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Interior Secretary Ethan Allen Hitchcock sends President Theodore Roosevelt several papers related to conditions in Big Horn County, Wyoming. Included as well is a summary report from Special Land Inspector Edward B. Linnen.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-01
This report summarizes allegations by Inspector Edward B. Linnen related to the construction of a canal in Wyoming which was fraudulently used to claim desert land as having been reclaimed. A second canal was constructed by the company which acquired title to the lands from the original company. In order to effectively irrigate the lands, the second canal had to be constructed in a materially different manner than the first, proving that the first project was a fraud.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-01
This report details how the Big Horn Ditch Company dug an irrigation canal in Wyoming in the 1880s that was not deep enough to irrigate the surrounding land. Nevertheless, government land surrounding the canal was reclaimed based on its alleged irrigation, which the author of the report appears to consider fraudulent. Stockholders in the company include William A. Richards, Commissioner of the General Land Office under President Roosevelt and a former governor of Wyoming. Based on this report, special agents in 1904 required that Red Banks Cattle Company, which owned the land in question and had the same major shareholders as the Big Horn Ditch Company, to deconstruct their enclosures and relinquish the land.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-10