AZ: The History of Arizona podcast · David Rookhuyzen

Episode 223: Admiral of the Arizona Navy

·31 min·2 clips

Governor Benjamin Baker Moore issued a proclamation titled “To Repel an Invasion” over Parker Dam.

1. AZ: The History of Arizona episode 223, “Admiral of the Arizona Navy,” centers on the Parker Dam dispute and the Hoover Dam’s aftermath. 2. Host David Rickhausen frames the story, cites Marshall Trimble, Thomas Sheridan, and Bureau of Reclamation accounts, and connects Arizona water politics to earlier county seat wars. 3. The episode asks what happened when Arizona tried to stop California from claiming the Colorado River. 4. Rickhausen revisits the Hoover Dam dedication on September 30, 1935, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to about 10,000 people in 102-degree heat. 5. The ceremony was moved from 2 p.m. to 11 a.m. because Harold Ickes arranged a radio broadcast using an Eastern time slot instead of Pacific time. 6. Roosevelt praised the dam as “an engineering victory of the first order” and “another great achievement of America.” 7. The host explains the naming fight over Hoover Dam, Boulder Dam, and Boulder Canyon Dam. 8. He says Herbert Hoover had been tied to Colorado River issues for years, yet Roosevelt avoided saying Hoover during the dedication speech. 9. Congress and President Harry Truman later resolved the issue in 1947 by declaring the name unambiguously Hoover Dam. 10. The episode then introduces Elwood Mead, whose name is now on Lake Mead, and notes that Marshall Trimble says Lake Powell was originally considered for that reservoir. 11. The story shifts downstream to Arizona and California fighting over water allocations from the Colorado River and the Gila River. 12. Arizona was guaranteed 2.8 million acre-feet, while California wanted Gila River output deducted, which could have reduced Arizona’s share to 500,000 acre-feet. 13. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California moved ahead with Parker Dam in 1933 and hired Six Companies to build it. 14. Governor Benjamin Baker Moore, described by Trimble as a “crusty country doctor from Tempe,” issued a proclamation titled “To Repel an Invasion” on November 10, 1934. 15. Moore wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt that California was “taking over everything in sight” and ordered troops to keep the crew from touching “the sacred soil of old Arizona.” 16. The Arizona force borrowed ferry boats from Parker, got stuck in river debris or a construction cable, and one guardsman later died of pneumonia. 17. Nellie Bush supplied those boats, had run the Parker ferry for years, and had already built a long political and professional record in Mesa, Glendale, and the Arizona legislature. 18. Rickhausen’s delivery stays wry and retrospective, mixing legal detail, construction history, and dry jokes about the “Arizona Navy” and the missing Nevada governor. 19. Listeners interested in Arizona water rights, Hoover Dam, and Parker Dam politics would get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a short, purely technical engineering summary may skip it.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from AZ: The History of Arizona podcast