Canals

5 Locations | Curated by Mark Tebeau & The Story Tour Team

The canals that run throughout the Valley are perhaps the most visible reminders of the complex interactions between human settlement and the environment of the Sonoran Desert.


A complex irrigation system conceived and dug by people between the 7th and 14th centuries informed the location of canals dug by Anglo settlers in the region in the 19th century. Drawing initially on the Salt River, Salt River Project (SRP) developed the canals extensively in the early twentieth century and expanded the system to more than 130 miles. Farms and communities received water from the canals through gates that opened the flow of water to lateral ditches. Roads were built alongside the laterals, which became the basis for the region's network of north-south streets. Over the past 30 years, most of these laterals have been piped, erasing the visibility of laterals, leaving the canals as the most obvious element of the region's complex system of waterways.


The control and use of water shaped not only the region's landscapes but became a necessary foundation for its economic and social development. Recovering stories of water through the canals helps explain how the metropolitan region emerged in the midst of the Sonoran Desert of the Salt River Valley.

WaterWorks at Arizona Falls plays with the serious subjects of water and power to bring new life to the historic falls along the Arizona Canal. SRP and the Phoenix Arts Commission commissioned the project from the internationally-renowned team of public artists Mags Harries and Lajos Héder. In…
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Arizonans often joke that whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting. Water's value to the state was made evident by the 1934 "war" with California as well as by longstanding disputes with neighboring states over the allocation of the Colorado River. The network of Phoenix-area…
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"Mother and daughter, father and son, may all be found splashing about in the cooling water of the Salt River canal, commonly known as the 'Town Ditch,' almost any evening now. There are regular canal 'beaches' where Phoenicians congregate in great numbers daily, while along its length throughout…
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There's an old joke about Arizonans and their rivers. An Arizona man is on vacation in Germany, and he visits the Rhine River. "Isn't it beautiful?" one admirer asks. The desert dweller responds, "Sure, but I can't see the river with all this water in the…
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During the twentieth century, jobs,  mild winters, sunshine, and outdoor recreation attracted millions of people from all over the United States to Arizona. Boating and sport fishing on Arizona's many reservoirs lured newcomers from states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even New…
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