A Mr. Litchfield had already set up a hydroelectric generator and pump on the Orange in the 1890s, since he was well aware of the irrigation potential along the banks where farmers had hauled water with difficulty to their farms since 1872.
In February 1911, Alfred Dale Lewis, section engineer with the Cape Town Department of Irrigation, conducted a detailed study of the lower reaches of the Orange.
Halted by budget issues, the plan was revived as a low-wage make-work project for the unemployed under the Great Depression-era Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in South Africa.
68 sluices were raised to filter floodwater and capture silt, and the retaining wall directed water to a canal and reservoir allowing irrigation to draw from the river all the way up to Augrabies Falls.
[2] Workers wrote poetry, danced, and sung to express their hopes that the hard work would deliver farms, factories, and houses in its wake.
The opening was a grand ceremony featuring speeches, prayers, and a braai, and all attendees were asked to contribute a stone to a workers' memorial, which would not be built immediately.