| OCR Text |
Show ON*: HUNDRED YEARS OF WATER DEVELOPMENT 10 nance of irrigation and culinary water systems outside of its corporate limits and for the benefit of large areas outside the scope of its strictly legal interest. On the other hand-! One of the recitals of the Big Cottonwood Tanner Ditch contract is, " Whereas the city is desirous of exchanging water with the Company . . . and looking also to the future development of the area and interest under the Big Cottonwood Tanner Ditch." That objective has been realized. Not only has the interest and area under that ditch been fostered and developed, but the interests of the areas under all of the exchange ditches have been furthered to an extent otherwise impossible. Adjacent to the City is a prosperous farming and suburban district which without the liberal terms of the Exchange Agreements would never have existed. Who can say that it is not worth all it has or will cost ? As the City Engineer put it in 1892, " The growth of the city is essential to the prosperity of the farmer and the farmer is equally necessary to the growth of the city." The relationship between the exchange areas as they exist today, more nearly suburban than farming, and the municipality, is even more intimate, and the intimacy will, in all probability, increase rather than diminish. Who in 1888 foresaw that by 1911 a large part of the lands under the Parley's ditches would be within the corporate limits, subdivided into small lots occupied by city residences, or even in 1905 that the Big Cottonwood Lower Canal was serving territory which by 1930 would be within the boundaries of Salt Lake City? The failure to apprehend possibilities such as these, a too narrow vision and possibly even a too narrow self- interest, have been the occasion of our ever- recurring water problem. Development has rarely been purposefully anticipatory or it has anticipated little beyond the obvious. Nearly always it has been under the pressure of immediate or nearly impending events. RECAPITULATION OF HISTORY OF WATER DEVELOPMENTS FROM 1864 TO 1928 It has doubtless been noticed that in 1864 the suggestion of introducing a greater water supply was " to meet the pressing wants of the Citizens"; that in 1879 the " Committee of Aldermen" 11. Little Cottonwood conduit, constructed during 1931 and 1932. This conduit enabled the city for the first time to use the waters of Little Cottonwood creek for municipal purposes. S. L. Tribune * wmmm :-"!*- L; S;: » :;;;.:.::' ;;•-•• |
