225; estimate of water importation cost by, 223; future of, 228 Texas Water Plan (preliminary): 220221

Texico, New Mexico: 86 Texline, Texas: 83 textile mills: 198 Thompson, John: 224 Tinney, E. Roy: 226 Tinsley, J. D.: 71 TL&D. See Texas Land and Development Company Todd, Clarence: 139 tractors: new on South Plains, 123; con­ verted to liquified-petroleum gases (L P ), 151; mentioned, 158 Triassic formation: 33 truck gardens: 14, 18, 98, 108, 122, 156 Trummel, Col. J. Morgan: 83 Tubbs, Travis: 131, 142 Tule Canyon: 6 Tulia, Texas: 34, 83, 102, 152 Tulia Herald: 180 Turner, Frederick Jackson: 163 "Twenty-Five Mile Avenue” : 142 Twin City Company: 127 Tyng, George: White Deer Lands Com­ pany official, 5 n.; suggests demonstra­ tion farm, 10; notes land purchases, 62; reports demand for land, 64 "underflow” : 35 underground water. See ground water Underground Water Conservation Law: 178. See a l s o Ground Water District Law Union Pacific Railroad: 33 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: 219, 224, 228 U.S. Congress: 23

293 U.S. Department of Agriculture: sponsors irrigation survey, 23; investigates ground water, 24; reports on rainfall on Great Plains, 68; opposes new irrigation projects, 120; aids farmers in installa­ tion of conduit systems, 154; mentioned, 34, 53, 76 U.S. District Court: 215 U.S. Geological Survey: investigates Pan­ handle, 34, 151-152; mentioned, 23, 24, 30, 40, 161, 168, 210, 215 U.S. House of Representatives, Interior Committee: 221 U.S. Savings Bonds: 146 U.S. Sugar and Land Company: 54, 108 Utah: 20 Valley, Nebraska: 194 Valmont Industries, Inc.: 194 Van Rosenburgh, P.: 85 Van Sevrein engine: 55, 114. See a l s o oil engines Van Wert, Ohio: 77 Vaughn, J. D. and J. W .: early irrigation experience of, 105, 113; irrigation diffi­ culties of, 107; mentioned, 98, 117 vegetables: grown by X IT Ranch, 10; in Hale County, 12; irrigation of, 72, 200; mentioned, 8, 11 Verner, A. C.: 224 Vigo Park, Texas: 83 Virgin Land: xvii wagons: 9 Walker and Perkins: 84 Wall, David K.: 18 Water, Incorporated: organized by High Plainsmen, 224; opposes acreage restric­ tion of Newlands Act, 226; campaigns for water-bond issue, 227 water, subsurface. See ground water water, surface: scarce on High Plains, xv; said to be little of, on Great Plains, 31 "water carnival” : held in Carlsbad, New Mexico, 74-75; Lubbock Commercial Club attends, 84-85; conducted by Portales, New Mexico, 85, 89; held at Plainview, 91-92 Water Code Committee, State: 178 Water Commission, Texas. See Texas Water Commission water conservation. See conservation, ground-water; conservation, water water districts: 18. See a l s o ground­ water districts Water Engineers, Board of. See Texas Board of Water Engineers Water Facilities Act: 135 Water for the Future Committee: 220

294 water importation: movement for, xvi, 220-228; California project influences Texas movement for, 219; not en­ couraged by Texas Water Develop­ ment Board for West Texas, 220; George Mahon has little hope for, from outside of Texas, 221; feasibility of, 221; possible routes for, 221-222; NAWAPA proposal for, 221-222; estimated costs for, 222 and n -2 2 3 and n.; weaknesses of plans for, 222-227; Water, Incorporated organized to pro­ mote, 224; new institutions said to be required for, 224-226; opposition to, 226-228; bond-issue defeat is setback for, 227; East Texans cool to, 227; West Texans’ faith in future of, 230; men­ tioned, 190 Water Research Center for Washington (state): 226 Water Resources Committee: 135 water rights: 19 Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers (of U.S. Geological Survey): 40 water table. See ground water; Ogallala formation; Santa Rosa formation water users’ companies: 19 water wheel: 16 Watson, K. B.: 223 Webb, Walter Prescott: thesis of, 38; fails to mention modern irrigation pumping plants, 38; views on windmill irrigation, 38 n., 40; mentioned, xv, 235 well-casing. See casing well-drilling: development of, aids irriga­ tion, xvi; early problems of, 49; in Dakotas, 49; methods of, 49; by Layne, 4 9 51; description of, 59; by D. L. McDon­ ald, 79 and n., 98, 120; by Layne and Bowler, 85, 88; by G. Green, 89 n., 90, 95-96; by McNaughton, 90; by TL&D, 96; costs of, 114-115; ground­ water districts require permits for, 178184; logs required for, 185; mentioned, 58, 138 wells. See irrigation wells wells, subscription: in Dawson County, 8 2-83; near Hereford, 83; in Hale County, 89; differences in agreements for, 89-90 well-spacing: A. P. Duggan, Jr., proposes, 176; in Ground Water District Law;178; ground-water district rules require, 184-185 and n.; disregard of rules for, 186 Western Water Development, U.S. Senate Special Subcommittee on: 222 West Texas Chamber of Commerce: 22 0 2 2 1 , 222

Index West Texas Gas Company: 152 wheat: price of, during World W ar I, 102; good crop of, during dry year, 103; early irrigation of, 108; declining price for, 119; estimated profit for irrigated, 132; irrigated on McDonald farm, 142; use of fertilizer in production of, 156; ranks third in irrigated acreage, 156; depressed prices for, 190; fallow fields of, 193; difficulties for farmers of, 199; as winter pasture, 199, 204; mentioned, 11, 113, 139, 195, 197. See a l s o crops Wheeler County: early irrigation in, 72; mentioned, 5, 8, 78 Whipple, Lt. Amiel W .: 5 White, Henry A.: 109 White, Dr. R. R.: 91, 97 White, Walter N .: 168 White Deer Creek: 78 White Deer Lands Company: plats farms, 10; has demonstration farm, 10; agent of, advocates irrigation, 78; mentioned, 5 n., 9, 62 White River: description of, 6; early irri­ gation from, 14 Wichita Falls, Texas: 138 Wickard, Claude R.: 174, 175 Wilber, Charles Dana: 20 Williams, Col. J. S. "Sheb” : 85, 110 Williston, North Dakota: 54 Wilson-Gorman Tariff: 48 windmill irrigation: on Great Plains, 27, 40 -4 1 ; Newell on, 40; Smythe on, 4 0 41; not suited for large-scale irrigation, 40 n.; potential for, overestimated, 41; weaknesses in technology of, 41; esti­ mates of effectiveness of, 42 n.; in Hale County, 7 2 -7 3 ; in Ropesville Resettle­ ment Project, 134; mentioned, 14, 38 n. See a l s o windmill pumps windmill pumps: on Llano Estacado, xv; make ranching possible on High Plains, 6; chain-bucket type of, 6, 33; Union Pacific Railroad installs, 33; number of, on X IT Ranch, 34; not suited for largescale irrigation, 38-40, 43; efforts to adapt, to irrigation, 40 -4 3 ; technology of, 41; cheapness of, 41; homemade types of, 41 -4 2 ; wind said undepend­ able for, 42; at Hereford, 76; on TL&D farms, 94; mentioned, 38. See a l s o pumping plants; windmill irrigation Winton automobiles: 76, 77 Wisconsin: 50 Wisconsin Agricultural College: 106 Wood, P. K.: 47 Woodburn, O. P.: 50, 52 "working-barrel” : 41 Workman, Dr. W . J.: 41-42

Index Works Progress Administration: 171 World W ar I: effect of, on farm-product prices, 102; effect of, on irrigation movement, 102-104; mentioned, 120 World W ar II: 147 Wortham, John L.: 85, 110 Wright, George G.: 66 Wright, T. L.: 182 Wyckoff, J. O.: 89 Wyoming: 27

295 Wyoming Development Company: 19 X IT Ranch: demonstration farm on, 10; plats farms, 11; number of windmills on, 34; Littlefield buys land from, 86; irrigation by, 98; mentioned, 62 Yellow House Canyon: 6 Yellow House Ranch: 86, 121 Young, Brigham: 17