August 10, 2023 – For the past eight months I have been exploring up and down the length of the Salt River in southcentral Arizona. I have seen firsthand the wondrous natural beauty of the entire river as well as the impressive human-made structures that have been constructed along its length. Without question, these human-made structures – dams, bridges, canals, and roads – have enabled the region to prosper in ways that were only dreamed of a century ago.
Human infrastructure on the river is nothing new, though. The people of the Salado culture occupied the upper reaches of its basin from around 1250 to 1450 CE. During this time, they constructed numerous pueblos and cave dwellings, shrines, outposts, and canals. Lower down in the Salt River Valley, home of present-day Phoenix, Arizona, the people of the Hohokam culture constructed even bigger and more elaborate infrastructure. Beginning around 450 CE, they built numerous large pueblos, a massive irrigation system, and even recreational ball courts. At their zenith, it is believed the Hohokam numbered between 80,000 to 100,000 people. Both civilizations disappeared, though, around 1450 CE and were in ruins by the time the Spanish explorers first visited the area in the 17th Century.
Exactly why these cultures disappeared is a mystery. But most experts agree the cycles of floods and droughts on the Salt River were a major contributing factor. Without a way to control flooding and to store water for periods of drought, living in the Sonoran Desert was difficult, even along the Salt River with all its abundant natural resources.
This was evident to the first Anglos who began to settle the Arizona territory in earnest shortly after the Gadsden Purchase in 1854. Facing the same obstacles as the Hohokam, Salado, and subsequent Native American peoples, they learned the hard way that the fertile alluvial soil of the Salt River Valley could not be made into productive farms without a plentiful and reliable source of water. They quickly realized a dam was required if they were going to be successful in their effort to settle the region.
Farmers, businessmen, speculators, and politicians began to organize themselves and consider if such a structure could be built and, if so, how. Numerous ideas were proposed and debated, but it wasn’t until President Theodore Roosevelt signed the National Reclamation Act of 1902 that federal funding and engineering expertise became available for this type of public works project. With the active participation of local landowners who put up their lands as collateral, work began on Roosevelt Dam (then called the Tonto Dam) on the Salt River in 1905. When the dam was finished in 1911, the Salt River’s floods and droughts were finally tamed.
If he were alive today, Teddy Roosevelt would undoubtedly be shocked to see the Salt River Valley and the changes wrought by the Roosevelt Dam and subsequent reclamation projects. Rather than an agrarian community of family farms as he envisioned, it is a massive modern metropolis, the fifth largest in the United States. It is home to nearly five million people; encompasses world-class hospitals, universities, and high-tech research and manufacturing; serves a booming tourism and recreation industry; and supports huge corporate agribusinesses.
In short, modern-day Phoenix and the surrounding area was made possible by virtue of the infrastructure constructed on the Salt River.