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Back
in
the early days of
the
irrigation
system and rice
farming,
rice farming was very
crude and
mostly done with mules, horses and
manual labor. Water was
very insufficient
at
times, we depended
on rain and the help
of
the river. There was at one time
around 25
canal companies
in Matagorda
County
and
they
were later
consolidated
into one irrigation
system.
The times
back
then were--the beginnings
were
real hard--the
people
had
to work
hard
and
irrigation water
was
pumped by
steam pumps out
of the river into the
canals
and distributed
out.
The canals were
built with
mule
slip
fresnos and
such
as that
and they
tried to build them large enough to
make small
reservoirs
out of them.
They
built them some
150
feet wide. They
could pump a few days
and while
the river
was on a
little rise pump
and store
up
enough water in
canals
that
would get them
through a
short
dry
period.
The
only time the river was on a good
rise was when they had had rains
up the
river, a
few
rains
or
whatever. Then they had to depend,
get
their timing just right to
run
these pumps, fill up these
canals and
feed out to the different farmers as
the
rice needed it.
Everyone
tried to hold
all
the rainwater that they
could, plus
the river
water to
make
a rice crop.
There were times when we had a drought
that rice
was hurt real
bad.
They didn't make
a
good crop,
it
would be dry, no rain.
About
the
time
they
got
a little
water in
the river
and a good
rain it
also came a
rain and washed all the levees away
and they would
lose
all the water again
and they had
to get out
there and
work,
put the levees back in shape
and
hope the river
stayed
up long
enough to where they could
pump a little water
and get
back in
shape with
the rice. These factors caused
different amount of yields
on rice back
in those
days. If they had
a good year,
a wet
year,
they made
a good
18
or 20 barrels per
acre which at that time
they
considered a sack of
rice.
They didn't weigh
it
out or
anything, it weighed so many pounds and
that was it. The most amusing thing back then was how people would
try to get water from one another. One man would get water and they
would get out at night and change the diversion locks in the canals
where they hold up water for
one man they would pull it out
and
go so they could get water to another
place--the people that was on the lower end that was out of water.
They would come up take all the boards out of the checks at night
and try to get some water and they would get maybe a 12 hour rush of
water and maybe their rice was dry and burning and I can remember
days when all the rice farmers carried a Winchester--they threatened
one another but they always hoped that neither one used the gun.
But it was back in the days when
everything was done the hard way and their rice crop was their life
existence and all it was back then was a
good
meal ticket and they had to have it to
exist, so
they went to any means and manner of
doing the best they could
to
provide for their families. In
those days most everybody lived on the farm.
If people lived in town to farm
rice, they moved out
and set up
camp, built
buildings and everything. During the
planting of the year, working up the ground, they hired a lot of
extra
what they called
"day
labor" then, they would pickup and use
to plow and plant to get the
crop in. Once they got it to-
-the levees up to the watering
stage,
they cut down to just a few men to
handle the levees. Cutting the levees with a shovel, filling them
back up by hand, then the fall of the
year
they hired an abundance of labor,
they
required
wagons and
teams, men to run the binders,
shock
rice, they had to cut it into bundles,
they tripped these binders. They had a binder then that
was
mule drawn, they cut the rice, put
it
into bundles, kicked it out. The
crew
came along and picked up
the
bundles
and put
it into
shocks,
they
stacked it on the
ground with
the
grain
up
so that the wet ground would not
destroy it and they
let it
set
7 to
14
days. Rice will go through a sweat and it dried out before they put
it in a
trashing machine to thrash it. Then
they
hired
all
the people
they
could get that had wagons and teams to
come in and they hired men what they
called
bundle pitchers. They would
go
out and
take a pitch-fork and throw this
rice
up onto the wagon, a man would drive
his wagon and team.
The man would haul it up
to
the separator, the
separator would trash the rice
out
and it would take
a
big crew to run a separator.
Back in the early days the only
power they had was steam engines
later converted to gasoline
driven tractor engines.
A
good day and a
good machine
and everything
working
proper,
they could
put out
about
200
sacks
a day.
There has been
times
where they had
good weather
and everything
was
fine, good big
crew
and no breakdowns they would
go 400 sacks
a day. They was
an exception among the farmers
and the farmer that had the biggest trashing machine and the biggest
crew.
The
rice,
after it
was trashed in
the
field,
had to be
carted
to
town by wagon
or
truck whichever was available
and very
few
trucks in
those
days, back in the Model T-Ford and
the
old little Chevrolet trucks, the method
of bringing it to the warehouse and storing it. They
had
warehouses scattered different
places
in the County. They
stored
this rice in
the
warehouses
then
the buyers come in and bid
on
it later. The irrigation system
then during
their
idle months when they quit
irrigating
they spent their
time
re-doing the canals,
cleaning
out the canals, building
checks in the canals,
bridges across the
canals,
water boxes for
the
next
year
that they knew about
-
-general maintenance--overhaul
the pumping plant, tearing the pumping plant down, redoing
shrouds
and impellers, working
over
the old
steam engines, overhauling
the boilers. Each
year
it took all winter long
to overhaul the pumping
plant
as
the years
changed and
they came
up
in the 28 and 29,
they
put in the
electric pumps
that was when V. L. LeTulle had
taken over
and these
canal companies
started
consolidating them in 1927. He bought
out, he owned a
big
After all the consolidation
of
the canal system and the
electric pumping
plants put in, the big
electric
motors, they figured that would
solve
a lot of these problems beings they
would have good horsepower, good pumps that would pump a lot of
water. There was still,
until they built the dams on the
Colorado, above Austin, there was still the chance of running out of
water during the summer,
which they did
several
times. After
these
pumps were put into operation in 1934,
the river went dry and the Gulf Coast Water Company with the, that
had been bought out by Mr. V. L. LeTulle in 1931. They went in with
the other canal companies, Eagle
Lake,
Lakeside
Irrigation, Wintermann. Garwood
Irrigation Company made a deal
with Brownwood Water and
Improvement District to get water out of their lake, they agreed for
so
many thousand gallons for
$10,000.
The
farmers
signed
some
petitions that
they
would help defray this
cost to the
canal company for this
$10,000 price
which was divided up amongst the canal
companies.
The gates were
opened
at Brownwood,
water started down
the river. At
the
time the gate stuck at Brownwood and
they
could not get
it closed
and they were
afraid it was
going
to drain their lake dry. They
went
for
several
days, and we
got
quite
a
bit more water than we had bargained for which was
a
real good
deal. They
were conversing
back
and
forth on telephone and the canal
company did not know that the
gate was jammed
and they were
wanting
to sell
more water
so as
it wound up they found out about it
they said that they
had
enough
water
that they could cut it off
and the
water
just kept
coming,
so they
got
ample
supply of
water to fill up their rice
fields.
The Gulf Coast Water
Company
had a dam, sack dam, built
across
the river
below their plant, they were going to
try to hold
all of this water that they could. With
this gate
getting stuck
up
there, there was more water coming down the river than they could
pump, therefore it washed their dam away. So they
had
a losing factor
too
and lost some of their water.
It
was a very bad year,
just
a year or two before that in
1932,
they had
a
bad storm to come and it wiped out one of the
rice
crops.
In 1934 they had a drought and
were about to lose
the
rice
crops, they got water in time to make a
pretty good
rice crop
but it
still was
short
of what it should
have
been. Farmers
back
then had real
hard
times making a go out of it,
they made living
and went into debt, pay that off and
go
into
debt
again and they were strictly farming on
borrowed money, just trying to make a living. So after
the dams
on the Colorado
in
1935, then water got to being a little more certain and the control
of the river and it
put the rice farmers
in
the best position that they had ever been in. Modern practices
machinery coming in, combines come in the
1940s,
they kept improving their way of
getting the crop out. They
could go in with a combine and
within a few days, they could
harvest 200 acres of rice and that
helped
very much
in machinery
days. Tractors to plow with tractors to
plant with, the combines,
the trucks
hauling
the bulk
rice
to a rice
dryer
where your rice
had
to be
dried
and
stored
it
had to go through a drying
process. But farming was really on the
upgrade
as the acreage kept on increasing, more
farmers got into it, it
was a good business to be in and all
during the 30s up to the 40s,
rice kept on
'improving,
acreage on the
canal companies kept going up
and the
canal companies got to where
they
could make more money and make the
expenses and that helped everything until the 40s. Also back during
the early days, to help the
pumping there was a
raft in
the
river
to keep
the
river full of water all the
time. It
was a raft of trees
and things
that had come down the
river
over a matter of time and
had
stopped up the
river
from Wharton to the mouth of the
river.
Then in
1927-28 they started a dredging
project
to dredge all the
raft
out of the
river
and in 1928
they
accomplished this.
Therefore,
it made it hard for some of
the west
side of the river was on gravity and
the
east side
had
what they called a gravity
irrigation
system
and
when
the
river was up pretty good they could
gravity water into the
canal
down here.
Cleaning the
raft out,
the electric pumps
really
paid off
for those
times because some of the steam plants
were sitting back away from the
river far enough that they
couldn't even
get water to
the pumping plants. In fact all the old
steam plants were in little
inlets or sloughs off of
the
main river,
therefore
the
new
electric plants were built right on the
Colorado River. There
were
a few of
the
old steam plants that sit right on the
bank, but very few
of them, most of them were back off
a little
ways.
This
was part
of
the water problems that they had
all during the years. The
water
was
always
a great
job
to get it to the
rice
farmers at the
right time
and
at the right
place a
lot of
real
hard
hazards come along
--as
the floods
come
through,
you couldn't
pump
water
while a
big flood was on fear of trashing
up
and
collapsing
your suction pipe on the pump
and such as that
which made it very difficult,
everything
was against
the
farmer back
in
those days. But after the 1930s and
up
in the 40s everything with the
river clean and good control and
in
1939
the
Gulf Coast Water Company built a flash
board dam just below their last
pumping plant which helped
hold
the water level
up
to cut the
cost of
pumping
down and get
the
pumps
where they
could pump on a very low river with
water just what water was coming down
just for us
to
pump. Those
things
helped
and improved and assured a water
supply all during the 40s--everything
was on
the improvement as I said the machinery
was coming
in and 42,
43 and 44 we
from 41,42
and 43
we had several gulf storms in
here
that
didn't
wipe the
rice
crop out
but made
it
very
hard
to harvest,
they
blew it down. With the old
binder types,
you couldnt hardly cut rice
that
had been
blown down and tangled up, with
the new
combines, you can get
in and take it
very slow
and
easy
and
pick
up
this rice, they have pickup
wheels that you
put
on combines
that kinda pulled the
rice
up
off the ground where the grain
table could
take it into the machine
helped
very much in
assuring
the rice farmer that he
could at
least
get
his expenses out of the
crop
during a
storm.
Everybody was worrying about a total
loss. The one storm that we had that really
wrecked Matagorda
County was
the
last
one
during the 1940s
was
1945
and
it
was a very disastrous
storm and
it
caught most
of
the rice in
the field a few
of
the early
crops had been
cut
out but most
of
the blue rose variety and brixora [Rexoro?]
we call soup
rice in those days was blown down
and
it really
taken
a lot
of combining to get
them
out of
the bin there was
very
few
combines.
These farmers
were out
trying
to
help their neighbors that didn't have a combine and people
went
to Oklahoma
and
rented
combines and
brought
them
into South Texas trying to
get
this
storm devastated
rice in
the
ware
house all that they could. These
hazards which taken
men with real fortitude and a lot of
guts
to
get out
and
try to make a living doing this
with all the
hazards that
they
had and
it made
some
real hard times and they
really appreciated the
good times.
Then there is another story that goes along with this that back in the 30s. Mr. V. L. LeTulle had sold his canal company to Gulf Coast Water Company and in 33 or 34 he went to Rosharon in Brazoria County, a county just east of Matagorda County, and put in an irrigation system on the Brazos River and took the farmers away from the Gulf Coast Water Company. This was done with the intention that he would carry the notes on this thing if the farmers couldn't pay the notes then he would get this canal company back but so happen that they borrowed money, formed a stock company and paid him off and didn't have to lose the canal company which he intended so that is one of the reasons for Rosharon Canal Company that is now owned by TENNACO Company. They are still in operation and doing real good.
There was a lot of stories back in the days about the farmers during the 30s and after the depression a man moved to Matagorda County and bought a little piece of land and went into the bank to see Mr. Jim Lewis about a loan. He would sit down and tell him about how much equipment he had, how many plows and how many tractors and when they got through listing to all his equities and equipment Mr. Lewis would ask him how many acres of rice was you figuring on farming? The man said "I wasn't going to farm rice, I was going to farm cotton. Mr. Lewis closed his book, shoved it in his desk and he said "Im sorry, we don't make loans to cotton farmers.
During the 30s the main thing for the rice farmer was the water, lower reaches of the Colorado River and the water supply was almost certain for a rice crop. The farmers didn't have to---during the 40s worry about the storms. Every year or two they would have a gulf storm and wipe the crop out. All during the 40s the storms were devastating to the rice crops. The water supply had been taken off the list as critical and with the dams up the river they always had a fairly good supply of water outside the 50s they went into the drought years and water got very low and very scarce for a while, but there was still enough to make a good rice crop. The dams were the great things in the Colorado River back in the 30s the canal company build sack dams to lower pumping plants. Every little rise in the river would wash the dam out and the river would get back to normal, small supply of water the dam would have to be put back in so quite a bit of time and labor was spent sacking up sand and building sack dams across the river. In 1939 they decided to build a dam across the river permanent concrete floor, flash board style, steel gates. That was a real good thing, you could let it down in the winter time and put it up in the spring of the year for pumping season. Then in 1960, LCRA bought the following year the dam washed out underneath, it was quite a bit of time spent trying to hold the water up for the pumps while they were trying to figure out what to do and they finally decided to build a rubber inflated dam across the river which is now--never did operate and now is a flash board dam. As much tautant? can hold it 7 or 8 foot high which gives us a good supply of water for our lower pumps. During the 60s after the dam was built and the rubber tube was put in, the rubber dam was experimental. There was four to five tubes put in before we decided that it wasn't the thing. They were very troublesome and were good as long as the river wasn't on a rise, as soon as you got a rain up the river and a rise down the river it was just like running a flat tire, it didn't last anytime. Later we finally did away with it and went strictly to steel gates, flash boards and had very little problem with it. Rise come along, break a few boards out, replace them after the rise and everything is fine. We had a good dam, but it had to be manhandled. All during the 60s, the water was good, the dams were getting fixed so that we could handle the water after the river rises. The dam got to be a small problem, good water up the river, LCRA built up the river gave us real good water practically guaranteed a rice crop as far as water was concerned where back in the 30s and 40s it was very hard to get enough water to make a good rice crop out of the Colorado. The river furnishes a good supply of water it's a guarantee of a crop on the coast. , Back during the days that they had the raft on the Colorado River, that held it up for all the old pumping plants, steam plants that were on here and it made a real nice thing when the rains came down and we had a little flooding problem. That was the cause to build a little protection levee to keep each side of the river from Wharton County down to the Gulf of Mexico. Then these counties decided that they would try to get somebody to clean the raft out of the river which was an accumulation of trees and debris over a period of years during the 19s and 20s and they finally got a dredging company to take contact on it--Howard Pennion? Dredging Company and they started dredging up at Wharton County where the raft started and they worked on it for several months and they finally decided that they way under bidded theirself and they were about to go broke so they heard of a big rise -- a lot of rains came up the river and so they decided that they would use a new technique and they went and bought a lot of dynamite and scattered it up and down the river and when this rise hit they went to dynamiting and they dynamited this massive raft that was in the river--moved it out into Matagorda Bay and filled up Matagorda Bay and that is where today you have a road from Matagorda to the peninsula. After a period of years they went in and took a dragline during the 40s and built a road out there after so much sediment had settled on these trees. Today there is a lot of land down there that is caused by this raft being moved out into Matagorda Bay.
[Additional interview]
Lower Colorado River Authority
Originally, there were 27 irrigators on the Colorado River who constantly fought with each other over the water available from the River. There were 365,000 acres of water rights and barely 10% of that amount ever available in anyone year. Initial rights were given without considering availability of supply. Later improvements, the most important being the dams constructed by the Lower Colorado River Authority, the modernization of farm machinery and the development of rice drying operations began to eliminate most of the severe problems experienced by the farmer.
The system of the Lower Colorado River Authority's Gulf Coast Water Division has approximately 372 miles of main canals and laterals in Matagorda County. This system, constructed under present day cost and prices would be virtually impossible to duplicate and operate at a profit. The management and employees of the Gulf Coast Water Division efficiently operate an irrigation system which to some farmers is considered one of the best irrigation systems in the rice industry.
The station here on the west side of the River is known as Pump Plant 3 and is comprised of four pumps - two 48" centrifugal type, each powered by a 1000 HP electric motor; one 42" vertical propeller type, powered by a 700 HP electric motor and a 36" vertical propeller type, powered by a 450 HP electric motor. These pumps can be operated individually and collectively to provide the amount of water required at any particular time. With all four pumps operating, the plant is moving approximately 200,000 GPH, more or less, depending on the river stage. This amounts to about 880 acre-feet each 24 hours. A certain portion of this is lost through percolation, seepage and evaporation. Between one and two days of pumping is required to fill the canals prior to delivery of water to customers and with more than 20,000 acres planted to rice on the west side of the river, it can easily be seen that it would require ten to twelve days to water-up all fields.
The two stations on the east side of the river, Pump Plant 2 at Lane City, with a capacity of approximately 190,000 GPM, or 840 acre feet and Pump Plant 1, next to the Highway 35 bridge over the Colorado River west of Bay City, with a capacity of 60,000 GPM, or 260 acre-feet are operated in a like manner, and water some 20,000 acres planted to rice on the east side of the river.
Water Bosses, of the Water Distribution crews, patrol their assigned areas daily, keeping in contact with farmers as to their water requirements. Farmers can also call in to the Water Division office or the Pump Plant to make their requirements known. The Office, Water Bosses, Pump Plants and Repair Crews are all in 2-way radio communication and can quickly contact personnel as required to fill any particular need. Rates for the current year are $l8.50 per acre watering charge: $1.50 per acre for each flushing; $3.00 per acre for water planting and $7.50 per acre for second crop watering.
In 1897 Ross Sterling secured the right to water rice on the Colorado River and formed the Lane City Canal Right-of-Way from Pierce Sullivan Cattle Company. The Bay City boys being vitally interested in getting something going where they could make a profit, they were unable to sell cattle as meat, mostly for hides and leather market, and they needed the money.
This continued along and finally, with the main assets being the fact that we had three railroads serving Bay City, the G. H. & S. I, the T. & N. O. and the G. C. and S. F., they did get rights on the Colorado River to water rice and different land owners were willing to contribute land if they could get a contract with a responsible person who would water their rice, and they would furnish the land for the canal. The first monster they had was a dredge and they started the Bay City Matagorda Canals using this dredge and dredging out the dams and made the Gulf Coast System the finest system in the world then, because they had plenty of land to operate on, and some of those old canals are wide and big, but with all the three railroads and lots of transportation help weather conditions in the rice area were so severe, blackbirds, root maggots and other problems seemed to be insurmountable at times. The real thing that kept the industry behind was the fact that they did not have hard surfaced roads and the farmer could not get his rice from the field to the warehouse, and they did not have the modern improvements we see today. The rice had to be thrashed in the fields, sacked in bulk and taken to the warehouse and stored until sold to the mills. Adverse weather during a harvest could mean virtually a total destruction of the shucked rice.
Early irrigation companies in Matagorda and Wharton Counties were
Lane City Canal Company Pierce Sullivan Pasture and Canal Company Bay City Rice and Irrigation Company Gravity Canal Company Matagorda Canal Company Gulf Coast Irrigation Company Colorado Canal Company Sexton Rice and Irrigation Company Lake Austin Canal Company Peyton Creek Irrigation District Stewart Canal Company
On west side of the River:
Northern Canal Company |
