Description

Water Wheel on the Hassayampa River, c. 1917.

Photograph of an unidentified overshot water wheel, streamside, in Yavapai County, Arizona territory, c. 1900's.

A waterwheel was one of the most important sources of energy. It was invented and used since ancient times. Water wheels were placed next to areas of moving water such as rivers or streams and in canals. They harnessed moving water to generate milling and concentrating machinery. When the flow was sufficient, the water wheel used flowing or falling water to create power by means of paddles or buckets mounted around the wheel. The energy they generated was then re-directed to mechanical devices and other uses where “power” was required.

There were three types of water wheels, including overshot, undershot, and breastshot wheels. Each type of waterwheel operates according to how its' source water interacts with the wheel. Overshot wheels are powered by water flowing over its' top. Undershot wheels are powered by water flowing underneath it. Breastshot wheels are powered by water entering at the side of the wheel. Water wheels were a precursor to modern hydroelectric power generation.

The Hassayampa River is an intermittent river about 113 miles long, with a watershed of 1,410 square miles. Most of the river flows through desert landscape. The river’s headwaters flow from its source outside of Prescott, Arizona, in a southwesterly direction where it eventually meets the Gila River near the unincorporated communities of Hassayampa and Arlington, Arizona. 

According to the Western Mining History website, the tributaries of the Hassayampa River drain a wide area of mineralized terrain. The ore deposits that contributed the gold found along the Hassayampa and its tributaries are of both Precambrian and Tertiary age, and it is difficult to demonstrate which vein and vein systems provided the source of the placer gold in the early days of the Arizona Territory.