At "No. 6" fill there occurred a disastrous washout in December, 1900, which while discouraging never made the stout hearts stop beating. It really served as a permanent benefit, for thereafter all the fills and high banks were "puddled." I. J. Ross. Stilts & David, and Koenig Brothers, each had contracts widening the rock excavations, while farther along and around "Cedar valley", dirt was being moved by Alva Leonard, A. M. Parmenter, F. E. Randall, John Clure, and others. The settlers were determined to have a ditch.
Antecedent of Reclamation Act Four years before the passage of the reclamation act, congress appropriated $100,000 for making surveys for locations of suitable reservoir sites. The engineers employed under this act, or appropriation, were to make selections of sites where the water impounded would or could be made to control stream flow and at the same time serve for irrigation uses. This required a much wider range of activity than merely finding a good place to hold back the water. The mountains are filled with good reservoir locations, many of which will not serve irrigation to any great extent.
In the west the government had also built
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
a number of small canals to supply forts and in some cases on Indian reservations, to give the red men a boost. The latter were without cost to the Indians, but there seemed no way to convince eastern congressmen that the building of irrigation works would serve a double purpose : make homes on the land and control stream flow. Congressmen called the reclamation act a "slick steal" saying that never a dollar spent would be paid back. In this the prophets were not accurate, although these charges are no more justifiable against the water user than levee charges on the lower Misissippi would be against the people living in that vicinity.