111789

Page 2431

Forces That Shaped Utah's Dixie 125 President Young caught the vision and, with the prospect of Civil W a r ahead, called three hundred additional settlers to the Cotton Mission. They came and settled St. George. Church leaders saw7 the move as more than a colonizing opportunity; it was an important economic mission as well. I n this the Cotton Mission was not unique, as the Iron Mission to Cedar City had preceded it by a number of years. However, there were some important new dimensions to the Cotton Mission. For one thing, it was a venture in commercial agriculture rather than basic subsistence farming, typical of most early Mormon settlements. Not only that, the agriculture was based on the use of relatively sophisticated irrigation technology, that is, diversion dams in the Virgin River and a complex of canals, laterals, and ditches to supply water to the cotton fields.'2 Mormons h a d the know-how to divert the water and to turn it to their thirsty crops. But the rains came. Water from the slickrock of present Zion National Park flooded the fields, silted the ditches, and wrashed out the dams. Of course, more labor produced other dams; but often, in the meantime, crops perished in the hot sun. No crop, no sale. No sale, no food and near starvation. Even livestock suffered. Conditions in Dixie were desperate in 1863 and 1864; yet, these Saints w7ere still asked to send their share of men, teams, and wagons to assist the "poor to Zion." r ! Conditions were desperate in the whole nation in 1864—the Civil W a r hung on, and Indians raided trains westbound across the plains. Some Mormon emigrants were routed through C a n a d a to avoid trouble. Church leaders believed God was, with the Civil War, judging and punishing a wicked nation that h a d persecuted His people. More than ever, Dixie looked like a needed haven both for growing cotton and as an important station on a passenger and freight line into Zion. T h e steamers on the Colorado seemed to be the answer. Based on these presumptions, church leaders late in 1864 sent Anson Call to build a landing at the high point of Navigation (Callville). Settlers were called to Millersburg (Littlefield) and Saint Thomas (near Overton) to establish way stations and to raise cotton the next ycar. ni T h a t same season work was begun in Washington, Utah, on Brigham Young's cotton factory.'" ''' Larson, / Was Called to Dixie. '"' Ibid. See also A. Karl Larson, Erastus Snozv: The Life of a Missionary and Pioneer for the Early Mormon Church (Salt Lake City: University of U t a h Press, 1971). "*' Melvin T. Smith, "Mormon Exploration in the Lower Colorado River Area," in The Mormon Role in the Settlement of the West, ed. Richard H. Jackson (Provo, U t . : Brigham Young University Press, 1978), pp. 29-49. 53 A. Karl Larson, Red Hills of November (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1957).