Sullivan Lake

I have visited Sullivan Lake many times.  The photos in this blog were taken in 2005 but I didn't write this blog until June 2019.

Sullivan Lake is more of a pond today than a lake, so will be unknown to many people. It is located between Chino Valley and Paulden just to the east of Hwy 89 – actually on Old Hwy 89.  Coming north from Chino Valley, go right (east) from Hwy 89 at MP 333.4 onto Old Hwy 89, and continue driving north for 2.1 miles to the highway bridge, with on old RR bridge just to the right.   Don’t park on the bridge, but on the edge of the road before or after the bridge.   This point is usually considered the start of the Verde River.

The photos that follow are a mixture of photos taken by these two bridges – some with the Verde River dry, and some with the Verde in flood.  This gives you a dramatic contrast!

If you look over the bridge on the east side, you will see a gorge below you, of volcanic rock (basalt).  Actually this photo was taken from the rock just below the road bridge, so you can see the RR bridge also.  Over 95% of the time, this gorge is dry except perhaps a puddle or two.  Why isn’t the Verde River flowing down this gorge that it has carved over the eons?

If you look over the bridge on the west side, you will see a dam, usually with a pond behind it and maybe a small pool at the base of the dam.  That pond is Sullivan Lake, which has an interesting history I’ll tell you about soon.  Upstream from the lake is the Big Chino Wash that flowed directly into the Verde before the dam was built.  The Wash is dry most of the year but  occasionally there is a major flood in the spring.

Here is what a flood looks like – the dam has disappeared completely beneath the rushing water.  You wouldn’t want to be caught in this torrent, which occurred in February 2005.  Upstream on the Big Chino some houses were cut off for days, stranding the people who lived there, and farther upstream.

Here is another flood photo from a different angle – scary.  The dam was well constructed on a solid foundation of natural rock, otherwise it would have been washed away.  Those cottonwood trees were on dry ground, but their base in the photo is about 6 feet under water.  

  

The first photo in this Blog showed  the Verde gorge dry.  Here is what it looks like when flooded – a rampaging river under the old Santa Fe RR Bridge.   The gorge is close to overflowing.  

The photo on the right shows the flow under both bridges.   In 2017, the road bridge was checked by the Chino Valley Public Works and found to be in “poor condition” – ADOT was expected to inspect it soon.  It was built in 1922, and is on the Historic Register.

As can be seen from this photo, the dam was constructed during the depression in 1938.  Here is some interesting background behind the project (thanks to Drew Desmond and this website, which gives full details:  
http://prescottazhistory.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-mysterious-ruins-at-sullivan-lake.html).

In the 1930s, the Prescott Sportsmen Club persuaded the City to buy some land by the Verde River gorge next to Highway 89 in the Paulden area.  The plan was to create a fishing and duck hunting lake for the Club.  The City was able to get the federal government to build a dam as a WPA project, to provide jobs for the unemployed, and include a clubhouse (see photo on right).  The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred after the dam was completed, but only the walls of the clubhouse were built.  All WPA projects were stopped as the war with Japan began.  So this is not a ruin, but an incomplete building.

By then, the lake had filled with water.  Here’s another view of Sullivan Lake and its dam – look carefully and you can see the clubhouse on the far side of the dam.   Unfortunately, the designers hadn’t taken into account the annual flows in the monsoon period, and occasional winter floods.   These events brought tons of silt down the Big Chino Wash, which was now deposited into the lake behind the dam.  Not only did all this silt fill the lake, it also cracked the dam.

Here are a few more points of interest:

1.   A friend told me that the clubhouse was a great make-out place when she was a teenager back in the 1950s.  The land there is private so you shouldn’t trespass on the rancher’s land.  In addition to the clubhouse, you may be able to see some stone duck blinds, designed for the hunters.

2.   Another major source of water for the Verde River was Del Rio Springs, just a couple of miles south of Sullivan Lake (“del rio” is Spanish for “from the river”).  

·  Del Rio Springs is expected to run dry by 2025 due to ground water mining – it used to provide about 15% of the Verde River flow.   

·   In 1863, its water was the reason why the military chose this site for Camp Whipple, and it became the first territorial capitol of Arizona for a few months.  In the following year the Camp was moved south to its present location, to better support gold mining and the City of Prescott.  

·   In 1900 about 500 acres of land there was purchased by the City for the City’s water supply. 

·   In 1909, the Fred Harvey Company purchased over 3000 acres at Del Rio, for use as a farm to supply milk, cream, eggs and meat to the various Harvey Houses along the ATSF RR.  The farm also supplied hay for the mules at the Grand Canyon.  

·   In addition, its water was shipped by rail tank wagons to supply the growing needs of tourists at the South Rim, as well as the towns of Ash Fork, Seligman, Williams and Winslow.  

·   Del Rio Springs is connected to the Verde River by the Little Chino Wash, now a dry wash except after heavy rain.

3.   Four years ago, a friend told me about some foundations of a building by Willow Lake that was inscribed with the name “Prescott Sportsmens Club”.  I was able to find it then, and went back there recently and rediscovered it.  If you are curious to find this location yourself, hike along the Prescott Circle Trail to the place where it goes under Willow Creek Road by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU).  The trail name changes from Willow Creek to Embry Riddle at the east side of the underpass.  Go east by that junction onto the Shoreline Trail, and follow it around for 1/3 of a mile, past the end point of the peninsula, staying close to the shoreline.  Look on your right for the foundation, about 50 yards past a large chunk of concrete. If you have a GPS, the reading is 12S  0367647 3830593 (that’s UTM NAD83).  

·      I have tried to find out more about the Club and its history but with little success.  (Whether the spelling is man or men, and apostrophe or not before the last “s” adds further confusion.)  The Club leased Forest Service Land for a shooting range off Granite Basin Road around 1960 (adjacent to Wildwood).  That permit expired in 2015 and the Club walked away leaving the Forest Service (i.e., us, the taxpayers) with the expense of cleaning up the lead residue.  Since then, there has been controversy in Chino Valley with another shooting range managed by the Club.  An online site indicates the Club goes back to 1954, but that’s over a decade after Pearl Harbor so I have no idea about the Club’s prewar history.  If anyone knows, please share your information with me.


Thank you, Nigel Reynolds   nigelaz@commspeed.net