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Osmar Lysander Waller Papers, 1897-1935

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Waller, O. L. (Osmar Lysander), 1857-1935
Title
Osmar Lysander Waller Papers
Dates
1897-1935 (inclusive)
Quantity
13 Linear feet of shelf space, (22 Boxes + 1 oversize folder)
Collection Number
Cage 222 (collection)
Summary
The papers consist of correspondence, notes, drafts, reports, photographs, drawings and maps relative to irrigation in Washington and Idaho, circa 1900-1930, and to Waller's administrative responsibilities at the State College of Washington (later Washington State University), principally during the years 1920-1925.
Repository
Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections
Terrell Library Suite 12
Pullman, WA
99164-5610
Telephone: 509-335-6691
mascref@wsu.edu
Access Restrictions

This collection is open and available for research use.

Languages
English
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Biographical Note

Osmar L. Waller was born in Ohio in 1857. His young adulthood was spent moving between Ohio and Michigan and seemed to have been characterized by uncertainty about the choice of a profession. He began by receiving the type of literary-religious education then offered in most American colleges, going so far as to receive a graduate degree of that nature. Then he attended the University of Michigan law school and was admitted to the bar, but instead of practicing law he became a public-school teacher and administrator. About 1890 he moved to Washington state, where he was again admitted to the bar and where he again became a public-school administrator, this time at Colfax, Washington. In 1893, he was suddenly appointed to a position wholly unrelated to any of his previous experience -- Professor of Mathematics and Civil Engineering at the Washington Agricultural College and School of Science (later the State College of Washington, and now Washington State University), in nearby Pullman, Washington. At the time Waller had only the limited mathematical background which had been included in his education. He probably knew nothing of engineering.

A few cram courses at the University of Chicago enabled him to teach the preparatory school mathematics which comprised the mathematics curriculum at the school in its early years. This process of self-education was repeated to an even greater degree as Waller took up civil engineering. Learning on the job, he not only taught the subject for years, but also developed an extensive consulting practice. Moreover, he acquired the reputation as one of the leading irrigation project engineers in the Northwest within a relatively few years. In spite of this reputation, Waller always exhibited a certain amateurism about irrigation and reclamation, sometimes making serious errors, as in his early estimates on the Klickitat-Horse Heaven Project. Generally, however, he maintained his competency by adhering to a basic theory of hydrologic engineering which he seems to have derived for the great reclamation engineers of the British Empire, Sir William Willcocks and Robert Hanbury Brown. At times Waller was an almost pedantic advocate of their "natural" system of diversions and canals. He also seemed to shy away from the more typically American approach, with its mechanized features, big dams, flumes, pipes and pumps. Consequently, it was not surprising to find that as he led in the search for a means to water the arid region of central Washington during the 1920s, Waller was one of the foremost opponents of the Grand Coulee dam proposals and also the foremost advocate of a "gravity plan" which would have reclaimed the area with water diverted from points hundreds of miles from the land which was to receive it.

In part, Waller overcame the limitations of his knowledge of mathematics and engineering by working at jobs which were related to these fields but which did not require him to be a technical expert. At the University, he spent at least as much time as an administrator as a teacher, serving at various times as Vice-President, Dean of Arts and Sciences and Chairman of his department. He also acted as a public spokesman for the University, especially in the re-organization controversies of 1916-1917.

As an engineer, Waller likewise held a number of positions which involved the making of policy rather than technical decisions. His first major position of this nature was with the United States Department of Agriculture and consisted of a census of irrigation for the state. Bringing him into contact with most of the people concerned with irrigation in the state, this position provided the means of entrance into several later consulting jobs. It also brought him into contact with the Department of Interior's Reclamation Service and with the foremost figure in American irrigation, Dr. Elwood Mead, who was to become a close friend and confidant of Waller.

Waller's next major appointment came when Governor Marion Hay asked him to head a commission which would codify the state's water laws. His eastern legal background may have exerted some influence on the commission, where he emerged as a reformer, advocating the doctrine of beneficial use of water as opposed to the general western practice of appropriation. Though not all of Waller's viewpoints were included in the code, many were, and though the code was prepared in 1910, it was to take eight years of lobbying by Waller and others before they were to win legislative enactment of the code.

At about the same time as the state legislature enacted the water code, it also revived interest in the Columbia Basin irrigation project and appointed a commission to recommend ways of reclaiming the Columbia Basin area in central Washington. Waller quickly became the Secretary of this board, the Columbia Basin Survey Commission, and was very influential in the preparation of the report it issued in 1920. The first of a long series of reports on the Basin project, this report surveyed a variety of proposals and eliminated all but two: the "pumping plan," a scheme which would have diverted water from the Pend Oreille River at Newport, Washington, then transported it through a canal formed largely by the Little Spokane River and the Bonnie Lake-Rock Lake Coulee, with connecting tunnels, and then distributed it to canals in the Northeast corner of the Basin area. The commission strongly recommended the "gravity plan."

Throughout the 1920s Waller continued as an advocate of the "gravity plan," usually from a position on one of the bodies which succeeded the Survey Commission. He repeated earlier recommendations when he contributed to the Federal Board of Engineers' report of 1924. He also attempted to clear political obstacles while with the informal board which sought to work out the interstate agreements necessitated by the gravity plan's need for storage of water in Idaho and Montana. Coincidentally, Waller retired from active concerns at about the same time as the gravity plan fell from favor and the Grand Coulee Dam became more of a certainty. As a final touch of irony, Waller died in 1935, almost simultaneously with the beginning of construction on the great dam.

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Content Description

Osmar Lysander Waller's papers consist of correspondence, notes, drafts, reports, photographs, drawings and maps relative to irrigation in Washington and Idaho, circa 1900-1930, and to Waller's administrative responsibilities at the State College of Washington (later Washington State University), principally during the years 1920-1925. The irrigation papers are largely concerned with Waller's activities with various public boards and commissions involved with irrigation and hydrological matters, and to a lesser extent with the irrigation projects for which Waller served as a consulting engineer. Two of Waller's major public appointments, the Columbia Basin Survey Commission (and its successors) and the State Water Code Commission are heavily documented, while some materials related to such meetings as the 1908 White House Conference on Natural Resources and the 1929 Western States Governors' Conference briefly document Waller's role in each. Waller's Washington State University papers largely emanate from his positions as Vice-President and Dean of Arts and Sciences and are concerned with such matters as student records, faculty reports, grading policies, faculty appointments and student discipline.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions may apply.

Preferred Citation

[Item description]

Osmar Lysander Waller Papers, 1897-1935 (Cage 222)

Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The papers are arranged in seven series. The major series divide the papers according to function. Within each series there are several sub-series which separate the various types of materials--correspondence, reports, speeches and so forth. Material in the correspondence subseries are arranged chronologically; in the others a subject arrangement predominates.

Acquisition Information

The papers of Osmar Lysander Waller (1857-1935), irrigation engineer and official of Washington State University (Pullman), were donated to the Washington State University Library in 1935 by Waller's widow and daughter. The Irrigation Projects Papers in the Addendum (Series 6) were transferred from the defunct Geography Department to Washington State University Libraries in August of 1982. This material was unrelated to other materials sent at the same time [Accession Number: UA 82-19] and so was separated to be included within Waller's records in Cage 222. Roger and Carolynn Brislawn donated the diplomas and certificates in oversize 23 in 2016.

Processing Note

Lawrence Stark processed this collection in the summer of 1974. The Addendum papers were processed and added by Leslie J. Tevebaugh in 1986. The diplomas and certificates were added as an oversize folder 23 (in the Map Case) in 2016.

Bibliography

Some aspects of Waller's activities and of the gravity plan are discussed in Bruce Harding's Water from the Pend Oreille: The Gravity Plan for Irrigating the Columbia Basin, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 45:2 (April 1954) 52-61.

Related Materials

Roy Gill Papers on the Columbia Basin Irrigation League, 1920-1942 (Cage 247)

Columbia Basin Irrigation League Papers, 1923-1932 (Cage 5031)

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Dams -- Northwest, Pacific -- History -- Sources
  • Irrigation -- Columbia River Valley
  • Water -- Law and legislation -- Washington (State)

Personal Names

  • Waller, O. L. (Osmar Lysander), 1857-1935 -- Archives

Corporate Names

  • Columbia Basin Project (U.S.)
  • Columbia Basin Survey Commission (Wash.)

Geographical Names

  • Grand Coulee Dam (Wash.) -- History -- Sources

Other Creators

  • Personal Names

    • Chase, Marvin (creator)
    • Mead, Elwood, 1858-1936 (creator)
    • Summers, John W. (John William), 1870-1937 (creator)
    • Tiffany, R. K. (Ross Kerr), 1879- (creator)

Finding aid prepared by Lawrence Stark
2025

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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