Imperial (188 page)

“Throughout this history the almost pitiful dependence of the settlers on outside capital will be noted.”—Howe and Hall, p. 33 (“Enter Capital”).

“WATER IS HERE,” etc.—
Imperial Press and Farmer
, vol. I, no. 10 (Saturday, June 22, 1901), front page.

“THE DESERT DISAPPEARS”—Ibid., vol. I, no. 11 (Saturday, June 29, 1901) ), front page.

Emerson in “The Young American”: “The bountiful continent is ours,” and other excerpts—Op. cit., pp. 213-17.

A successful candidate for Senator: “There are so many things to be done . . .”—
The Annals of America
, vol. 12, p. 202 (Albert J. Beveridge, “The Taste of Empire,” from his campaign speech of 16 September 1898. Source:
Modern Eloquence
, vol. IX).

The birth of Imperial Hazel Deed—Tout,
The First Thirty Years,
p. 178.

“Niland’s Future”: “Give Salton Sea a new name . . .”—Ibid., p. 410 (John D. Reavis, “Niland’s Future”).

Smythe: “Irrigation . . . is a religious rite . . .”—Op. cit., p. 330.

Smythe: “All this lay beyond the reach of the individual . . .”—Ibid., p. 31.

“The natural antagonism of any people living under a large water system”—Farr, p. 129 (narrative of C. R. Rockwood, 1909).

Smythe: “The essence of the industrial life . . .”—Op. cit., p. 43.

Smythe: “
TWO YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS PRIOR
. . .”—Ibid., p. 31.

Figure on California’s rural population in 1860—
The California Water Atlas,
p.28. This number fell to 41½% in Figure on California’s rural population in 1860—
The California Water Atlas
, p. 28. This number fell to 41½% in 1900 and 32% a decade later, which is to say five years after Smythe’s caption was published.—
The Britannica Year-Book 1913
, p. 774 (entry on California).

Figure on California’s rural population in 2000—U.S. Census Bureau, Detailed Tables, p. 5. (“Urban and Rural [7]—Universe—Total Population”), data set: Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3)—Sample Data. In this table, the total population given for California was 33,871,648. The urban population (now subdivided, you’ll be happy to know, into the inhabitants of urbanized areas and of urban clusters) was 31,994,895. The rural population (subdivided in turn into farming and nonfarming bipeds) was 1,876,753. I divided the rural population into the urban and multiplied by 100%. (Website accessed 6 September 2002.)

Footnote: Figure on Imperial County’s rural population in 2000—same source (henceforth referred to as U.S. Census Bureau, Detailed Tables, p.5), different search parameters. The urban population is given as 121,303, and the rural population as 21,058.

“The great cities of the western valleys . . .”—Smythe, p. 46.

A hundred dollars an acre from Brawley cantaloupes in 1905—Tout,
The First Thirty Years,
p. 178.

“Nearly 3000 carloads of this delicious table dessert . . .”—Farr, p. 17.

The cantaloupe season of 1926 and its accompanying refrigerator cars—
Imperial Valley Press
, Monday, May 3, p. 1.

Two hundred thousand metric tons of cantaloupes from Mexico—
Imperial Valley Press
, Thursday, May 30, 2002, pp. 1, 6 (Laura Mitchell, “U.S. cantaloupe growers want Mexico to clean up act”).

My interview with the old pioneer from Heber took place in June 2002.

“This marvelous Valley where the land valuations have increased . . .”—Farr, p. 17.

The death of Rogelio Contreras-Navarette—
Imperial Valley Press
, Thursday, May 30, 2002, p. A2 (Mario Rentería, “Man’s body found west of Calexico”).

“The city’s No. 1 priority is that as growth occurs . . .”—
Imperial Valley Press
, Friday, May 24, 2002, p. A1 (Rudy Yniguez, “El Centro: Meeting growing city’s needs is No. 1 priority”).

Information on Wilber Clark—Farr, pp. 464-65.

The most lucrative crop as I write this book is winter lettuce.—This is according to Gottlieb and FitzSimmons, p. 72.

Average annual precipitation at Brawley—Hundley, p. 14 (map, “Mean Annual Precipitation”). “The northwest corner of our state” goes south from the Oregon border for 50-odd miles. It is about 20 miles wide, and its western boundary is 10 miles from the Pacific. The average annual precipitation at Gasquet Ranger Station, which lies within this zone, is 94.32 inches.

“In no section of Arid America . . .”—
Imperial Press and Farmer
, vol. II, no. 38 (Saturday, January 3, 1903), p. 3 (“To Make the Desert Blossom with the Homes of Men”).

E. J. Swayne: “It is simply needless to question the supply of water.”—Ibid., vol. I, no. 2 (Saturday, April 27, 1901), p. 1 (“New River Country: What Is Actually Being Done on the Desert”).

Cost of water per inch and acre-foot in Imperial and in Riverside—Ibid., vol. II, no. 38 (Saturday, January 3, 1903), p. 4 (“To Make the Desert Blossom . . .”).

Article on “Water Wasting”—Ibid., vol. II, no. 20 (Saturday, August 30, 1902), p. 2.

Footnote: “Feds get involved in state water issues . . .”—Ibid. (now called the
Imperial Valley Press
), vol. 103, no. 29, Thursday, June 12, 2003, p. C1 (by Seth Hettena, Associated Press staff writer).

The promoter who had his display cases and tables filled with oranges . . .—Farr, p. 102 (narrative of C. R. Rockwood, 1909).

Hypothetical Colorado River ferry at Algodones, 1915—N.A.R.A.L. Record Group 36. Records of the U.S. Customs Service. Calexico Customs Office. Incoming Official Correspondence (91-60). October 15, 1902-March 23, 1916. Box 4 of 5: July 1914-June 1915. Bound volume labeled “Letters.” Copy of report of W. J. Smith, Deputy Collector and Inspector of Andrade, Cal., in re situation at Algodones, on or bef. February 4, 1915; pp. 1-2.

Judge Farr: “It is therefore apparent that the water supply in this vast area is inexhaustible.”—Op. cit., p. 17.

“An Angeleno”: “The water problem seems to be solved for all time.”—Carr, p. 217.

“Smoothing out” of the Colorado River in 1931—Colorado River Board of California (1962), p. 8. How much did the flow vary before the smoothing? Here are some calculations from
Out West
, vol. XXIV, no. 1, January 1906, pp. 12, 20-21 (Edwin Duryea, Jr., C.E., “The Salton Sea Menace”): Our civil engineer gives the total flow of the Colorado River in February 1905 as 30,000 cubic feet per second (cfps) and, on June 5, as twice that. Generally speaking, he considered the Colorado’s minimum flow to be 3,000 cfps, the maxium, 100,000 cfps, and the average, 15,000 cfps.

President Herbert Hoover, on Mexicans’ rights to the Colorado: “We do not believe they ever had any rights.”—Fradkin, p. 299.

Total area irrigated in 1942 by Mexican farmers—Colorado River Board of California (1962), p. 17. The more exact figure was 260,000 acres.

Area in Mexico and the Imperial Valley irrigated by the Colorado in 1975: about half a million acres each—Fradkin, p. 296.

“With our magnificent water system . . .”—
Imperial Press and Farmer
, vol. II, no. 38 (Saturday, January 3, 1903), p. 7 (“Imperial and Alfalfa”).

Jokes—Ibid., vol. II, no. 17 (Saturday, August 9, 1902), p. 6; also vol. II, no. 28 (Saturday, October 27, 1902), p. 8 (which includes the news, which I have footnoted in the text, on Negroes and the baseball craze).

“No desert is a fit place for an idle or dissolute man.”—Howe and Hall, p. 108.

Salinity of the Salton Sea in 1905 and 1950—Gottlieb and FitzSimmons, p. 78.

Mr. Otis B. Tout: “It is a surprise to many people today . . .”
—The First Thirty Years,
p. 21 (“Lake Cahuilla—Salton Sea”).

Salinity of the Salton Sea in 1974 (39,000 mg/l)—Fradkin, p. 297.

Salinity of the Salton Sea in 2001 (46 g/kg = 46,000 ppm, if I’ve done the math right; that’s almost 14 times more than the 1905 figure of 3,350 ppm)—I am using my own data, gathered when I was writing “The Water of Life.”

“The Forum finds no reason to recommend changes in the numeric salinity criteria . . .”—Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum, unnumbered.

“The waters of the Colorado river carry a very large amount of commercial fertilizers . . .”—
Imperial Press and

Farmer
, vol. I, no. 1 (Saturday, April 20, 1901), p. 1 (“A Few Facts About a Great Agricultural Enterprise—A Year’s Record”).

Table: “Salt content of Colorado River water at the California-Mexico border”—Figures for Imperial Dam 1951-60 and for both dams 1961-62 come from the Colorado River Board of California (1962), p. 21. Figure for 1966 comes from Morton, p. 8, who states in his preface (p. vi) that the effective date of his data is 1966. His figure is for the Colorado “at Yuma.” Figures for 1974 are taken from Fradkin, p. 297, who doesn’t attribute them. Figure for Imperial Dam in 1984 is derived from the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum. It is expressed in milligrams per liter. Figures from Francisco Raúl Venegas Cardoso come from Munguía, p. 7. Figures from Saillé et al. are from the same, p. 77.

“The nights are always cool . . .”—Farr, pp. 23-24.

San Luis Río Colorado: “A colorless town with a growing number of
maquiladoras.
”—Ruiz, p. 41.

1910
Britannica
entry on the Colorado: 11th ed., vol. 6, pp. 725ff.

Table: “Flow of the Colorado River at Yuma”—Figures for 1909 and 1934 are from Mary Montgomery, p. 27. Figure on virgin flow is from
The California Water Atlas
(1979), p. 38.

The de Anza Expedition on the Colorado—Font, pp. 33 (30 November 1775), 123 (12 May 1776).

Footnote: Pattie on the Colorado—Op. cit., p. 120.

Governor Arrillaga on the Colorado—Op. cit., p. 76 (19 October 1796).

Colonel Cave Johnson Couts on the Colorado—Op. cit., p. 74.

A man who’d worked for the Bureau of Reclamation from 1948 to 1950—This was Mr. Herb Cilch, interviewed in San Diego in June 2003.

Frank Waters on the Colorado—Waters, pp. 109-116; p. x.

Footnote: Distances from Mexicali to El Mayor and La Bamba—Gerhard and Gulick, p. 68.

Ever since 1961, “not one drop.”—Per Colorado River Board of California (1982): “Since 1961, except for minor amounts of uncontrolled flow near the border, essentially no water has flowed toward the Gulf of California.”

James O. Pattie, 1827: “We continued to float slowly downwards . . .”—Op. cit., p. 182.

Van Dyke: “After the river crosses the border-line of Mexico . . .”—Op. cit., pp. 72, 74.

John Wesley Powell, 1895: “A million cascade brooks unite . . .”—Op. cit., p. 8.

Philip L. Fradkin, 1981: “To follow the river from Morelos Dam to the gulf . . .”—Op. cit., p. 321. This author points out (p. 322) that the Colorado currently has four ends: the Salton Sea; Laguna Salada, which has always been dry when I’ve seen it; the Santa Clara Slough, which receives Wellton-Mohawk’s brine; and the place in the desert where the river peters out, about fourteen miles north of the Gulf.

“Where two years ago not a living sprig could be found, ripe Thompson’s seedless grapes are now being gathered and shipped to Los Angeles.”—
Imperial Press and Farmer
, vol. I, no. 4 (Saturday, May 11, 1901), p. 4 (“Desert Redeemed: The New York Times Commends the Great Enterprise”).

Mrs. Leroy Holt: The mailbag at Fifteen Mile Tree, the dust storms, “Why did we stay?”—Howe and Hall, pp. 47-49.

“A half-tone portrait of Miss Reed . . .”—
Imperial Press and Farmer,
vol. II, no. 16 (Saturday, August 2, 1902), p. 1 (“An Imperial Baby”).

Population of Imperial Valley in 1905—
Out West
, vol. XXIV, no. 1, January 1906.

Population of Imperial Valley in 1910—Howe and Hall, p. 60. California is still 73.2% native white and 21.8% foreign-born white in this decade, in which the population of California as a whole will increase by 60.1%. In San Diego and Imperial counties, growth will be 114.5%; in Los Angeles County, 196%.—
The Britannica Year-Book 1913
, p. 774 (entry on California). Figure on Imperial County’s total population in 2000 (142,361): U.S. Census Bureau, Detailed Tables, p.5

“And in material advantages they are already well supplied.”—
Imperial Press and Farmer
, vol. II, no. 1 (Saturday, April 19, 1902), p. 2 (“Believes in Imperial’s Prospects: Development in Every Line of That Wonderful New District”).

The engineer who was bringing the water to Imperial: “We started out then, about the first of March 1902 . . .”—Farr, p. 125 (narrative of C. R. Rockwood, 1909).

Population of the Imperial Valley in 1904 (7,000)—Tout,
The First Thirty Years,
p. 172 (files of
Imperial Press
).

Mr. Grunsky: The Salton Sea will be gone in twelve to fifteen years “if there were no resupply.”—Southern Pacific Imperial Valley Claim (1909), p. 74.

Description of the lobby paintings at the Barbara Worth Hotel, 1915—Tout,
The First Thirty Years,
p. 199, quoting his own article in the
El Centro Progress
for 1914 (evidently the paintings were done a year before the hotel opened).

R. S. Smith of Silsbee wins first prize for his apricots—Ibid., p. 194.

Mr. John Baker: “Paved, well lighted streets . . .”—Farr, p. 274 (John Baker, “Holtville”).

A photograph’s caption: “W. F. Holt Looks into the Future . . .”—Howe and Hall, p. 114.

W. F. Holt: “I can’t help believing in people . . .”—Ibid., p. 117.

Mr. John Baker: “One of the local men . . .”—Farr., p. 275.

Joseph Estudillo “often entertained crowds by shooting dimes tossed in the air”—Tout,
The First Thirty Years,
p. 78.

“A Ten Dollar Bill on the End of a Greased Pole . . .”—Ibid., p. 275. This same game was observed in Mexican California (San Diego) in 1828. See Street,
Beasts of the Field
, p. 21.

7. The Other Side of the Ditch
(
1519 -20 05
)

Epigraph: “No two people will agree . . .”—
Fodor’s Mexico, 1992
, p. xv.

“The informal labor sector . . .”—Ruiz, p. 94.