Franklin Canal

The American Dam settled a quarrel over arithmetic. Under the 1906 treaty, Mexico took its share first at the Acequia Madre in Ciudad Juárez, and only the remainder flowed into the Franklin Canal. Some American estimates said Mexico was taking up to three times its share. In 1935 Congress authorized a dam just inside New Mexico to measure Mexico's water and pass it on, and a two-mile American Canal to carry everything else to the Franklin Canal.

What the plaque says

Franklin Canal For centuries, the Rio Grande has been molded and shaped by the humans living along its banks. Informal irrigation systems have existed along the life-sustaining river from the Spanish Colonial period. As early as the 1840s, area farmers began more modern improvements on these systems. By 1889 El Paso developers needed a means to efficiently provide water to farmers in the El Paso Valley. The El Paso Irrigation Company began construction on the Franklin Canal the following year. A dispute between the U. S. and Mexico over water rights led to the international treaty of 1906, in which it was agreed that the U. S. would deliver 60,000 acre feet of water to Mexico via the Franklin Canal. Completed in 1912, the canal began at the international dam and extended five miles, paralleling the Rio Grande on its north bank and continuing through downtown El Paso. It was intended to deliver water thirty miles into the El Paso Valley. Demands on the canal increased as the area's population grew. Upgrades began in 1914 and continued into the 1930s. The American Dam was created in 1938 to hinder the efforts of Mexican citizens to siphon water from the Rio Grande. Modifications have been made to Franklin Canal throughout the 20th century. It is an important element in the history of water control along the U.S.-Mexico border. Essential to irrigation on both sides of the Rio Grande, the canal continues to affect development in both countries. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chamizal National Memorial — 0.7 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 2.0 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 8.7 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 9.4 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• Urbici Soler — 0.3 mi
• Henry C. Trost — 0.3 mi
• Victoriano Huerta — 0.4 mi
• Estela Portillo Trambley — 0.6 mi