Roosevelt Dam
— — the wall that turned the desert green.
Not only on a wall.
“The dam that made modern Phoenix possible. Theodore Roosevelt Dam closes the Salt River where it leaves the Sierra Ancha, holding back the largest of the chain of reservoirs that water the Valley below. The original masonry wall, finished in 1911, was the tallest of its kind in the world the day it was dedicated. In the 1990s the Bureau of Reclamation raised and faced it in concrete. The bridge in front of it is the steel arch travellers cross on State Route 188.
Roosevelt Dam, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam closes the Salt River in Gila County, Arizona, about 80 miles northeast of Phoenix, inside the Tonto National Forest. It was the first major project authorized under the 1902 Reclamation Act and was completed in 1911 by the U.S. Reclamation Service. The original structure was a cyclopean masonry wall about 280 feet tall, the tallest masonry dam in the world at its dedication. A 1989 to 1996 Bureau of Reclamation modification raised the crest to 357 feet and faced the dam in reinforced concrete. The reservoir behind it, Theodore Roosevelt Lake, is the largest in the Salt River Project chain.
The original 1911 wall was built of sandstone quarried in the canyon and dressed by hand on site, set in cement carried in by a purpose-built railroad from Globe. Theodore Roosevelt himself dedicated the structure on March 18, 1911, the year after he left the presidency. The 1990s modification did not remove the historic masonry; it cased it in a new concrete arch, raised the crest 77 feet, and added a new spillway capacity to handle a probable maximum flood. The dam is listed as a National Historic Landmark and remains part of the active Salt River Project system.
The dam is reached from Phoenix via State Route 87 to State Route 188, a roughly two-hour drive that runs through Fountain Hills and along the lake's western shore. The Roosevelt Lake Bridge, a 1,080-foot steel arch opened in 1990, carries Route 188 across the river just downstream of the dam and is the public viewpoint most travellers stop for. The Tonto Basin visitor centre maintains interpretive exhibits on the construction. Boating, camping, and fishing are managed by the Tonto National Forest; a Tonto Pass is required at developed lakeshore sites.