National Irrigation Congress

The National Irrigation Congress was held periodically in the Western United States beginning in 1891 and ending in 1916, by which time the organization had changed its name to International Irrigation Congress. It was a "powerful pressure group."

1891 The first congress was organized in Salt Lake City, Utah, by William Ellsworth Smythe, the editor of the publication Irrigation Age, Elwood Mead, a Wyoming irrigation engineer, and Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming. As a result, irrigation became a substantial national issue. The congress passed a resolution urging that public lands controlled by the federal government be turned over to the states and territories "needful of irrigation." Between 450 and 600 delegates attended.

1893 The panic of 1893 undermined financial backing for the congress; nevertheless, the second conference opened in August 1893 in the Grand Opera House in Los Angeles, California, with an address by John P. Irish of San Francisco and the presence of a number of foreign representatives who had responded to an appeal by the State Department to attend the meeting. They came from France, Russia, Mexico, Ecuador and New South Wales. The body also appointed commissioners in every state and territory to survey arid lands and submit the results to the U.S. Congress.

C.W. Allingham of Los Angeles introduced his "heliomotor," a sun-powered engine that he said could be used to pump irrigation water. The Los Angeles Times reported: "He said it might be stated that the idea was a cranky one, but it must be remembered that it was the cranks that made things move. (Laughter.)"

1894 The congress in Omaha, Nebraska, was highlighted by adoption of a plan to settle 250 families in a planned community called New Plymouth in Idaho. "Farmers were . . . restricted to living no more than two miles away from their crops, and the sale of alcohol was banned . . . to keep the farmers sober and well-mannered at all times."

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