The Moving Picture Weekly (1920-1921)

THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY— ■7 spot, as one might think, but in the desert. Twenty-five miles from Phoenix, Arizona, the soil technicians came upon land as suitable to long staple cotton raising as any in the world, if water could be secured to irrigate it. Then came the engineers. Roosevelt Dam, the pet project of the late president, was but 130 miles away and what was 130 miles when the lives of our soldiers and the security of the counti^y hung in the balance! Straightway the engineers went to work, and inside of a month water in prodigious quantities was pouring thi'ough flumes and irrigation ditches to the thirsty soil. So started Goodyear — a year and a half ago a desei-t — today an oasis blooming in that desert. The story of Litchfield is but a repetition of that of Goodyear. Except that the crisis was past when Litchfield was started. Today 30,000 acres of non-productive land is producing as good long staple cotton as is anywhere in the world produced and two towns, the equal of any that Arizona can boast, are on the map, which all goes as evidence as to how the army back home stood behind the men in the ti-enches. Situated at Silver Lake, Arizona, Roosevelt Dam, so called because it was a favorite project of the late president, the first appropriations for it being made during his administration, irrigates between two and three hundred thousand acres of othenvise arid land. A leading spirit in the Roosevelt project also was Alexander O. Brodie, formerly lieutenant colonel of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and later governor of Arizona at the time the project gathered full sway, and to whom much credit may be given for the enterprise. The dam was formally opened March 18, 1911, and as attested by the towns of Goodyear and Litchfield as well as other towns of Arizona, it has more than fulfilled its pui-pose of putting hundreds of thousands of acres of othei-wise arid land into the cultivated class. While not the largest dam in the world it is one of that class, and possibly in its ultimate development may be the dam which of all others in the world, releases the greatest single acreage to imgation. Of course in this connection it must be remembered that the Egyptian projects, much larger in their entirety, are actually a series of dams and runways and not a single project as is the Roosevelt. The Roosevelt Dam is in fact one solid wall 1,080 feet long at the crest, which is 284 feet above the base. The thickness is 168 feet at the bottom and 20 feet at the crest. President Roosevelt lived to see the fruit of one of his many projects, ripen to maturity when the country depended on it, in the case of the Roosevelt Dam. With the coming of peace there was no slacking in the work of raising long staple cotton at Goodyear and Litchfield. Indeed, as time goes on, the acreage is constantly being increased and the force of workers augmented. Goodyear, started first and entailing an acreage of something less than 15,000 acres about eighteen months ago, was followed up by rearing Litchfield, Goodyear's twin cotton producing town of Arizona, which in acreage exceeds the area of Goodyear, covering somewhat more than 15,000 acres and being six months younger. The towns are in every way most modem and up-to-date. Fine sewerage systems, good water, electric power, churches, half a dozen modern school buildings, motion picture theatres and clubs and recreation halls for the employees all tend to rank these two new towns with any in the country of their size. In fact, when it was decided to have the history of the Arizona cotton industry recorded in celluloid, it was unanimously decided to place films of the two towns well to the (Continued on 'page 23.) Left — Breaking ground at Goodyear, Arizona, preparatoryRight — Mexican family picking cotton on ground that 18 to planting cotton. This land was formerly planted in alfalfa, which crop the cotton men alternate with cotton, as cotton cannot be consecutively grovm on land without using up all the nitrates present in the soil. Thus the ligumirwus plant alfalfa is used to replace the nitrates. The larger tractor is a Fitch four-wheel drive and the smaller one is a Fordson. As shown in the picture, the sow and her offspring enjoy eating the upturned alfalfa roots. months ago was a desert. Note the irrigation ditch in the foreground which conveys the life-giving water from the Roosevelt dam, at Silver Lake, Arizona, almost 130 miles away. At this cotton plantation, located at Goodyea/r, Arizona, 25 miles from Phoenix, it has been shown that Mexicans are the equal of negroes in the art of picking cotton. This scene shows but a small portion of the cotton land surrounding Goodyear, which covers 15,000 acres. *