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Neppel and Water: Irrigation Throughout the arid West farmers struggled to obtain water. In 1902 Congress passed the Newlands Act. This legislation, widely known as the "Reclamation Act," promoted irrigation by supporting the formation of local water user organizations, creating the Bureau of Reclamation, and setting the stage for later development at nearby Grand Coulee. Meanwhile, Moses Lake provided the water for agriculture in Neppel. Early Neppel orchardist Charles Tichacek, c. 1911. Photo courtesy of Adam East Museum and Art Center The entire country around here was apple trees before we came here in 1928. The whole peninsula was apple trees and Cascade Valley was mostly apple trees. Ed Ebel Between 1900 and 1930 farmers struggled to maintain Moses Lake's water level for irrigation. Keeping water in the lake was as much a struggle as getting it out. Neppel residents fought high water and flooding in 1925, 1933, and 1938. They built a dam at the lake's lower end and repaired it after washouts. In 1928 a group of area farmers formed the Moses Lake Irrigation District to construct another dam with control gates that would regulate the lake level. It washed out in 1941, but the farmers built another one that remains in operation. High waters flow through the Moses Lake dam, 1955. Photo courtesy of Harold Hochstatter. Roberta Quick remembers when the Alder Street Fill (now Neppel Crossing) washed out in 1933: The first two days we went across in a boat to go to school. Then we walked a plank and there would be somebody on each end of the plank. The plank was probably 12 inches wide and walk across that for maybe 25 feet, with water underneath, to get over to go to school. [It] was some months before they could get that fill repaired. Therefore, people would park their cars on one side and get across the best way they could, get their groceries, and haul them back there and get home. Roberta Quick   forward Table of Contents <> Photo Archive Oral History Archive <> Documents Archive <> Bibliography To Top of Moses Lake Exhibit