OCR Text |
Show 35 When the company was organized in the fall of 1889, rights of way and land titles necessary to construction and commitments for canal use were used to back capital stock valued at $ 2,100,000. The Jarvis- Conklin Mortgage and Trust Company of Kansas City underwrote the company's bond issue, most of which was sold to investors in Scotland. Samuel Fortier and Elwood Mead, both of whom became big names in western irrigation development, were project engineers. William Garland, a Kansas contractor, began work immediately putting upwards of 7,000 men to work on the project Garland was only paid according to Fortier's estimates, but he claimed he had moved much more earth. He soon tied up construction with a mechanics lien on the canal company. After a long period of litigation and financial difficulty ( growing from the fact that speculators and farmers controlled much of the land independently and provided no revenue to the company), the company went into receivership. On September 1,1894, the company was reorganized as the Bear River Irrigation and Ogden Water Works Company. But problems basic to the operation had not been resolved. These, coupled with inconsistent water delivery and the high cost of water, had by this time caused substantial loss of confidence on the part of legitimate water users in the area. Ultimately the property was sold to the Utah Idaho Sugar Company in 1902 for a fraction of what had been invested. This company was able to successfully complete a somewhat less ambitious' canal system, and marketed land and water at reduced rates. 49 Over the years immense sums had been expended in advertising the Bear River project in the middle West, and a substantial citizenry from Illinois and Iowa as well as Utah had located on the project. Technically it may be said to have been a success. However, its original investors had lost heavily and the problems of not controlling both the land and water resources on a project became apparent through this and similar experiences. Many other profit- oriented Utah projects were even less rewarding. Projects launched concurrently with the Bear River lingered on as developers tried various expedients, including utilization of the Carey Act of 1894 and the Newlands Act of 1902 ( see Chapter 4). One of these, the Lake Bonneville Water and Power Company, claimed capital stock of $ 3,000,000 and had grandiose plans for developing 250,000 acres in west Millard County. After going through numerous reorganizations and placing high hopes in the Carey Act's provisions, this company's successors ultimately developed and delivered water to less than 24,000 acres ( some estimates are higher, but none exceeds 50,000 acres) in the Delta area. Losers were a succession of investors and generations of farmers. 50 Little remains of a project involving Indianapolis, Indiana, investors and the Valley City Reservoir Company. Planning to take water from the Colorado River to irrigate a quarter of a million acres in northern Grand County's desert wastes, developers projected a community named Valley City, dammed one of the desert water courses leading into the Colorado, brought a few dozen Indiana families out, and watched helplessly as summer storms produced freshets that destroyed their dam. In the mid- 1950s a derelict frame building and one or two Hoosier residents of Moab testified of failed plans. 51 George Thomas, Institutions Under Irrigation, pp 203- 217. Charles Hillman Brough, Irrigation in Utah, p 63- 70. Also see Charles S. Peterson's foreword in Robert Alan Goldberg, Back to the Soil: The Jewish Farmers of Clarion, Utah, and their World, foreword by Charles S. Peterson ( Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), p xvi- xx for discussions of irrigation efforts sponsored by corporate enterprize around the state. 51Charles S. Peterson, Look to the Mountains: Southeastern Utah and the La Sal National Forest ( Provo Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), pp 234- 235. |