Dave
Well-known member
There was some ditch digging people around here 100+ years ago. If a person pays attention there are lots of ditches to move water. On my little place alone there are 4 ditches. Two are actively being used. The other 2? Rumor has it that one never did run. Although I don't believe there is anyone around who was here in the 1890's when it was dug. The other is a lot bigger well built ditch which ran a lot of water. The story on that one is it washed out sometime in the 1920's. It washed out on what is now my property. The man who built it had since moved on when it washed out. Apparently there wasn't the money or interest in repairing it. The other two are the reason I have green grass in an area of 10-12 inch annual rainfall.
From the 1870's (?) to sometime in the 1920's there was pretty big crews of Chinese who just dug ditches. My guess is they worked pretty cheap but hard. The El Dorado ditch was 134 mile long, 3 feet deep, 4 feet wide in the bottom, 7 feet wide at the top, and dropped 4 feet per mile. Rocks were blasted out of the way using black powder. There were flumes over the deep draws. The biggest being 500 feet long over a draw 75 feet deep. But that is a lot of Chinese with shovels digging.
In the 1930's Lots of dams were built to capture the spring run off to utilize as irrigation water during the summer. Huge area of previously arid land became fertile farm ground because of those dams. The dam up stream from me is small potatoes compare to the others but it does supply water for several thousand acres of ground. The Owyhee reservoir supplies water to a huge area in Idaho and Oregon. They say that the chief engineer for that dam once finished moved up to Washington state and was in charge of building Grand Coulee.
A shame that none of this would be allowed today.
Banks ditch picture. It supplies water to about 600 acres down stream from me.
From the 1870's (?) to sometime in the 1920's there was pretty big crews of Chinese who just dug ditches. My guess is they worked pretty cheap but hard. The El Dorado ditch was 134 mile long, 3 feet deep, 4 feet wide in the bottom, 7 feet wide at the top, and dropped 4 feet per mile. Rocks were blasted out of the way using black powder. There were flumes over the deep draws. The biggest being 500 feet long over a draw 75 feet deep. But that is a lot of Chinese with shovels digging.
In the 1930's Lots of dams were built to capture the spring run off to utilize as irrigation water during the summer. Huge area of previously arid land became fertile farm ground because of those dams. The dam up stream from me is small potatoes compare to the others but it does supply water for several thousand acres of ground. The Owyhee reservoir supplies water to a huge area in Idaho and Oregon. They say that the chief engineer for that dam once finished moved up to Washington state and was in charge of building Grand Coulee.
A shame that none of this would be allowed today.
Banks ditch picture. It supplies water to about 600 acres down stream from me.
