|
|
|
OREGONSCOPE
|
|
|
| From the earliest days of settlement, irrigation has been a vital part of Malheur County farming. Waterwheels, such as this late model near Ontario, Oregon, were once common on the canals and streams of eastern Oregon. In this image, probably taken during the 1950s, water pours from the wheel into a chute (under the girl's outstretched arm) that sends it onto crops in the field. |
1
|
|
The first efforts at irrigating lands in Malheur County were made in the last decades of the nineteenth century, as settlers created small diversion dams to channel water from the Owyhee and Malheur rivers onto their lands. After World War I, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and local irrigation districts cooperated to begin large-scale irrigation projects. Canals such as this one were part of that system. |
2
|
|
In September 1937, President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Ontario on their way to the dedication of Bonneville Dam. At a time when much of the nation was suffering through the Dust Bowl years, the Roosevelts received peaches, apples, potatoes, and onions, all grown using the area's irrigation canals. According to the September 29, 1937, Eastern Oregon Observer, the president "expressed amazement at the picture of prosperity brought out by irrigation, ... [and] he had never had its true value so forcibly impressed on his mind." |
3
|
|
|
| Mikki Tint, Special Collections Librarian, OHS Research Library |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|