Originally Posted by
cScjhb
Just a bit of trivia. Most people, even locals, have no idea what the Salt River and Salt River Canyon names mean. The river is NOT salty. The acronym stands for Southwest Area Land Trust (S.A.L.T.) It is a series of 4 lakes and a river created to provide irrigation for agriculture in Arizona. A few years ago I asked one of the employees at the Roosevelt Lake Visitors Center if he knew what the name stood for. He didn't. The system terminates here in Mesa, AZ where the water is pumped from the diversion dam up to a canal system that flows through farms around here..... Jim
Here is text from an article on AZCentral.com on the origin of the name.
"The Salt River is a major source of water for the Valley. But unless we’ve had a lot of rain, the riverbed is dry through Phoenix, so it’s hard to get a feel for this vital watercourse. And where did it get that name?The Salt begins in eastern Arizona where the Black and White rivers meet. The entire watershed, which comes out of the White Mountains, is 13,000 square miles, fed by snowmelt, rain and mountain streams. The river itself is about 200 miles long.Just below the Black-White confluence are salt banks, which raise the salinity of the water, said Ileen Snoddy, coordinator of heritage for Salt River Project. King Woolsey, a rancher, prospector and guide who lived in Arizona during pioneer times, thought the banks might prove useful as a salt mine.“He had seen the salt banks, and he tried to mine them for table salts,” Snoddy said.At the turn of the 20th century, salt was important. In addition to being used at the table, it was used to cure meat.Woolsey was never able to turn a profit from the mine, though, because the salt was mixed in with a lot of other elements and was difficult to extract.Woolsey, who was “always looking for things to do, always looking to make a buck,” moved on to other ventures.The salt banks are now part of the Fort Apache Reservation and are off-limits to non-tribal members. The only way to see them is by boat during the spring, when rafting companies make runs down the river."
Kurt
Likes: 
Thanks: 
Scouting Campsites
