10/30/2026
Nearly 109 years ago...as we examine the importance of voting in elections.
Please exercise your right and obligation to vote to continue this American Experiment.
The vote that created this District was reported on the front page of the Evening Herald on Tuesday, 11 December 1917, under the headline “Klamath Irrigation District Is Formed.”
The Evening Herald, Klamath Falls — official newspaper of Klamath County — 11 December 1917
“With a total opposition of five votes out of 169 cast at the election Saturday, the Klamath Water Users voted to change from a water users association to the Klamath Irrigation District, taking advantage of laws recently passed in the state legislature, and following the example of a large per cent of water users on other reclamation projects… The results of the election were announced this morning.”
So the sequence is now complete. The election was held on Saturday, 8 December 1917; the Circuit Court entered its order on Monday the 10th; the result was published on Tuesday the 11th; and the three directors qualified, were sworn, and organized in Albert E. Elder's office on Tuesday the 18th.
One hundred and sixty-four votes for, five against. Twelve years after the Association was carried 8,598 to nothing, its successor was created by almost the same margin.
And why they did it — the reason is not what you would guess
The paper sets out the case the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation Service) itself was making for the change, and the second reason is the one that matters:
Everyone pays
Under a district, “all lands included in a project are forced to bear a part of the expenses, thus forcing development and reducing speculative investment.” No more sitting on dry ground waiting for the value to rise.
And the farmers could borrow again
Farmers would “be able to take advantage of the federal loan system, impossible now because their lands are held by a first mortgage to the government until the water rights are paid.”
That is the whole story of the liens, told from the other end. Every subscription to the Association was a first mortgage running to the United States, and for as long as it stood, no shareholder in this Basin could raise a federal farm loan against his own land. Forming the District was how they got out from under it — which is why Article 2 of Contract Ilr-173, signed seven months later, required those liens to be “discharged of record,” and why the Releases of Lien of 1919 exist at all.
And what Washington was being asked for that same week
Five days after the election, the Ashland Tidings printed a telegram that Representative N. J. Sinnott had sent to the Klamath Falls Commercial Club. It sets the scale of what the District was taking on.
Representative Sinnott to the Klamath Falls Commercial Club, Ashland Tidings, 13 December 1917
“Estimates of the reclamation service and recommendations to Congress for the fiscal year beginning next June for the Klamath project are $423,000. This is an increase of $184,000 over this year's appropriation. I shall make every effort to have Congress approve these estimates (that the farmers knew they would have to repay in full)
Estimates have also been made for $200,000 for the purchase of livestock, homes, barns, and agricultural equipment on the Klamath reservation. Will try to have this increased.”
The second paragraph is worth reading as carefully as the first. In the same message, in the same week, this Basin's congressman was pressing for construction money for the Project and for a program — begun by Edward B. Ashurst and others — to give each family on the Klamath Reservation in reduced circumstances ten head of cattle and a year's maintenance.
Four hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars for the Project; two hundred thousand for the Reservation. Both requests traveled to Washington in the same telegram, in the week this District was formed.
Two names from the District's story appear elsewhere in the same issue. P. L. Fountain — the Association's founding Vice-President — and Wm. M. Cheyne were both sitting on a Circuit Court jury that week. And that evening Albert E. Elder, in whose office the District would organize seven days later, was elected secretary of Klamath Lodge No. 77.
Today, Rodney Cheyne holds the seat as District Board President, with the debt fully repaid, and title still not in hand.
https://klamathid.org/home/history/
We represent our Patrons before government agencies, the legislature, Congress, and in such forums as appropriate for the perfection and protection of their water rights. We defend the District from actions which would diminish our effectiveness and function. We further promote the conservation of w...
