Shoshone Project

Chief crops in the Big Horn Basin are sugar beets, alfalfa, barley, oats, corn and beans.

Cody and his partner Nate Salsbury obtained a permit to irrigate 120,000 acres (49,000 ha) using three canals, but were in turn unable to construct the necessary infrastructure.

Cody and local promoters again obtained water rights to irrigate 60,000 acres (24,000 ha) from the state of Wyoming in 1899 and attempted to build a private canal, but lacked sufficient resources.

Following the passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902 the state urged the Department of Interior to take over the project.

The federal government-backed Shoshone Project was authorized in 1904 by Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock, based on the 1899 Cody-Salsbury permit.