Salt River Irrigation Project, Arizona

Salt River Irrigation Project, Arizona represents one of the first federal projects authorized under the Reclamation Act of 1902. Water supply was a great concern for the nineteenth-century settlers of the American West. President Theodore Roosevelt realized that controlling water was essential for western expansion. Congress agreed and passed the Reclamation Act of 1902, creating the U.S. Reclamation Service, which would later become the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The Salt River Project improved existing dams and irrigation canals and built new dams, including the Roosevelt Dam depicted in this composition. In the immediate foreground is the arid desert, with sage bush and Saguaro cactus. In the background, mountains tower above the verdant fields made possible by the new dam. This project resulted in a rapid increase in the population of the Phoenix area. The year following the 1911 completion of the Roosevelt Dam, Arizona became the 48th state.

Frank Joseph MacKenzie was born in 1865 in London. He studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, and then in Paris at Académie Julian. He traveled to South Africa (his mother’s birthplace) and, following service in the Boer War, came to the United States to design an exhibit about that war for the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. MacKenzie moved to San Francisco in 1910, but also maintained a home and studio in Washington, D.C.