Derby Diversion Dam
Washoe County, Washoe County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Derby Diversion Dam. Derby Dam, constructed under Specification Number 1 and Drawing Number 1 of the U.S. Reclamation Service, now the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, diverts the flow of the Truckee River for irrigation use. It was the forerunner of such mighty structures as Hoover, Grand Coulee, Shasta, and Glen Canyon Dams.Derby Dam was authorized by Secretary of the Interior E.A. Hitchcock on March 14, 1903. It was part of the Newlands Project, named in honor of Nevada Senator Francis G. Newlands who worked for passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902. Derby takes its name from a nearby Southern Pacific Railroad station of the day.Charles A. Warren & Co. of San Francisco, the contractor, started work on the dam on October 2, 1903, and finished May 20, 1905. Operational water diversions began in 1906.
Erected by U.S. Bureau Of Reclamation & Truckee Carson Irrigation District
The Story
Authorized in 1903 and completed in 1905, Derby Dam diverts the Truckee River for irrigation as the first structure built under the U.S. Reclamation Service—its very Specification and Drawing Number One. It anchored the Newlands Project, named for the Nevada senator who championed the 1902 Reclamation Act, and delivered its first water in 1906. Modest beside its descendants, it was the forerunner of Hoover, Grand Coulee, Shasta, and Glen Canyon Dams. Here the federal effort to remake the arid West with engineered water began.
Why it matters
Derby Dam launched the era of federal reclamation that transformed the American West, making possible the cities and farms that a dry landscape could never otherwise support.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Francis G. Newlands
- · E.A. Hitchcock
Related events
- · Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Olinghouse
Washoe County, NV
Olinghouse took its name from Elias Olinghouse, a teamster-turned-sheepman who sought quiet at the base of the Pah Rah range only to be swept up in the mining rush around him, buying claims and building a stamp mill in 1903. First prospected in 1860 but not organized until 1899, the district yielded some $410,000 in gold and silver at its peak. Electricity, telephone, and in 1907 the short-lived standard-gauge Nevada Railroad all arrived — the latter notable for running Nevada's first Shay-geared locomotives before ceasing operations within the year.
Southern Pacific Railroad Yards
Sparks, NV
Soon after 1900, crews reworked some 373 miles of the old Central Pacific line between Reno and Ogden, straightening the route and, in the process, bumping the division terminal off the main line at Wadsworth. In the summer of 1904 the railroad moved that terminal here, and the town of Sparks was born around its yards and a forty-stall roundhouse. The city owes its very existence to that relocation.
Chinese in Nevada
Sparks, NV
Erected to mark a century from 1864 to 1964, this marker honors the thousands of Chinese Americans who helped build Nevada. Drawn from across the Pacific to California's Gold Rush and onward into Nevada's mountains and deserts, they laid railroads, cut timber, and labored at countless tasks, forming sizable communities in Virginia City and other towns. Their contribution to the state's first century, the marker declares, will be forever remembered.
Sparks
Sparks, NV
In 1904 the Southern Pacific Company, then straightening the old Central Pacific line across Nevada, moved its shops and headquarters here and laid out five blocks of employee housing, selling lots for a dollar to workers who had to build within 120 days. The railroad even sliced up its Wadsworth houses, shipped them free by rail, and relocated its whole workforce on July 4, 1904. Incorporated in 1905 and named for Governor John Sparks, the town boasted one of the world's largest roundhouses and served as base for the mighty cab-forward "Mallet" locomotives that hauled trains over the Sierra Nevada.