Shoshone River Siphon
Posted by: 
brwhiz
N 44° 30.828 W 109° 07.697
12T E 648762 N 4930645
This Historical Marker is located at the Shoshone River Siphon about halfway between the Buffalo Bill Dam and Cody, Wyoming on the north side of US Highway 14/16/20.
Waymark Code: WMFC85
Location: Wyoming, United States
Date Posted: 09/26/2012
Views: 4
Shoshone River Siphon
The Heart Mountain Division of the Shoshone Project receives irrigation water directly from Buffalo Bill Reservoir via the Shoshone Canyon Conduit, a three-mile-long tunnel drilled through Cedar Mountain located to the left. From the conduit, the water travels over the Shoshone River through the Shoshone River Siphon and into the 28-mile-long Heart Mountain Canal. The siphon, completed in 1938, is 1,640-feet-long and at the time of construction was the longest self-supporting pipe span in the world. From the siphon, the water travels through a short tunnel in Rattlesnake Mountain, across the river to the right, and into the Heart Mountain Canal system.
About 31,120 acres are irrigated on the Heart Mountain Division of the Project, which was settled beginning in 1946. The Heart Mountain Power Plant, not visible from this vantage point, but shown in the photograph, has a generating capacity of 6,900 kVA and is one of four hydropower generating facilities using water from Buffalo Bill Dam.
Project History
On February 10, 1904, the Secretary of the Interior set aside $2,250,000 for the initial construction of the Shoshone Project, one of the first federal reclamation projects in the nation, and the largest federal project in Wyoming. The Project was settled in four divisions: the Garland in 1907, Frannie in 1917, the Willwood in 1927, and finally Heart Mountain in 1946.
Today, the Project comprises 93,000 acres. Major crops are alfalfa hay, sugar beets, dry edible beans, malting barley and specialty crops.