DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Val Verde County, in the sun-baked country around Del Rio, water has always been the whole story — and the story starts long before anyone was keepin' records. Indian and Spanish inhabitants of this area were the first to work out crude irrigation systems, drawing water from San Felipe Springs and Creek.
They looked at that arid land, looked at that water, and figured it out. Anglo-American settlers arrived and saw the same need, and about 1869 a group of landowners decided to make it a proper enterprise. They formed the San Felipe Agricultural, Manufacturing and Irrigation Company — a name that means business if ever there was one.
Among the early stockholders were W. C. Adams, Donald Jackson, Joseph Ney, Randolph Pafford, James H.
Taylor, and A. O. Strickland.
They dammed San Felipe Creek just below the Springs, and by 1871 they had built canals diverting water to fifteen hundred acres of land. That's not a small thing. That's the desert surrendering, one ditch at a time.
Then came the law. Under an 1875 irrigation law, the company received a ninety-nine-year state charter — and that charter authorized the digging of two canals: the five-mile-long Madre Ditch, and the mile-long San Felipe Ditch, plus lateral canals branching off from there. By 1876, the state inspector came out to have a look, and what he reported was this: the San Felipe Company had irrigated about three thousand acres.
Double what they started with. An 1876 law also had land grant provisions that awarded the company five thousand acres of state land, calculated on the total mileage of its canals. The more ditch you dug, the more land you earned.
And the work didn't just feed farms — those irrigation canals provided water to the city of Del Rio as well, stimulating the growth of the whole town right along with the fields surrounding it. That's the thing about water in dry country. It doesn't stay in one place.
It spreads life wherever it goes. And here's what makes this story land differently than most: the marker says that today, this vital water supply system is still in operation. What that group of landowners set in motion back around 1869 is still flowing.
The Madre Ditch, the San Felipe Ditch, the whole network — still running water through Val Verde County. Not every story from a roadside marker ends with something you can still touch. This one does.
What the marker says
Crude irrigation systems, drawing water from San Felipe Springs and Creek, were first devised by Indian and Spanish inhabitants of this area. Anglo-American settlers also saw the need for irrigation in this arid region, and about 1869 a group of landowners formed the San Felipe Agricultural, Manufacturing & Irrigation Company. Among early stockholders were W. C. Adams, Donald Jackson, Joseph Ney, Randolph Pafford, James H. Taylor, and A. O. Strickland. They dammed San Felipe Creek just below the Springs, and by 1871 had built canals diverting water to 1,500 acres of land. Under an 1875 irrigation law, the company received a 99-year state charter which authorized the digging of two canals: five-mile-long "Madre Ditch" and mile long "San Felipe Ditch", plus lateral canals. In 1876 the state inspector reported that the San Felipe Company had irrigated about 3,000 acres. Land grant provisions of an 1876 law awarded the company 5,000 acres of state land for the total mileage of its canals. In addition to promoting agricultural development, the work of the San Felipe Company stimulated the growth of Del Rio, since the irrigation canals provided water to the city as well. Today this vital water supply system is still in operation. (1975)