When Engineers designed Coolidge Dam to form San Carlos Lake behind it, they dramatically underestimated the flow of the Gila River and other regional runoff. They had assumed that the water flow would be about 460 thousand acre feet per year. They based their calculation on runoff they had observed in recent years. However rainfall was unusually plentiful during this time.  As the dam was being built, rainfall in the region decreased. The actual flow was closer to 200 thousand acre feet per year. When the dam was dedicated in March 1930, San Carlos Lake, which was supposed to be a massive 1,3000,000 acre-foot reservoir, looked more like a shallow, weed-choked swamp. 

Humorist Will Rogers, who attended the ceremony, looked out over the lake and quipped, “If this was my lake, I’d mow it.

It would take almost 50 years for the lake to reach capacity.

Source: Arizona, A History – Thomas Sheridan. Photo credit:  US Bureau of Reclamation

Some of Arizona’s earliest settlers and visitors were less than impressed when they first arrived in Arizona during its early days.  Here is a sampling of some quotations that you probably don’t want to see on a tourism brochure.

The promising Metropolis of Phoenix consisted of three chimneys and a coyote – J. Ross Brown (journalist)

“Of all the dreary, miserable-looking settlements that one could possible imagine, that was the worst. An unfriendly, dirty, heaven-forsaken place. . .” –  Army wife Martha Summerhayes (Stated when her steamboat arrived in Arizona via the Colorado River.  Apparently she refused to get off the boat.)

“Every bush is full of thorns. . . and every rock you turn over has a tarantula or centipede under it. The fact is, take the country altogether and I defy any man who has seen it—or one as utterly worthless—even to imagine anything so barren. – Dr. John S. Griffin

“We had one war with Mexico to take Arizona, and we should have another to make her take it back” – General William Tecumseh Sherman.

This being April Fools day I thought the following piece of Arizona History to be particulary fitting.

 In March, 1880 the Southern Pacific Railroad reached Tucson, Arizona. A huge celebration was held to commemorate the event. The entire town joined in and the beer and liquor was flowing freely. Local officials began sending self-congratulatory telegrams to various towns and notable people around the country. At some point, someone convinced Tucson mayor Bob Leatherwood that it would be fitting to send a telegram to the pope. Leatherwood thought that this was a great idea. The wire, composed by Leatherwood was as follows:

 To his holiness, the Pope of Rome, Italy:

The mayor of Tucson begs the honor of reminding Your Holiness that this ancient and honorable pueblo was founded by the Spaniards under the sanction of your church more than three centuries ago, and to inform Your Holiness that a railroad from San Francisco, California now connects us with the entire Christian world.

R. N. Leatherwood, Major.

A short time later, Mayor Leatherwood was informed that the pope had telegraphed a reply. He was handed a piece of paper and told that it contained the pope’s message. Believing this to be an actual telegram from the pope, the mayor held it up and read it out loud as a crowd listened intently. The telegram read:

His Holiness the Pope acknowledges with appreciation receipt of your telegram informing him that the ancient city of Tucson at last has been connected by rail with the outside world and send his benediction, but for his own satisfaction would ask where the hell is Tucson? – Antonelli

Needless to say a roar of laughter probably erupted from the crowd.

It is assumed that that pope’s “reply” was a joke being played on the mayor.

Source: Arizona, A Cavalcade of History, Marshall Trimble – who tells the story much better than I can. (Picture of Tucson Train Depot from Southern Arizona Transportation Museum website.)

Who was Ed Shiefflin? He was an Arizona prospector who left the safety of a southern Arizona fort to search for silver ore. At the time, the area was controlled by hostile Chiricahua Apaches. According to legend, as he left the fort, someone shouted the warning, “The only thing that you will find out there will be your tombstone.” Shiefflin survived and in 1877 and found a valuable silver lode worth 19 million dollars. The town that grew up at the site was named Tombstone, the now famous western town and location of the Shootout at the OK Corral.

Photo courtesy of USGS.