SRP Well House Re-creation

— at Sahuaro Ranch . . . —

This building, which houses a groundwater well pump, is a re-creation of a Salt River Project (SRP) pump house from the 1920s. In the original pump houses, a wooden derrick was erected first and used to drill the well. Once the well was working, an electric pump was installed and the lower half of the derrick enclosed with wood siding.

The Project's first groundwater wells, drilled in 1919, pumped water into ditches for drainage into the nearest river or wash. This was done to lower the water table which had been rising as a result of irrigation and was damaging crops by bringing salts and other harmful minerals to the surface. When drought struck Arizona in the late 1920s, the Project began using the pumped water for irrigation - a practice that continues today.

As far as we know, there never was a well at this site. Usually the Project located its wells next to canals and laterals, so the pumped water could be distributed to irrigation customers.

On the Ranch Today
This full-scale model of an early pump house was donated by SRP and built in 2003 by SRP employees. There is no well underneath the pump, which was obtained from a well site near Yuma, and the electrical transformers are not connected to any power source.

[Photo captions follow]

[Top left] The above Phoenix-area pump house, which no longer exists, served as a model for this re-creation project. Buildings like these were once an important part of central Arizona's irrigated landscape. (Photo courtesy of the SRP Research Archives Department).

[Bottom left] SRP employees at left, re-created this well house as part of SRP's Centennial in 2003. (Sahuaro Ranch Park Historic Area photo).

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