Teddy Roosevelt traveling north on Center Street (today’s Central Avenue), saluting the throngs of citizens whom had come to welcome him to Phoenix.

On the morning of March 18, 1911, the Arizona Republican published a four-column portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt. The caption read: “The World’s First Citizen.” So widely known was the former president, there was no need to identify him by name.
In December 1901, less than two months after the assassination of William McKinley and Roosevelt’s assumption of the presidency, he went before Congress and addressed an issue dear to the hearts of Arizonans. “Great storage works are necessary to equalize the flow of streams and to save floodwaters. Their construction has been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for private efforts. Nor can it be best accomplished by the individual states acting alone. These irrigation works should be built by the national government.”
Citizens of Arizona Territory had good reason to believe they had a friend in the White House. And they did. In June 1902, the National Reclamation Act was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Roosevelt, paving the way for construction of a massive $10 million dam on the upper Salt River. Nine years later, the dam was completed and its namesake had come to the territory to participate in dedication ceremonies and nod his approval.
First, however, the former chief executive did something wholly within his character. “Col. Roosevelt lunched today beside the roiling waters of the Colorado River, 4,200 feet below the rim of the Grand Canyon,” noted a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who was part of the visiting entourage. “It was his first visit to the muddy stream that has cut its way down into the very foundation of mother earth, and he is the first occupant of the White House, who ever made the 14-mile round trip….”
At 9:20, the following morning, March 18, Roosevelt arrived in Phoenix to a tumultuous welcome. At noon, he attended a luncheon given him by former members of the Rough Riders, the regiment he led during the Spanish-American War, after which he was taken to the territorial capitol plaza. Addressing what a New York Times reporter called “one of the largest throngs ever assembled in the Southwest,” the erstwhile Colonel touched on another subject dear to Arizonans:
“I regret that Arizona was not admitted to statehood by the last Congress, and I trust that the next Congress will admit it. The objections to admitting it I regard as without warrant of justice.”
Not surprisingly, the “throng” roared it approval.
Then, seated in a Kissel Kar—he is seen here standing on its rear seat—driven by a former Rough Rider and followed by a caravan of 23 automobiles, Roosevelt was driven north on Center Street (today’s Central Avenue) where hundreds of folks lined the roadway. “Colonel Roosevelt bowed left and right as he passed through the business section,” noted the Arizona Democrat.
A short visit was paid the Phoenix Indian School, and then the caravan headed east and then north en route to Roosevelt Dam. “At precisely 4:16 o’clock, an auto shot around the bend of the big road, some 200 yards down from the dam,” reported the Democrat. “In the front seat sat a figure in a long, white ulster, wearing a black slouch hat.” The figure, of course, was the guest of honor.
Taking exception to theDemocrat, the Republican reported that the automobile rounded the bend at 4:15, to “a salute of 11 guns…the discharge fluttering the United States and Reclamation Service flags that floated over the parapets of the dam, and [then] the assembled hundreds broke into a mighty cheer….”
Admiring the colossal handiwork that stretched across the Salt River, Roosevelt thanked Arizonans for naming the dam in his honor. “I don’t know if it is of any consequence to a man whether he has a monument,” he told the crowd. “I know it is of mighty little consequence whether he has a statue after he is dead. If there could be any monument which could appeal to any man, surely it is this. You could not have done anything which would have pleased and touched me more than to name this great dam, this great reservoir site, after me, and I thank you from my heart for having done so.”
Moments later — it was 5:48 p.m. — this much admired man pushed a button and, as noted by the Republican, “a mighty roar of water rushed through the canyon and the dedication of the greatest storage dam and reservoir on earth was an accomplished fact.”
W. Lane Rogers. Photo courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society