| OCR Text |
Show Upon President Young's return to Salt Lake City, he began to finalize plans for a large scale colonization of the area. In October, 1861, he called over 300 men, most of them heads of famil ies to go to Dixie and establish a new town (now called St. George) "between those volcanic ridges"thatwould become the center of a Cotton Mission. Most of the other colonies that Brigham Young establ ished were settled by a small group of famil ies. Perhaps it was foreknowledge of the difficulties that would be encountered in colonising this rugged area, where the settlers were constantly plagued with floods, drought, maleria, heat, as much as the anxiety of Brigham Young to quickly establ ish a cotton supply that led him to send such a large group to his Dixie. Included in the group were several of the church's leading authorities who left their established homes to permanently reside in this far removed outpost. The group (which total led between seven and eight hundred people) journeyed South and arrived at the present site of St. George on November 25, 1961. A community was quickly organized, streets laid out, a water system designed. The construction of individial homesites was started. Then, on Christmas Day, a rain began to fall that lasted forty days. By its end, a large portion of the homesteads that existed before this group arrived in the Santa Clara settlements, Washington, Herbervi lie, Grafton, etc. were destroyed. The 1 ittle village of Tonaquint was swept away, never to rise again. St. George survived, however, and in spite of constant difficulties, has become one of the largest settlements in the Southern Utah area. In 1863, Heberville, which had been abandoned since the Horne party left in A dam was rebuilt, a canal made, and 312 acres of 1859, was resettled. land surveyed. By 1866, 100 acres were under cultivation. However, the cost of maintaining a water system to irrigate the crops was extremely high. Moreover, as St. George developed, it was also hard to convince fami lies to struggle to develop a new townsite when they could live in a more developed area only a few miles away. Thus, in 1867, Heberville was again abandoned. In 1870, Heberville was resettled for a third time. Although the previous settlers experienced considerable difficulty keeping water in the canal system, the land had proved extremely ferti Ie with excellent soil characteristics. Thus, the pioneers again attempted to bring the land under cultivation, this time through the creation of a cooperative farming company. The cooperative farming company, organized with Robert Gardner as its president, struggled to get the land productive. Improvements were made in the water system but the crops harvested barely paid for the costs to keep the irrigation system repaired. Then, in 1874, Brigham Young unveiled a new program which he felt emcompassed the basic tenants for a perfect society called the United Order. This new program, some say influenced by The Panic of 1873, was first introduced in the Dixie area. The United Order consisted of a program wherein all goods and resources were to be owned Such in a common system and shared by all the participants of the system. a program had been attempted unsuccessfully in the early days of the church. Brigham Young chose to reintroduce the order in the Dixie area, probably because no-one there had yet amassed wealth and any successes had come as a result of cooperative efforts. At any rate, in St. George's new tabernacle, President Young delivered a moving sermon call ing for the establ ishment of a "United Order" on February 15, 1974. Two days later, |
