Eleanor van Beuren's father was the nominal head of a group of East Coast investors that had funded what was then primarily a placer mining project.

One of the Walnut Grove Water Storage Company's engineers (not responsible for the design) was Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Oswald Brodie, who was later appointed Arizona's territorial governor.

A long-projected time for repayment of supplemental government funding killed Joseph Wittmann's project in the 1940s, leaving promises to Maricopa County families broken.

[4][5] In 1925, Griffin applied to the state corporation commission explaining the necessity of a water utility and requesting a permit to construct one in the town.

[7][8] Joseph Wittmann, continuing a legacy initiated by his father-in-law, endeavored to build a dam on the Hassayampa River, which would bring irrigation water to the town of Nadaburg.

[9] In 1929, the people of Nadaburg changed the name of the town to Wittmann, honoring the family who promised them the water reserves and canals that would irrigate their fields.

[6] Other land and claims included those that had belonged to the Wittmann-van Beuren family ever since the Walnut Grove Water Storage Company went into receivership in the 1890s.