Water and the west, it’s a dance that can make or break a fortune, and one that has been done for over a century in Wyoming.
Ferdinand Hayden was an engineer, surveyor and explorer. He first entered the Wind River Country as a member of Captain William F. Raynolds expedition of 1860. He returned 10 years later with an expedition of his own, contracted to study and survey the agricultural and mineral potential of the greater Yellowstone Basin.
Hayden found vast expanses of sagebrush, with small outcroppings of cottonwood trees along arroyos and desert streams overgrown with willow, cottonwoods and scrub pine. He reported on the farming potential of the area, if only water could be applied.
The concept of “Making the Desert Bloom” was already in effect as the policy of Manifest Destiny forced the tribes off their ancestral grounds with America’s advance west of the Mississippi.
The process was biblical in the minds of the most Americans, it was supported by this Old Testament passage:
Isaiah 35:1-2: The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It has blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon…
Making the desert bloom, fell on a much more ancient, and proven method of farming, irrigation. The Pueblo tribe in present-day New Mexico had elaborate irrigation systems in place by the early 14th century. Their model came to life in Wyoming in the late 19th century and in Fremont County in the early days of the 20th.
One of Wyoming’s first two senators, Joseph Carey, introduced legislation that became known as the Carey Act. It became law on August 18, 1894.
The Carey Act opened the West to irrigation with this statement under the provision clause:
The Carey Act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior, with the approval of the President, to contract and agree to grant and patent to States, in which there are desert lands, not exceeding 1 million acres of such lands to each State, as the State may cause to be reclaimed.
Another agreement, this one arranged by Wind River Reservation Agent James McLaughlin, came in 1905. It set aside 1.48 million acres on the reservation for homesteading. The tribe kept 800,000 acres and was promised $50 per capita payments, a school district, a welfare and improvement fund, and the development and extension of irrigation systems.
The Wind River Reservation was created in 1868, and many small private ditches were built by Native American farmers along the Popo Agie, and the Little and Big Wind River. Most of these were on the south side of the Big Wind River with just a few near Crowheart to the north.
Also in 1905, the U.S. Indian Service (precursor to the Bureau of Indian Affairs) filed for water rights on behalf of 80 Eastern Shoshone farms with the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office.
Homesteading opened on August 15, 1906.
The Wyoming State Engineer’s Office entertained bids to construct canals, reservoirs, and laterals on the newly ceded land.
The winning bidder was the Wyoming Central Irrigation Company (WCIC), a group of Chicago investors bankrolled by salt magnate Joy Morton. The WCIC filed for state water rights on 330,000 acres.
On the surface, it was an answer to the prayers of early homesteaders in need of irrigation water to produce alfalfa, potatoes, oats, corn, sugar beets, turnips and barley. It turned out to be what could be considered the biggest scam ever perpetrated on Wyoming citizens by elected officials.
Wyoming Secretary of State, Fenimore Chatterton, and Wyoming State Engineer Clarence Thomas Johnson were deeply involved with the WCIC.
Chatterton became governor when Governor DeForest Richards died in office in 1903. His controversial decision to not commute or pardon Tom Horn angered Republican party officials and his name was left off the ballot in the 1904 election. He was allowed to serve out his term as Secretary of State which ended in January 1907. In the interim, he became more deeply involved with the WCIC as did incoming governor Bryant B. Brooks.
Brooks was a classic politician with his fingers in many money-making pies during his tenure in office.
Brooks openly supported the efforts, or lack of effort, by the WCIC.
Thomas played a role on both sides of the WCIC debacle. He supported the company in its efforts to get payments from farmers before any work was done while he was in office from 1903 to 1911. But once he left the State Engineer’s position, he switched sides, supporting the farmers in a cascade of lawsuits that descended on the WCIC.
In 1907, the Wyoming legislature enacted laws allowing the creation of community irrigation districts, an important step to separate the territorial laws that allowed irrigation districts to be run by a water commissioner.
It eventually led to the three irrigation districts on the original ceded portion of the Wind River Reservation.
LeClair was built from the original Riverton #2 Canal, Riverton Valley from the Wyoming #2, and Midvale from the failed WCIC.
Wyoming Central was a victim of greed, and overzealous profit predictions. Morton and the board of directors expected 200,000 acres to be claimed by homesteaders in the first few months of 1906. Applications were filed for just 2,000, mostly along the Big Wind River near Riverton.
They expected the Chicago North Western Railroad to build trunk lines to Pavillion and perhaps all the way to Lenore, but that never materialized.
Their eventual charge to homesteaders of $50 per acre for perpetual water rights is equivalent to $1800 today. It was out of reach for almost every homesteader.
The company wanted the money up front, before they dug a single ditch. The homesteaders needed water to plant and harvest crops. It became an impasse.
Local newspapers had specific political slants. The Wind River Mountaineer and the Wyoming State Journal were Democratic publications and the Lander Clipper, Riverton Republican, and Riverton Review were Republican. The Republican papers supported Morton and his Chicago-based investors, while the Democratic papers represented the people.
Wind River Mountaineer October 4, 1907
WHY DON’T THE WATER COMPANY BUILD THEIR DITCHES?
“The letter published on another page, and signed by the Settler’s Co-operative Ditch company has been sent to the Riverton News and the Shoshoni Capital for publication. A copy was at the same time furnished this paper, as it was the desire of the Settler’s Irrigation company to get their offer before the people, as they were not sure that the Riverton and Shoshoni papers would give the letter such publicity as their circulations affords.
The Riverton’ News has said that it was the knocking of the settler’s company that caused the water company to decide not to build the ditches as promised in their contract with the state. Joy Morton has said that his company would not build the ditches until one-half of the water was contracted for, and the Lander State Journal, a paper which has always stood behind the company and the state officials who are connected with the steal in different ways, recently quoted General Manager Chatterton as saying that the reason the company would not go ahead and build the ditches was because they were not selling the water. The Mountaineer believes that the reason the Wyoming Central Irrigation company has apparently decided not to construct the ditches was because they had never intended to do so. Their contract with the settler was so offensive in many ways that they could not expect a man in his right to sign it, and the natural inference is that the company does not want the land settled.
One year of the five, at the end of which they will be able to purchase the land for $1.50 per acre has elapsed, and at the end of eight years the land will be sold at public sale. Mr. Chatterton and his company will then have the land as well as the water, so why should they wish the settler to secure the privilege of running his water through their ditches? The water company has the settler either going or coming. If they take out water, they have to pay an exorbitant price and sign a contract that would send blushes to the cheeks of the money sharks of the east, and if the settler gives up in disgust and refuses to buy water, the land in a few years’ time will be gobbled up by the corporation. This is the kind of a contract that Governor Brooks, Secretary of State Fennimore Chatterton and State Engineer Clarence T. Johnson, acting for the state, agreed to with General Manager Fennimore Chatterton and Chief Engineer Clarence T. Johnson, acting for the Morton crowd of high financiers from Chicago.”
The letter exposed one of the private schemes of the WCIC. By not building ditches, the homesteaders could not make a profit from farming. The WCIC with its vast resources could purchase land for the ridiculously low price of $1.50 per acre after five years or wait another three and buy the same land at auction for a fraction of the price.
The Republican majority in the state house and senate, and Brooks supported the WCIC completely.
The homesteaders did have recourse in the courts, and they took to suits against the WCIC with a vengeance.
The WCIC dug a few ditches for show, just to placate, not to produce. They kept after homesteaders to pay up front, and forfeitures on the original 1906 homesteads began in 1911 when the required improvements mandated by the Homestead Act didn’t appear. Without water, there could be no improvement.
In 1914, after seven years of empty promises and no water, the Riverton Valley Irrigation District formed as an independent district. It made it on private funds through extensions to the existing Wyoming #2 Canal. Spearheaded by pioneer Riverton businessman John Delfelder, the “Riverton Ditch Company” used existing flood permits that allowed farmers to use flood waters of the Wind River for irrigation as a starting point.
The company was incorporated on June 20, 1914, and the first stockholders’ meeting was held at Riverton Lumber on July 6.
Construction contracts were made with dozens of individual farmers, each paid of Riverton Ditch Company script backed by Delfelder. By completion, 21 miles of canal was dug at a cost of $125,000 in script. The Riverton Valley Irrigation District remains one of the most efficient privately constructed irrigation districts in the West.
The Leclair Irrigation District formed soon after but struggled financially. By 1916, LeClair had dissolved any connection to the WCIC.
The challenges for the “Leclair-Riverton Ditch Company,” as it was originally called, were substantial. The area irrigated needed water diverted further upstream to flow onto the original 12,000 acres. A 33-mile-long system with nine steel and concrete flumes, waste gates, and 15 cross drainage structures tested the financial limits of a privately constructed irrigation system.
John Chenery, one of the original homesteaders, the first editor of the Riverton Republican in 1907, and mayor of Riverton beginning in 1917, wrote an impassioned history of the foibles and corruption of the Wyoming Central Irrigation Company in his memoirs published June 10, 1936.
Titled “The crime of Nineteen Six” Chenery provided the following information about the WCIC and its relationship with homesteaders.
The original agreement offered land at $1.50 per acre, per the Homestead Act, with permanent water rights at $20 per acre. For a five-year note at six percent interest, it was $25 per acre. A 10-year note, also at six percent, was $30 an acre.
In the fall of 1906, the winter ‘06 and ‘07 the WCIC constructed an eight-mile ditch near Riverton. They extended it six miles during the summer of 1909. It was poorly constructed and didn’t deliver water per the agreement.
The first homesteader lawsuit hit the Republican leaning courts in 1908 and the ruling of July 19 was in favor of the WCIC. There was a flood of other suits waiting.
“In the fall of 1908 a small group of engineers worked on the ditch then disappeared in January 1909. Like the Arab Chief, they folded their tents and silently stole away.” Chenery
In May 1906, Johnson wrote an agreement between the WCIC and homesteaders
- Agent of state and WCIC will meet with every homesteader
- No payments until water is ready to deliver
- WCIC must post a $50,000 bond
- 40% of settlers must sign contracts with WCIC before work at Pilot Butte and Riverton canal commence
- Rates only in effect until June 30 then WCIC can raise rates
- When water is ready in Wyoming Canal #2 – homesteaders must take water or forfeit future rights
In defiance of the agreement, the WCIC bumped all rates to $25 by July 1, and $30 by January 1, 1910, without doing any further construction. They added $5 per year until the price reached $50.
The contract was worthless, over half of original 1906 homesteaders had forfeited their claims and moved away. It was impossible to secure 40% of the contracts among the remaining homesteaders. A homesteader association raised $11,559 to hold in escrow for water. Johnson accepted the escrow and required the WCIC to begin work within 90 days. The contract expired July 28, 1910; the WCIC did nothing.
In August 1910, Johnson cancelled all the company water rights.
The feds got involved, invoking the Carey Act for all homesteads not receiving water, but the WCIC kept harassing and billing homesteaders.
The state under Brooks was still siding with the WCIC and in 1910 entered a contract charging $38.75 per acre.
State land commissioner R.P Fuller went to Washington to get WCIC reservoir rights to Bull and Dinwoody Lake, on condition that WCIC begin work within 5 years; they didn’t.
A clever contract by WCIC in May 1909 said they must build Pilot Butte Reservoir but had no provisions for getting water to farmers in Riverton and Pavillion. Brooks approved and signed the contract. It was the beginning of the end for Bryant B. Brooks.
A telegram from Morton and his associates to Brooks was made public “Keep them quiet until after we win the election.”
It was too much bad publicity for Brooks. He didn’t run for re-election in 1910. Carey was elected and began to clean house on WCIC.
Carey revoked the WCIC claims to Bull and Dinwoody. He wanted the state to take over reclamation with Arid Land Fund, but the legislature refused. In 1919, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation took over the project.
The end of the WCIC came in a lawsuit in 1916.
Riverton Review April 14, 1916
LEGAL NOTICE
NOTICE OF SALE ON EXECUTION.
The State of Wyoming, / County of Fremont.
In the District Court, Sixth Judicial District.
Wyoming Central Irrigation Company, a corporation Plaintiff,
Nina A. Laporte, et al, Defendants.
“By virtue of an execution issued out of and under the Seal of the District Court of the Sixth Judicial District in and for the County of Fremont, State of Wyoming, upon a judgment rendered in the District Court of the Sixth Judicial District in and for the County of Natrona, in the State of Wyoming, on the 30th day of October, 1914, in an action wherein said Wyoming Central Irrigation Company was plaintiff and said Nina A. Laporte, et al were defendants, in favor of said defendant Nina A. Laporte and against said plaintiff, said Wyoming Central Irrigation Company, a corporation, for the sum of $6,835.25 debt and $131.60 costs, a transcript of which said judgment was on the 29th day of July, 1915, duly filed in the office of the Clerk of the District Court of the Sixth Judicial District in and for Fremont County, Wyoming, which execution was directed and delivered to me as sheriff in and for said County of Fremont, State ofWyoming, I have levied upon all the right, title, interest, and equity of the said Wyoming Central Irrigation Company, a corporation, and to the following described property, to-wit: One certain irrigation ditch, built and constructed by plaintiff consisting of about 15 miles, more or less of ditch, rights of ways, laterals and extensions, as now actually constructed, beginning at the head lgate, approximately 43 degrees, 45 minutes west.”
The WCIC was through. Brooks died in 1944. Chatterton lived to be 97, passing away in 1958. Clarence Johnson died in 1970 at age 98.