|
by Walter Smoter Frank Spanning the Colorado River between California and Arizona stand a concrete dam and bridge which are decorated with swastikas. These crosses, which have come to symbolize horror for millions of people, are recessed an inch and a half into the heavy concrete surrounding them and were undoubtedly meant to last for generations. Eerily similar to the proportion and design used by Adolf Hitler, there are forty-seven of the swastikas which range in size from eight inches square up to eighteen inches square.
In 1903 the United States Department of Interior, through the Bureau of Reclamation (then called the U.S. Reclamation Service), recommended that a dam be constructed across the Colorado River between CA and AZ above Yuma. It would be the main feature of an irrigation system meant to divert water to the arid land below the dam on either side of the river. [Small pictures are links to full size pictures. After viewing large pictures use the "back" button on your browser to return to this page.]
The top layers of silt on the river bed were scraped out to a depth of twenty-five feet across the width of the river (nearly a mile) and 400 feet wide.
Because of cost overruns, on Jan 23, 1907 the "work was assumed by the government and carried to completion on March 20, 1909 by force account under the immediate supervision of the engineers of the Reclamation Service."1 The following year, water diverted by the Laguna Diversion Dam ( as the dam was officially called) was irrigating thousands of acres of AZ, CA and Indian reservation farmland. Laguna Dam was the first dam constructed by the U.S. government across the Colorado River. On both the CA and AZ ends of the dam, large concrete sluiceways (sometimes called spillways) were constructed by the government to carry the diverted waters.2
One hundred and fifty yards upstream from the AZ gate is the arched concrete bridge which was built to provide easy access to the top of the dam.
In ancient times the swastika was common in both the old and new worlds. With the ends of its crossbars bent to the right, as on Laguna Dam, the swastika was a symbol of the sun, fire and lighting for peoples from Scandinavia to India and on to China. In German mythology the swastika (usually represented in rotary fashion) was the fire whisk that twirled the earth into existence. To Buddhists it represented resignation or the wheel of the law. Later it came to symbolize life or good luck around the world. It decorated the shields of Crusaders in the middle ages and even today can be found over the doorways of public houses in Korea. A swastika, on the other hand, with the crossbars bent to the left was considered a bad luck symbol to some nations. As an example, to Hindus it symbolized night or destruction. Swastikas have also been found in the monumental remains of ancient Americans, including objects taken from old burial mounds within the United States. Similar art is also known to have been used by various Indian tribes up to the present century.
When preliminary investigations were conducted on the Laguna Dam site in 1903, core samples revealed that it would be infeasible to build a dam of a conventional design. For millenniums the Colorado River had deposited layer upon layer of alluvial deposits on the valley floor. Because of the depth of the silt, it was deemed financially impossible to construct a dam, as is usually the case, over bedrock. Consequently a dam of an unconventional design was needed--a dam resting on silt. Nowhere in the United States did such a dam exist. Government engineers were forced to look overseas for safe examples. They finally found the type of dam they were looking for on the Jumna River in northern India. Laguna Dam is called an "Indian weir dam" because of its origin. While in India, U.S. government representatives also picked up the story of the ancient Hindu God Indra, who at one time, represented thunder, lighting and rain. Indra (who had four arms and was represented by the swastika with its four arms) had the power to control water. There were those in the U.S. government who thought the swastika would be a fitting symbol for the U.S. Reclamation Service.3 During its early years the United States Bureau of Reclamation used the swastika for its symbol. The swastikas on Laguna Dam are a legacy of that period.
(One can travel Laguna Dam Road (five miles east of Yuma AZ on route 95) and follow it (eight miles) to where the county pavement ends. A few hundred yards along a continuing graveled road, one will see the large abandoned gate described and pictured in this article. A hundred and fifty yards further along rests the bridge. Because of its proximity to the road many people have seen the swastikas on the bridge, but few are aware of the swastikas on the turnouts. To view them one must cross the bridge and follow the old concrete sluiceway down to the large gate and view them from the NW side of the sluiceway.) Links: Copyright © 2004 Smoter. |
Local
lore has it that W.W.II German POWs were responsible for incorporating the
swastika within the structures while helping renovate the dam and bridge during WWII.
Although there was a German POW camp in the nearby Yuma AZ area during that period, the
swastikas were not put there by German prisoners. They were put there by the United States
Government. 
