Summary: Irrigation In Yuma

Abbigale Rivera

Coursework

Ploude 4

Irrigation in Yuma, Arizona

Intro:

Yuma, Arizona has a big agriculture industry, and is a huge agricultural center in the United States. Yuma is famous for being the sunniest city in the United States, and because of the year-round sunlight, that makes it the ideal farmland. The city of Yuma is a big leader in the lettuce and produce industries because we are able to grow crops faster than the farmers on the east coast can. Irrigation is a big deal here in the southwest because of the agriculture and produce industries. Yuma’s overall economy is mostly made up of the money that the farmers make from selling their crops to big name companies (such as the Dole company building that we have here in Yuma right

Steamboats had come in and out of Yuma frequently. However, after the Laguna Dam was finished and started operating, this prevented travel up river past the dam, and down river towards Yuma. This ended the steamboat era, at least in the southwest, but this allowed the Yuma Project to develop irrigation lines into the fields which allowed the farmers to irrigate tens of thousands of acres to grow even more produce than they were able to before the Laguna Dam. As I have mentioned in the previous paragraph, Yuma has sunny weather all year long. On the east coast, most of the land over there doesn’t get as much sunlight as the land over here does. The crops here in Yuma typically grow faster because of the surplus of sunlight we have. We can grow crops three times faster than the farms on the east coast can, thus tripling our agricultural income. Companies see the rate of growth from our crops down here, and invest in the land, increasing the amount of money our county makes. The workers down here grow many different types of crops including : “Wheat and cotton, lemons and tangerines, cauliflower, broccoli and lettuce turned the desert green..”. The agriculture business became very well known. “Yuma became famous for its lettuce--head lettuce, leaf lettuce and Romaine lettuce, a bounty

Everyone has come from different families and bloodlines, therefore, different backgrounds. Back in 1860 when the Yuma Project had begun,, “Yuma was still referred to as Arizona City at the time, and it’s estimated that there were only about 150 residents living in the area, according to the 1860 census.”. In the census, the residents had listed their places of birth. They came from states within the United States, to other countries across the world. “Residents listed their birthplaces spanning from far away states like Maine and Florida, as well as from other countries like Mexico, Canada, Germany, Ireland, France, Chile, Venezuela, Greece, Australia and China.”. The residents living in Yuma at that time had different kinds of jobs and professions. “Additionally, the residents of the time were recorded as having trades or professions of everything from steamboat engineers, brick makers and farmers, to midwives, seamstresses, carpenters, bakers and lawyers.”. However, before the pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock back in 1620, the Native American Indians from the Cocopah and the Quechan tribes were the first to cultivate, and plant on the farmlands in Yuma. They also used the Colorado River as a primary source of water to water their fields, drink, and bathe in before any settlers and developers set foot in Yuma, as well as the state of Arizona. The Native Americans were the first to use the Yuma Crossing, the safest place to