Chapter XII: A Remarkable Harvest-Field

The most remarkable harvest-field in the United States, if not in the whole world, is located in the heart of the Colorado Desert. The spot is known as Salton, and it lies 265 feet below the level of the sea.

The crop which is harvested is salt. So plentiful is the natural deposit of this necessary article that it is plowed with gang-plows, is scraped into windrows as hay is raked in the field, and, like hay, it is stacked into heaps from the windrows and is then loaded into wagons and later into cars to be carried to the reduction works three miles away.

There are about one thousand acres in this saline field. When one looks upon this glittering, sparkling, and scintillating field, which lies like a great patch of snow dropped down into the midst of the burning sands of the plain, he is reminded of that passage of Scripture which says:

"Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."

This field is literally white to harvest and a most phenomenal harvest it is. Over a briny, oozy marsh lies a crust of salt six to sixteen inches thick. As often as removed, the crust quickly forms again, so that crop after crop is taken from the same ground. In fact, although these harvests have been going on nearly twenty years, and two thousand tons of marketable salt are annually taken from the beds, but ten acres of the one-thousand-acre field have been broken.

The laborers employed in breaking up the salt crust, in loading the salt onto the wagons and taking it to the mills, in cleaning and preparing it for the market, are mostly Japanese and Indians. In the summer season the temperature reaches 130 to 140 degrees at Salton, and white men are unable to endure the work exposed to the burning rays of the sun.

The ease with which the salt is procured in this field makes it a valuable one. At very little expense the salt is made ready for market, and it brings from six to thirty-six dollars per ton, according to the grade.

The Coachella Valley, in which this great field of salt lies, is ninety miles long and from ten to thirty miles wide. Its one thousand six hundred square miles of territory lie wholly below the level of the sea, its greatest depression being 275 feet. The southern portion of the valley is devoid of vegetation, save where irrigation has been introduced, but about the northern portion of the valley the sage and mesquite have obtained a foothold in the sandy soil. Near Indio, in the northern portion of the valley, an artesian well was drilled a few years ago and a copious supply of water was obtained. Now more than two hundred and fifty of those wells are pouring their waters over the thirsty soil, and a large tract of land has been brought into a high state of cultivation. The lands about the salt-fields, however, are too strongly impregnated with salts and alkali to offer any inducements to the rancher now or in the future. The constant harvest of salt, however, is a rich enough return for the lands thus unfitted for agriculture.

This desert salt is remarkable for its fine quality. An analysis made in San Francisco shows its constituents to be as follows: Chloride of sodium, 94.68 per cent.; calcium sulphate, .77 per cent.; water, .75 per cent.; magnesium sulphate, 3.12 per cent.; sodium sulphate, .68 per cent.; total, 100 per cent.

Until 1901, the title to the Salton lands was vested in the Government, and the company which was reaping the harvest had no title to the property and no legal right thereto. There is an interesting story connected with the change of title.

This concern, the Liverpool Salt Company, had a competitor for the salt trade of the Pacific coast in the Standard Salt Company. The Salton fields are reached by means of the Southern Pacific Railway, which road has the handling of all the product of the salt-fields. The Standard Company alleged that the railroad people discriminated against it in the way of freight rates, excluding the Standard people from the coast markets, and thus securing a monopoly of the trade for the Liverpool Company. This led the managers of the Standard Company to look into the titles of the salt-fields. It was then discovered that the company operating was without title, and that the lands were unallotted Government lands.

The attention of the Government officials was called to the fact that the Liverpool people were trespassers, and an order was issued for the company to vacate. A bill was then introduced in Congress providing for filing claims upon saline lands, and the bill passed the Senate January 22, 1901. It yet required the signature of the President to make it a law, however, and it was then that matters became interesting in the desert.

Both companies congregated men on the lands adjoining the salt-fields, prepared to race to the choice portion of the field to stake claims the moment the wire should apprise them of the signing of the bill. Each company had an agent in Washington ready to telegraph the news the instant it became known, and each company had a man at the telegraph station at Salton, three miles from the field, to take the message to the men the moment it came.

The Liverpool Company felt confident of winning the race, for the company owned a spur track from the main line of the railroad to the salt-fields, and upon this line was placed a hand-car, manned ready to pull for the fields the instant the dispatch should arrive. This car could easily outstrip the fleetest horse, the yielding sands making it impossible for a steed to make rapid progress.

The manager of the Standard Company, however, did not depend upon horse speed, mule speed, or car speed. There are in Southern California an average of 316 cloudless days each year. He pinned his faith to the weather, and his confidence was not betrayed.

At 2.45 o'clock, the afternoon of January 31st, two telegrams arrived at Salton at about the same time. One was for the manager of the Liverpool Salt Company and the other was for the manager of the Standard Salt Company. The contents of the telegrams were identical. They told that the President had signed the bill which opened the lands in the salt-field to entry. In a moment the hand-car was off, the men pumping for dear life. Before they had gone a dozen rods there shot from the station a blaze of light--a message flashed by mirrors held in such a manner as to catch and reflect the rays of the sun. To the watchers three miles away, who were waiting for the signal, which had been prearranged, it was as though the station had burst into flame. At the sight of this signal the men rushed to the salt-fields and set the stakes and posted the notices required by law. When the hand-car men arrived it was all over, and there was nothing for them to do but to return and swallow their chagrin.

After the triumph of the Standard Company in this peculiar race, a compromise was effected whereby the Liverpool Company, which owned the mills and apparatus and the spur track, and all other equipments for the operating of the field, resumed the ownership of the field, and the Standard Company was granted concessions which placed them on an equal footing with their competitors in the markets on the coast.

In June, 1891, the laborers at Salton were treated to a surprise. They found the country filling up with water from an unknown source. A great deal of apprehension was felt, as it was thought that the water undoubtedly came from a crevasse which had been opened communicating with the sea. If such were the case it was to be expected that Salton would soon be 265 feet under water, for water seeks its level.

The flow of water continued till an area ten miles wide by thirty miles long was covered to a depth of six feet; then it was ascertained that the water was coming in from the Colorado River, which had risen above its banks and was cutting a channel across the desert, threatening to convert a large section of the Coachella Valley into an inland sea.

This inundation was caused by the co-equal rise of the head waters of the Colorado and Gila rivers. The waters of the lower Colorado rose five feet above high-water mark and continued to pour its waters into the desert till the flood subsided. After the flood had abated, the sands of the desert and the fiery sun soon drank up the lake thus suddenly formed.

Inquiry brought forth the information that a similar inundation had taken place in 1849. At that time, however, the waters subsided before so large a lake had been formed.

It was these inundations which gave birth to the idea of converting a part of the waters of the Colorado into an irrigating canal for the purpose of reclaiming the lands of the valley.