Garcia - Roosevelt Dam

Theodore Roosevelt was an irrepressible outdoorsman and an ardent conservationist who felt an attachment to the American agrarian ideal. Upon becoming president on September 14, 1901, following the assassination of President McKinley, Roosevelts first message to Congress stated: great storage works... [had] been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for private efforts,... it is as right for the national government to make the streams and rivers of the arid region useful by engineering works for water storage as to make useful the rivers and harbors of the humid region by engineering works of a different kind. On June 17, 1902, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt signed the Hansbrough-Newlands Reclamation Act into law. In this photograph, Roosevelt is standing on the shore of Roosevelt Lake. (Courtesy U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.)

Benjamin Austin Fowler was a New York City lawyer who came to Arizona in 1899 hoping to become a gentleman farmer. In order to farm, Fowler needed a reliable supply of water and thus began a 17-year fight to establish a water reservoir on the Salt River. Fowler, as the first president of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association, was largely responsible for the construction of Roosevelt Dam. (Courtesy Phoenix Public Library.)

George Maxwell, a California lawyer, came to Phoenix in 1896 to speak at the National Irrigation Congress and stayed for the remainder of his life. Maxwell fought hard to persuade Congress to pass the Hansbrough-Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, and it was he who had five very important words added to the act: And Lands in Private Ownership. (Courtesy Phoenix Public Library.)

James H. McClintock came to Arizona in 1879 and lived in the state until his death in 1934. McClintock was a member of the first survey expedition of the Salt and Verde River watersheds, was an outspoken proponent of water issues through the publication of articles and pamphlets, and represented Arizona on the National Irrigation Congress. (Courtesy Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, Archives Division, Phoenix, No. 97-7055.)

John Orme came to Arizona for his health in 1877. He established a ranch in the Salt River Valley, was one of the builders of the Maricopa Canal, and worked for the formation of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association and the building of Roosevelt Dam. In 1904, Orme became a member of the governing board of the association and its second president in 1910, serving until May 1918. (Courtesy Phoenix Public Library.)

Judge Joseph H. Kibbey moved his family to Arizona in 1888 upon becoming the lawyer for the Florence Canal Company. Kibbey was hired by the Water Storage Committee to draft the articles of incorporation of the Salt River Valley Users Association in 1902. Edward Peplow wrote of Kibbey, His greatest achievement... the document that changed the Salt River Project from a desperate hope into a very, real, lively, and productive organization. (Courtesy Phoenix Museum of History.)