Raising Arizona's Dams

the long version

These are the stories of the people who built the Arizona dams, the people that the history books forgot. The book focuses on the lives of the laborers and their families, who created temporary construction communities during the building of seven major dams in central Arizona along the Salt, Verde, and Agua Fria rivers. The authors call upon a wide array of sources - archaeological evidence, census counts, court documents, government records, newspapers and magazines, oral histories, and even historical novels - in reconstructing life in these long-forgotten camps. They describe the dynamic demography of the temporary communities, the physical conditions and social life of the camps, the nature and danger of the work, and the relations among various ethnic groups.