I am assuming that those lazy ass Indians still haven't done anything with my Grandfather's ranch, but I haven't been there in over 15 years. From the 1940's up until the mid 70's my Grandfather farmed the 600 acres that lies behind Water Wheel, first with cattle ranching, then with cotton, alfalfa, corn. Loved playing hide n seek in that corn. There used to be a little store out on the main highway about 150 yards before WW turnoff and a bunch of mailboxes for the peeps who lived on the river just outside the park and downriver from WW.
The park was only about half the size it is now as my Grandfather stored massive amounts of hay where many of the backrow trailers are now. The ranch stretched almost all the way down to where that shallow righthand bend is going downriver. There were 3 massive pumps on platforms taking water from the river for his crops. The Indians could never figure out how to account for the rise and fall of the water level and so their crops always failed due to flood or drought in the years after they took it over. The water flowed in canals about 6 foot wide and 4-5 foot deep and as a kid we often wouldn't even go down to the river as we has our own private river right up at the road. As a kid from about 4 to 12 summers didn't get any better than ours was. My mom and dad couldn't even swim but because they were teachers me and my sister and cousins and friends spent endless days at the river. Well until a giant cottonwood branch fell and crushed our trailer in the middle of the night. My sister and I were spared from from death by about 6 feet. No shit, no exaggeration, the branch was 42 inches wide and fell from over 20 feet. Scumbags looted the trailer before the week was out. If you old timers ever saw a purple metalflake Horizon beached downriver or pulling some bad ass skiers, that'd be us most likely. Ran that things all the way from Red Rooster and Aha Q all the way to the Parker Dam. Jumped off the Agnes bridge more times than I can count to impress the girls. Hardly ever caught any fish, but we did catch a 32 lb catfish barehanded once.
Up until about 1992 we continued to dirt camp there but if we kept the beach and access cleared of brush people always trashed it up and what had been a core group of about 10-12 of us gradually drifted off, got married, sold boats for other toy, found other interests, moved away etc. Man do I have some stories about that place. Good days. Man do I miss my Grandparents. Nearly every day.
