SANTA RITA
WATER & MINING COMPANY
In 1874, the discovery of placer gold
in the Eastern slopes of the Santa
Rita Mountains
in what was to become known as the Greaterville
Mining District lead to a small gold rush
the following year. The Greaterville area proved to
be the largest and richest placer deposit in Southern
Arizona. The miners quickly discovered that water was almost
as precious as gold. Normally they would wash the sand and gravels with
water using rockers and pans to separate the gold but the mountain arroyos were
generally dry. One of the nearest more reliable water sources was Gardner Canyon. Miners hauled sacks
of dirt to the few running streams or carried water to their claims in canvas
or goat skin bags packed on the backs of burros. The rich deposits that could
repay these efforts were worked out by 1886 and most miners moved on.
By 1900, hydraulic mining had become well established in the placer fields of California. In
this technique, the ground is excavated by means of high-pressure streams of
water and the gold bearing gravels are run into a sluice where the gold was
extracted by gravity or amalgamation. Hydraulic mining could quickly
reach deeply buried deposits or move large quantities of gravel to create
economies of scale in working low-value deposits. The development of
hydraulic mines required significant investments of capital because elaborate
water supply systems had to be constructed.
A California Mining Engineer named James B. Stetson
thought he could solve the water problem. He conceived a grand scheme
to channel runoff from the Santa Rita’s spring snow melt into a reservoir
system that would hold enough water to last 10 months. The water would be
brought to Kentucky Gulch by a series of canals and pipes. There, the
water would make it possible to use hydraulic mining to extract gold from ores
too poor to mine by other methods. In September 1902, McAneny, Stetson and three other investors formed the Santa
Rita Water and Mining Company and built the water system that we can still see
the remnants of today.
Construction of the water system was started in January, 1903 and was
completed in the Fall of 1904. The system
collected water from Big Casa Blanca, Gardner
and Cave Creek Canyons
and transported it to Boston Gulch. The total water system is about 8.5
miles in length and consists of a combination of dams, intakes, open ditches
(about 5.5 miles), pipes, penstocks, tunnels and valves and depending on the
source, cost from $200,000 $250,000 to construct. The ditch gradient was
about 0.25 per cent or 15 feet per mile. This gradient allowed the water to
flow just fast enough to reduce siltation of the
ditches and just slow enough enough to reduce
erosion. The ditches passed through two tunnels, a 925 foot tunnel which
connected the ditch in Casa
Blanca Canyon
to the rest of the system and a 300 foot tunnel
on Dead Horse Mesa. The whole system was by gravity flow so pipes were
used to transport the water across the canyons and up to the next ridge.
A 24 inch pipe was used to cross Cave and Gardner Canyons
and a 20 inch pipe from the collector on Dead Horse Mesa across Fish Canyon
to the distribution valves above Boston
Gulch.. Fifteen and 9 inch pipes were also used to distribute water to
the working pits. The pipe segments were made of rolled steel sheets that
were riveted together to secure the seam. One end of the pipe was
compressed so that it would fit into the adjoining segment. The segment
interiors were lined with asphalt and the exterior of the pipe was also coated
with asphalt to reduce leakage. Indications are that the pipe segments
were delivered by rail to the rail siding at Sonoita
and then hauled overland to the project. The main
distribution line terminated on the ridge just to the West of Boston Gulch
where two large gate valves still remain. From these gate
valves, water was distributed to the several placer pits by smaller pipes and
hoses. It is estimated that the water pressure at the working placer pits
was about 1,000 pounds. A 1 inch pipe also delivered water to a cistern
located on the ridge between Boston
and Kentucky Gulches where it was subsequently distributed to the Kentucky Camp
area.
In 1904, a limited hydraulic mining operation was started in Boston Gulch (to
the west of Kentucky Gulch) to show that the system developed sufficient water
pressure and to prove the concept. Phone lines connected Kentucky
Camp with the Tent Camp and the sluice gate operators in Gardner Canyon
to control the release of water into the system. The test ran for about
six weeks. The water system evidently worked well as evidenced by the
several placer pits that were excavated in the area. The recovery of
gold, though, was another story. It is estimated that only about $2,000
worth of gold was recovered during the test. . Before the operation could
really get going, James Stetson was killed on May 21, 1905 when he fell from a
window of the third floor of the Santa Rita Hotel in Tucson. He had been
consulting with the company’s attorney and was scheduled to meet with McAneny and G.R. Comings, another investor, the following
day. The cause of the fall has never been determined.
Compiled in April 1999 by T. Johnson from Forest Service
Literature (including Heritage Resources Management Report No. 15), Friends of
Kentucky Camp Literature and data researched by Bob Lund, Green Valley Hiking
Club.
Additional Material: GVHC Library File 35