- City:
- Walker River Indian Reservation, NV
- Site Type:
- Infrastructure and Utilities, Dams
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Funding, Work Relief Programs, Public Works Administration (PWA), Indian Emergency Conservation Work (CCC-ID)
- Started:
- 1933
- Completed:
- 1935
- Contractor:
- U.S. Indian Irrigation Service
- Marked:
- Unknown
Description
Construction of the 1,950-foot earthen dam (embankment), gatehouse, spillway and outlet channel commenced in 1933 and was largely completed in 1935; the spillway gates were finished between 1937-1939. The concrete gatehouse was stamped with the year “1934” and “USIS” (Indian Irrigation Service). The purpose of the dam and reservoir is to impound much needed East Walker River water for agricultural use on the Walker River Indian Reservation.
The dam project is a good example of the New Deal at work on Indian lands. Approximately $130,000 of the project was financed by the Public Works Administration (PWA). Weber Dam and Reservoir was part of a larger PWA appropriation for conservation-related projects on Reservations in Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington. The work at Weber Dam was overseen by the Indian Irrigation Service with mostly Indian labor from the reservation. Most of the men were enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps – Indian Division (CCC-ID) (earlier called the Indian Emergency Conservation Work or IECW). The Mason Valley News (July 12, 1935) estimated the cost of the labor to be $155,000.
After some modification, the dam was capable of holding 13,000 acre feet of water. An unpaved road with wooden posts with steel cable guardrails top the dam. The downstream side of the spillway and much of the reservoir is supported by riprap.
Source notes
Historical Research Associates, Inc.
2004 Historic Context Report - Weber Dam, Walker River Indian Reservation, Nevada. Prepared for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Western Regional Office, Phoenix, November.
Johnson, Edward C.
1975 Walker River Paiutes, A Tribal History. Walker River Paiute Tribe, Schurz, Nevada.
Kolvet, Renee Corona
2011 The Indian New Deal: Scenes from the Carson Indian Agency. Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 54, Number 1-4.
Site originally submitted by Renee Kolvet on February 25, 2021.
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Robert Martinez
The design and placement was the brainchild of one Stephen Weber of the US Army Corps Engineers. Mr Weber was a “friend of the Indian”
In Schurz, there exists a mud hut on Lake Pasture Road. Just to the west of this mud hut exists the remnants of what was to be the main irrigation canal from waters collected in Weber Reservoir. The IECW and many local Paiute Indians dug the 6 mile long ditch by hand, with no machinery. The ditch idea for irrigation was abandoned soon after Mr Weber was murdered behind the old odd fellows hall in Yerington. It is said that Mr Weber was murdered by ranchers who did not favor the idea of water being stockpiled by the Paiutes for irrigation. Mr Webers murder came soon after his published report to Congress regarding the lack of funding and lack of interest in the Weber Reservoir Irrigation project on the walker River reservation.
Odd that the man who designed and chose the sight for this reservoirs own personal history has been left absent from nearly every record of the reservoir. Had Mr Webers original project plans been realized, the Walker River Reservation. Would’ve thrived in farming, instead now we see the result of his murder in the lush green valley of Yerington