Shoshone Project
The Shoshone Project is an irrigation project in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The project provides irrigation for approximately 107,000 acres (430 km2) of crops in the Big Horn Basin, fulfilling the vision of local resident and developer Buffalo Bill Cody, who hoped to make the semi-arid basin into agricultural land. Buffalo Bill Dam on the Shoshone River impounds water for the project in Buffalo Bill Reservoir. In addition to its role in irrigation, the project provides flood control on the Shoshone and generates power, using the 350-foot (110 m) height of Buffalo Bill Dam, once a world record, and the considerable fall of the river through Shoshone Canyon to generate hydroelectric power. Chief crops in the Big Horn Basin are sugar beets, alfalfa, barley, oats, corn and beans.
At the end of the 19th century Buffalo Bill Cody settled in his namesake town of Cody, Wyoming, buying much of the surrounding lands. Cody promoted a plan to use the waters of the Shoshone to irrigate the plains of the Bighorn Basin extending eastward from Cody. Franklin Wheeler Mondell, later U.S. Senator from Wyoming, filed for the first water rights in 1893 but was unable to follow up on his project. Cody and his partner Nate Salisbury obtained a permit to irrigate 120,000 acres (49,000 ha) using three canals, but were in turn unable to construct the necessary infrastructure. Cody and local promoters again obtained water rights to irrigate 60,000 acres (24,000 ha) from the state of Wyoming in 1899 and attempted to build a private canal, but lacked sufficient resources. Following the passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902 the state urged the Department of Interior to take over the project. The federal government-backed Shoshone Project was authorized in 1904 by Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock, based on the 1899 Cody-Salisbury permit. The project started the same year, administered by the Bureau of Reclamation. Work on Buffalo Bill Dam started in 1905. The small Ralston and Corbett dams were completed in 1908. Buffalo Bill Dam (known as Shoshone Dam until 1946) was completed in 1910 at a cost of $1.4 million, at a height of 325 feet (99 m), then the tallest dam in the world. The dam's height was extended by another 25 feet (7.6 m) to 350 feet (110 m) in the 1990s, significantly expanding reservoir capacity.
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