Historic Documentation of Lateral 22 of the Grand Canal, Located Along 91st Avenue Between Interstate 10 and Van Buren Street, Tolleson, Maricopa County, Arizona

Summary

The City of Tolleson (City) is planning to widen 91st Avenue between Interstate 10 and Van Buren Street. As part of the project, an open, unlined, historic lateral canal that runs along the east side of 91st Avenue will be replaced by an underground pipe. Dibble & Associates, the project engineers, requested that Logan Simpson Design Inc. (LSD) prepare a historic documentation of the canal.

The documentation of the lateral canal was conducted in compliance with a Programmatic Agreement (PA) signed in 2001 by the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), Salt River Project (SRP), and the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) to record and assess historic properties prior to development. The PA states that SRP, in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, will document main canals and their associated facilities prior to modifications. The PA also stipulates that SRP develop a list of laterals worthy of preservation. The canal in the project area, Lateral 22 of the Grand Canal, is one of the canals SRP identified for special consideration. The Grand Canal, located four miles north of the project area, is a main canal in the SRP system and has been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. It has been the subject of Historic American Engineering Records (HAER) documentation (Anderson and Noland 1990).

Lateral 22 was placed on the list of canals worthy of preservation because it exemplifies a type of irrigation feature—an open, unlined lateral canal with mature vegetation adjacent that is reliant on seepage from the canal for survival. Unlined dirt canals with adjacent vegetation were once ubiquitous in the Salt River Valley, but in recent times they have become scarce. Ideally, the dirt canals on the list would be preserved within their landscape; however, because of the pressures of development and the need for infrastructure improvements, preservation is not always feasible, as is the case with the canal along 91st Avenue. Because Lateral 22 cannot be maintained in place, LSD has produced this report documenting the canal’s physical characteristics and historic context to help mitigate the adverse affect to the property from the road-widening project. The report follows the National and State Historic Preservation Acts Documentation Standards for Historic Properties guidelines (revised December 2002). The historic context was provided by Shelly C. Dudley, SRP Senior Historical Analyst, based on research compiled from the SRP archives and has been supplemented with information from other sources. The report also contains the results of field documentation of the lateral. As an additional mitigation measure, interpretive signs will be erected along 91st Avenue to provide information to the public about the history of Lateral 22 and the role it has played in the SRP network and the development of Tolleson.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Salt River Project Digital Library

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Salt River Project Cultural Resource Manager

Contributor(s): Shelly C. Dudley

Sponsor(s): Dibble and Associates

Prepared By(s): Logan Simpson Design Inc.

Submitted To(s): City of Tolleson

Record Identifiers

LSD Project No.(s): 055002

ASM Permit No.(s): 2005-13bl

LSD Technical Report No.(s): 055002

File Information