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Walnut Grove Dam Failure of 1890 AZT

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Top Surnames

Bates, Blake, Boone, Brink and 16 others
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Profiles

  •
    Daniel Conner Thorne (1827 - 1913)
    short bio at findagrave Prescott's Sharlot Hall Museum has much on this pivotal figure for Prescott:
  • W.W. Vanderbilt (1857 - 1907)
    His fortune as a miner started at the early age of 20 in the Big Bug Mining District of Yavapai. This was in 1877: see This is the W.W. who was involved with the Stirling Placeer mining project in th...
  • Sgt. (USA) Henry Bacon Quick (1839 - 1917)
    Associated with the Stirling Placer Mining Co. of Walnut Grove. Yavapai as early as the the late 1890s when he did work for a Vanderbilt investor who invested heavily in 5,000 acres along the Hassayamp...
  • Dennis Aloysius Burke (1858 - 1918)
    Burke Hotel in 1902 from facebook" "Here is an excerpt from The Whiskey Row Fire of 1900 about the founding of Hotel Burke. " Dennis Burke and Michael Hickey had in mind a hotel that would eclipse al...
  • Stirling E. Edmunds (aft.1848 - 1929)
    among other things, in business with his brother-in-law Dewitt C. Bates... see: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona) 16 Jul 1896, Thu Page 5n ( in legal trouble ) see timeline
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=juQ-AQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA3 (free ebook) The photographer may have been Erwin Baer, a Swiss immigrant who had fought in the Civil War. His long-term photo. business was based in Prescott... but the initials on the photo seem to read read ""MMD"

Walnut Grove Dam, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory

"Old folklore predicts anyone who drinks from the Hassayampa River can never again tell the truth. In the late 1800’s, the term “Hassayampers" began to be used and defined a person who came to the river in search for gold." Those who knew the river would often laugh, as they did in1880, knowing that the river most often presented itself as a mere trickle.

~• The Walnut Grove Dams were a pair of two ill-conceived and hastily built structures headed by the Walnut Grove Water Storage Company (WGWSC) and its sister organization the Piedmont Cattle Company.. The reservoir structures collapsed shortly after the main dam over-topped in the winter of 1890. site
Death & devastation extended as far as Wickenburg and below as a 40-60 ft wall of water, rock, and other debris descended the canyons at speeds up to 60 miles per hour before settling into the desert wastes above Phoenix.
"During construction there were frequent complaints about low pay, a poor work force, and high construction and design costs – this led to there being 5 different chief engineers on the job, each serving as superintendent (one would go on to become Governor of Arizona)." Gee & Neff, op.cit. Note: the profession "engineer" is a term that was used loosely in that era. Many had no formal training and were merely supervisors.. One of such 'engineer' was Alexander Oswald Brodie, future Gov. of Arizona Territory. Essentially he was more of a project manager. Brodie's boss was Henry Spingler Van Beuren, then president of the WGWSC.

the 1890 collapse killed c. 60-150 people†† as a wall of water rushed down the remote and largely unpopulated Hassayampa River Basin

location: 25 miles south of Prescott & eight miles below the small community of Walnut Grove, between Seal Mountain and Fort Hill. See also google maps for various locations mentioned in studies. Note: The outwash from the destruction downstream can be seen to this day, even from satellite views (!)

Contrary to what might be assumed, the predominant figures in the funding and execution of this mining venture were not Westerners or even settlers of AZ territory. Most were Eastern speculators and foreigners who were mostly not present in any supervisory roles.

†† one of the reasons there is a wide variety of estimated dead was a result of a tendency to ignore non-Anglo' victims. The lives of poor workers of indigent and immigrant backgrounds were deemed not worthy of mention except in passing. (see document )

icn_favorite.gif ~• Please wander through the profiles and send me comments and corrections •~ {MMvB, volunteer curator}
icn_check.gif Please do not alter text below as I am using this material for a forthcoming manuscript related to this topic but feel free to add profiles.
Youtube song

note: Walnut Grove was named by the McNary family. They had been living at Walnut Grove, Neosho County, Kansas before settling the Hassayampa

Arizona Mining Project Ends in Disaster

The just-completed 110 ft.rock-fill dam failed in February 1890 wiping out everything in its path for miles. There was a 2+ mile long reservoir behind the dam. Incompetence, greed, poor engineering, and inadequate management of the work force all contributed to the failure. A wall of water, in some places more than 60 feet high raged through many miles of the Hassayampa River canyon into construction camps and settlements below. Few escaped and there were fewer eye-withess accounts. One notable exception was that of the then 26-yr-old Mary Louise Hanlon, a beloved young relative of the president of the operation and the future second wife of Governor Alexander Brodie.
To put the destructive power into perspective, there was more water behind the dam that that of the South Fork Dam which, when it failed, caused the Johnstown Flood. The Walnut Grove Dam burst all at once.
The managing concern was called the Walnut Grove Water Storage Co. which had a host of investors, primarily from the East Coast. $12 million (1890 dollars) was invested in the project and involved substantial loan(s) from a highly capitalized Eastern Bank (Farmers' Loan & Trust). After the dam failed, efforts by the Van Beuren family continued for two generations in vain attempts to continue a variety of dam projects. None came to fruition.

In the aftermath, the San Francisco Chronicle, was highly critical: citation. Additional modern retrospective analyses abound. ~• sources are being directly added to this project and to the profiles of many on the list below.

icn_favorite.gif best set of modern Hassayampa photos ; "Old folklore predicts anyone who drinks from the river can never again tell the truth. In the late 1800’s, the term “Hassayampers" began to be used and defined a person who came to the river in search for gold."
icn_favorite.gif map of 1895 ; annotated version

Concept of this Project

One intention of this project is to link profiles of key players and victims in order to first gain a thorough appreciation of the causes of the dam failure and, second, to understand the failed projects pursued by the Van Beuren family in the aftermath.

Otherwise, please link any profile of the investors, the dead and anyone who is part of the story of this calamity.
The alphabetized and hyperlinked "<SURNAMES>" list below are intended to speed up identification of the interrelationships of the many players.
Newspaper reports are footnoted but, in many cases a subscription to newspapers.com will be needed to view such links. A number of downloaded newspaper articles are in the "<documents>" section.

Timeline

note: an excellent Timeline was written c. 2009 by James Liggett in his book op. cit. I incorporate some of his work in italixcs

SURNAMES

COMMENT

  • Liggett convincingly argues that the flaws in the dam building process could have been avoided by better design and management. Techniques in engineering were, in that era, of a standard adequate to the construction of a safe dam. In comparison, look at the story of the Croton Water Dam in New York, a project that fed the very city where the principals of the WGWSC all lived. ( https://www.crotonfriendsofhistory.org/watering-the-metropolis-part-2 )
    • see James Alexander Liggett, Jr.'s profile
  • Each profile attached to this project provides related documentation about Walnut Grove.
  • take notice that very few of the listed professions mentioned in the press are credentialed. For example, most, if not all of the "engineers" may have only been surveyors or geologists or miners with little or no technical training in dam building.
  • imaging from above shows the scars left from the flood. These are prominent from outer space and cover many miles heading south from the dam site.
  • There are hundreds of newspaper articles that have recently become available on-line. These reveal a "gold rush" mentality and a railroad access hysteria both of which contributing to the haste with which this project was undertaken.
  • Farmers' Loan and Trust 1894 pushed to sell water rights (in concert with the railroad) see also Farmers' absorbed by City Bank Ignominiously, a leader in the Farmers' organization has been blamed as a major player credited with causing the stock market Crash of 1929
  • The reservoir behind the dam was (briefly?) known as Lake Seligman. Also: Seligman AZ. These were named for the financier family see <SELIGMAN> Jesse (Isaias) Seligman , Joseph Seligman and James Seligman who invested broadly in the West both as bankers and railway men.

Sharlot Hall Photo Collection

~• many created by Creator: Erwin Baer/Prescott, Arizona

SOURCES

Other Players

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Phipps_Blake : was an American geologist, mining consultant, and educator, trained At Yale University. He had only a cursory appreciation of engineering.
    • Blake had two sons, Frank and Whitney, who were also employed for a time on the dam. (Liggett)
    • In all references to the design in the engineering literature, it is attributed to Blake. (Liggett p.49)
  • Crown Point Mine was a later venture for Brodie and Van Beuren
  • Weekly Journal-Miner (Prescott, Arizona) 28 Dec 1904, Wed., Page 5 reports interest of the Amalgamated Copper Company at Wickenburg
  • List of various additional figures in Weekly Journal-Miner (Prescott, Arizona) 03 Aug 1887, Wed Page 1
    • George Sines and Charles Keyes (saloon) ; Robert Brow (saloon)
  • Seligman Historic District ; see also "Havasu Harvey House"
  • cemeteries near Weaver District: https://roadsidethoughts.com/az/weaver-xx-yavapai-cemeteries.htm

Beyond the Scope of this Project

oddities

  • a stab at humor: https://www.newspapers.com/image/39798056/?terms=Dake = Weekly Journal-Miner (Prescott, Arizona) 21 Dec 1887, Wed Page 1
    • ~• editorially speaking: Reading about the ad hoc design alterations such as the addition of a spillway should give anyone pause...
  • "the dam did not leak at all" https://www.newspapers.com/image/39796133/?terms=Dake ?? Leaks widely reported elsewhere in Liggett; Weekly Journal-Miner (Prescott, Arizona) 20 Jul 1887, Wed Page 4
  • Insane Asylum story The World (New York, New York)10 Jun 1897, Thu Page 14 A widow confidence ends in insanity. Worthless bonds in Walnut Grove figure in this story of deception.
  • Boyd Ranch = a guest facility on the Hassayampa above Wickenburg and below the Walnut Grove dams

Historical terms

Postlude

  • I have not included any accounts of the numerous lawsuits, of which there were many... The influence that the WGWSC had with judges appears to have been irregular and unfair, if not illegal. In one prominent case, for example, read the treatment of the judge's instructions starting on page 84 of Liggett, J.A. (2009, 2010)
  • nearest accommodations: Gold Bar Ranch 18900 Cemetery Road, Kirkland, Arizona 86332 Office: (928) 427-3235 Cell/Text: (928) 460-0196 TheGoldBarRanchBB@gmail.com

Ephemera

  • Nellie Boyd: Crestani, Eliana. “Traveling Actress and Manager in the Nineteenth Century: The Western Career of Nellie Boyd, 1879-1888,” 1997.
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