Squaw Creek Irrigation Company
Squaw Creek Irrigation Company (SCIC) was incorporated on February 21, 1891 in Crook County, Oregon. (At that time Crook County included both Deschutes and Jefferson Counties.) SCIC was formed to construct ditches, canals and flumes for general irrigation purposes. To obtain its water supply, the corporation appropriated and diverted water from Squaw Creek, a tributary of the Deschutes River.
SCIC re-filed Articles of Incorporation on November 11, 1895 as well as a Notice of Intention to divert water.
The Field Notes for original system of canals and ditches was filed on June 5, 1897.
The original SCIC main canal was built with mules and scrapers and took approximately 16 years.
In 1903, due to heavy snow packs in the late 1800s, farmers and ranchers whose water rights were supplied by Squaw Creek decided there was plenty of water for additional appropriations. In 1905 SCIC filed this application with the State Land Board and the U.S Department of the Interior under the Carey Act for the reclamation of 11,000 acres of land to be granted by the federal government to indivduals who would reclaim the land through irrigation. SCIC hired a surveyor to create a desert land selection under the Carey Act. The surveyor filed this survey that mapped the existing main canal from Squaw Creek to Lower Bridge as well as a new east branch.
In March of 1909 a proceeding was initiated before the Board of Control (now the State Water Board) for the purpose of determining the relative rights of the various claims to the waters of Squaw Creek. SCIC appeared in that proceeding and filed a statement of claims to the use those waters and submitted proof in support of those claims. The 1909 Squaw Creek water rights adjudication was a complex process. Over 100 contested cases were heard in the matter.
The first Adjudication Decree was issued by the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon in Crook County on May 1, 1911. and the SCIC water rights were declared to perfected based on beneficial use. On September 19, 1914, a second decree was issued with supplemental findings to the original decree. These adjudications gave diverters from Squaw Creek (inside and outside SCIC)the ability to divert over 8000 acres of junior water rights.
On February 19, 1913 the local land office at The Dalles of the Department of the Interior requested a report on the progess of the desert land selection. In July of 1913, Special Agent W. B. Burt of the General Land Office (GLO) of the Department of the Interior was assigned to investigate and report.
Squaw Creek Irrigation District
In 1914 the Oregon State Legislature passed a law allowing for the formation of irrigation districts. That same year 53 water users from SCIC applied for the formation of a district under that law. Squaw Creek Irrigation District (SCID) was organized March 15, 1916 from the irrigation works and water rights of the Squaw Creek Irrigation Company. In the Order of Organization granted by the Crook County court, a preliminarty irrigation district boundary was defined. That boundary was revised by the court in 1918 to exclude properties that had objected to being included.
On October 28, 1915 Special Agent Burt submitted his Engineering Report and the Map of Squaw Creek Irrigation District. In that report Special Agent Burt did a very thorough examination of water availability and came to the conclusion that water would not be available for priorities subsequent to 1895.
On March 4, 1918 the first meeting of the SCID Board of Directors took place.
On April 21, 1924 Special Agent Burt filed another report in which he presented a complete legal and physical description of all the irrigation works and water rights of SCID. He concluded that SCID was legally organized, the irrigation works were satisfactory, the water rights had good title. He also recommended that no approval be given to applications for desert land grants be given to entrymen with adjudicated water rights later than 1895. Apparently no one paid attention to Special Agent Burt prior to 1924, because a number of entryment successfully patented land grants under the 1877 Desert Land Act between 1908 and 1924.