Arlington, AZ |
||||||||
| Home | Geography | Prehistory | Early History | History | Today | Bibliography | ||
| History: 1890 to 1990 - Agriculture | |
Settlement Pioneers Agriculture Commerce Transportation Schools Cemeteries |
In the Arlington Valley, approximately 450 acres were being irrigated by the Buckeye Canal in 1891. By 1900, this number had increased to 1,750 acres. In the summer of 1899, Moses E. Clanton and W. W. Perry filed notice for an appropriation of 3,000 miners inches of water for the Arlington Canal. Articles of Incorporation were filed with the County Recorder on December 19, 1899 with capital stock listed at $30,000. |
|
|
|
The Arlington Canal Company, was a co-op of landowners in the Arlington
Valley who received water from the new canal. Each shareholder owned one
share per quarter section, or one hundred and sixty acres. The head of the
canal was located to the northeast of the valley and during the winter of
1899 through the spring and summer of 1900 local residents had excavated
19.2 miles of canal irrigating almost all of the arable land west of the
Hassayampa River, with the exception of the Tovrea Ranch near Power’s Butte.
By 1904, the Arlington Canal Company needed to widen the bottom of the canal
to handle the delivery of water to approximately 5000 acres being irrigated.
An article in the Arizona Republican on June 15, 1900, stated, S. E. Chapin, who is now engaged in the mercantile business at the new town of Arlington, in the lower part of the valley, was in town yesterday. He believes that Arlington is going to be one of the richest and most important points in the valley." Though boosters of the first decade of the twentieth century compared the Arlington Valley to the Salt River Valley and heralded its stable water supply and the fact that the canal was owned outright, they still had issues with getting their crop to market. This was resolved with the Phoenix and Buckeye rail line construction in 1910. In the 1910s, the farmers of Arlington Valley, like those of Palo Verde, Buckeye, and the Salt River Valley to the east, grew a variety of products including sorghum, cotton, beets, corn, and grain, but the big ticket item was alfalfa. There were also cattle and dairy operations. Outfits like the Flower Pot and Arlington Cattle companies ranged their cattle from the Hassayampa Plains to the north of the valley to the Harqua Hala Valley to the west. (Parkman, 10; Ross, 155; Murphy 56; Arizona Republican, 22 Jan and 15 Jun 1900) |
|||