Laguna Diversion Dam
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The Laguna Diversion Dam is an earthfill diversion dam located 13 miles Northeast of Yuma, Arizona. It creates the Laguna Reservoir along the Colorado River. Constructed between 1909 and 1924, the Laguna Dam was decorated with numerous swastikas, thus developing the eventual nickname "Swastika Dam." It should be strongly noted that the swastikas present on this structure were not put there for racist reasons or anything remotely negative. They were placed there far before Hitler altered the meaning of the swastika. This dam was the first authorized dam built on the Colorado which originally diverted water to farmlands in the Yuma area.
The dam was built due to the passage of the Reclamation Act by the US Congress in 1902, creating the Bureau of Reclamation, originally known as the U.S. Reclamation Service. In 1903 the U.S. Reclamation Service moved into the Yuma area and created what was called "the great Yuma Irrigation Project." This project was the first development of the U.S. Reclamation Service along the Lower Colorado River.
[edit] External links
- USBR Laguna Diversion Dam Website
- Swastika Dam article by Walter Smoter Frank
- USBR History of Laguna Dam
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