OCR Text |
Show Years of Loss, Years of Adjustment, 1882-1933 119 Heber Valley, for example, illegally used the western area of the Uintah Reservation for grazing their stock. This cattle "pool" became increasingly troublesome. They finally agreed to pay a fee for pasturage. But, they worked toward taking the Strawberry drainage area away from the People. Water Very little land on the reservations was arable. The lands had been left the People for the very reason that they had been rejected by settlers. However, farmers began illegally diverting water from streams of the upper Strawberry River on the Uintah Reservation. The farmers built canals which carried water off the reservation and diverted it into Daniels Creek and thence into irrigation systems in Wasatch County.12 These farmers benefiting from the stolen water petitioned Congress to enact legislation which would grant them the right to continue their operations. When such bills failed to pass, the farmers threw their support to efforts to allot and open the reservation. Such efforts were also supported by farmers in Ashley Valley (settled by Mormons in 1878) to the east of the Uintah Reservation. By 1890 most of the good agricultural land in that area had been taken up in homesteads. Settlers began to eye greedily the limited farm land controlled by the People. Gilsonite In 1885 gilsonite and gypsum asphalt deposits were discovered on the Uintah Reservation. Mining companies began pressuring Congress to give the land over to them. Unitah Agent T. A. Byrnes tried to expel and fine the trespassing prospectors and miners; he met with little success. Finally, to the dismay of the Ute People, he suggested that the land be given up to them. The Commanding Officer at Ft. Duchesne, James Randlett, agreed that the land, "was utterly worthless for any purpose to the tribes."13 The miners built a road across the reservation to the Denver-Rio Grande railroad line in order to get the minerals to market. In 1887 Congress authorized the Utah and Midland railroad to be |