A History of Washington County

Walter

WATER Wa ater is the key resource in a desert. Land seems boundless, but water is scarce. Not only is rainfall limited in Dixie (eight inches average annually) but its flow across the landscape is also sporadic. Sometimes small rivers and streams are placid and easily used other times they dry up. They occasionally become roaring floods and turn destructive when cloudbursts come. The speed of the accumulation, little hindered by vegetation, creates a force that uproots trees and rocks, hurling them as if they were toothpicks. In minutes the force cuts into soft riverbanks and washes away the soil the river has deposited for decades. Thus farmlands are decimated and sent down­stream as mud and debris, eventually reaching the Colorado River. Over time, grazing by cattie and sheep denuded some of the range in Washington County, causing water to run off hillsides even more quickly. Canals and Dams Diverting water to thirsty crops and maintaining diversion dams and irrigation ditches was a constant cooperative challenge for the 182 WATER 183_ settlers in the county during the first four decades of settlement. The Virgin and Santa Clara rivers were not easily tamed. Scores of men, working cooperatively, spent each winter building or repairing yet another dam or ditch to divert the waters of the Virgin. The con­struction and maintenance of the Old Virgin Ditch, the Jarvis Ditch, the Price Canal, and finally the Washington Fields Canal made the "desert blossom as the rose"-at least in spots. Once those few plots were blossoming, a second generation was on the scene. They were anxious for land. Fathers were not ready to give their land to their sons, sometimes because they were still young themselves, sometimes because they had younger plural famdies to support. The need for land and water increased with subsequent gen­erations. Settlers faced numerous engineering and technical problems in their efforts to coax the water onto die land. Washington City farmers came together to dig several tunnels (named Schlappi, Beard, Pickett, and Sproul) through the Shinob-kiab, only to have them fill with sdt, reducing the flow of water through the tunnels and causing flooding up the canal from the tunnels.1 The Old Virgin Ditch had to be con-standy guarded and maintained against breaks, and the farmers using it spent many days annually removing silt from the canal; however, by 1880 the ditch had become too expensive to maintain and was abandoned. Brigham Jarvis of St. George invented a system of sand gates, providing a means of clearing the Jarvis Ditch of silt. Through the Jarvis method for removing silt-laden water, a series of sluices made it possible for a canal to be self-flushing, removing silt with less man­power and expense. In 1870 a group of promoters, including William Carter, William Fawcett, George Jarvis, William P. Mclntire, Mathew Mansfield, Henry Gubler, Joseph Birch, Addison Everett, and John Larson, began building a new dam and ditch.2 Floods were not respectful of the Jarvis Ditch or of the next dam project higher up the river. After a huge effort to budd a permanent dam from 1886 to 1889, developers including Marcus Funk, John R. Chidester, Anthony Ivins, and Andrew H. Larson, expected a yield. No sooner was that major achievement completed than the largest 184 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY known flood to date came and literally defied all their efforts, twisting their dam's well-engineered pdings and gates with its massive force. This "dam versus flood" cycle was a life-and-death matter. Were the floods to win over the Mormons' attempts to conquer the Virgin, the area's best agricultural land (the Washington Fields) would have to be abandoned. Time after time, people found the inner resources to try again to beat the floods on the Virgin. Financial costs had to be overcome-volunteer labor was requisitioned again and again by canal companies. Many people concluded the endeavor was self-defeating and chose to move, some going to Garfield or Emery coun­ties, others to Arizona, where new Mormon colonizing efforts were underway. The population of the city of Washington dropped from 600to312inl892.3 Those citizens who stayed organized yet anotiier expensive effort, this time to build a permanent rock dam farther upriver that would double the acreage that could be watered. This great effort required outside help. A. W. Ivins went to Salt Lake City and convinced Mormon church leaders to participate even though they had their own major financial crisis with the federal gov­ernment. Many Latter-day Saints gave their tithing labor and volunteered their energy to the project. This was a "do or die" undertaking. It came at a time when previous economic supports had dried up-the cotton industry, the mining boom, the church building projects. Agriculture had become the only base for the economy. Again it meant strenuous labor in frigid water with no guarantee that their venture would not meet the fate of at least ten previous attempts. Leaders from earlier efforts, George F. Whitehead, Alonzo Clark, William Mathis, Henry Schlappi, Jack Beard, Horatio Pickett, and Andrew Sproul, Sr., were central in die effort. This dam, completed in 1891, allowed the canals to be finished by 1893 in time to meet the deadline for land-filing claims. It proved to be a real victory. It held and served as the basic structure to open up the Washington Fields to permanent productivity. By 1896 the "Report of the State Board of Equalization for Utah" noted that there were 11,122 acres in the county used for agriculture and assessed them at $14.00 per acre, sec­ond in value only to Salt Lake County at $14.80." WATER 185 Cottonwood Project St. George City has its own water story to tell. Two springs com­ing from the Red Hills inside the city limits had a lot to do with locat­ing the city where it is today, snuggled close by those springs. Together they produce just over two cubic feet of water per second, and they have been consistent for 135 years. A few smaller springs also feed into the flow. Some 400 acres and perhaps that many homes were sustained by channeling water through an elaborate ditching system requiring constant care. Old-timers love to tell of city regulations that sent them out to the ditch each morning about 5 A.M. (in the summer) and 7 A.M. (in die winter) to fill the family barrel with water. They would then wrap the barrels with wet blankets to keep the water cool. This had to be done early because by 6 A.M. (8 A.M. in the winter) cows were allowed out in the street where they were gathered from individual corrals and herded to a common grazing spot. The first thing the cows wanted to do was drink from the ditches, fouling the water for the rest of the day. For the next twenty-three hours the water was sent down various ditches to provide watering turns for gardens and farms. Before long, St. George residents realized that the city would con­tinue to grow and that they would need a more ample water supply than the Red Hills springs provided. By the mid-1860s, they had explored widely and knew of a wonderful large spring on the south­ern face of Pine Valley Mountain, some eighteen miles away. Lyman Hafen tells the story of bringing culinary water to St. George in sev­eral phases over the next decades.5 As he suggests, the project had its most effective organizer when Anthony W. Ivins was elected mayor in 1890. His efforts helped divert the Cottonwood Spring water from its natural flow into the path of the Washington cotton mill, then by canal to St. George. The next strategy, just six years later, was more ambitious. Following a plan offered by Brigham Jarvis, the St. George City Council authorized building a canal to bring water directiy from the Cottonwood Springs to St. George, bypassing the Cotton Mission mill creek. Jarvis's plan was controversial; many people felt he was 186 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY trying to make water run uphill. He had established his route with homemade surveying equipment, a simple spirit level and tripod. The city council listened to Jarvis's proposal and had Isaac Macfarlane recheck his figures. They then committed $2,000 and authorized Jarvis to issue labor certificates. It was an enormous undertaking. Hafen recorded: Yet with nothing but teams, wagons and crude horse-drawn exca­vation equipment, a crew of townsmen went to work with high aspirations. They built a ditch that wound more than 15 miles down the rocky knolls, and sprawled down the lava flats-mile after mile-to the city. Meager wages, paid in the form of water "scrip" (to be redeemed later), were promised to the men who dripped sweat and shed blood along every inch of the canal. But their pay came mostly in the satisfaction of building a lifeline from the mountain to the town. And instead of two years, the project took more than seven.6 Arrival of the Cottonwood Springs water in 1898 assured St. George of a water supply for the next several decades. Official com­pletion took until 1903 when the headgates and storage system were finished. The water flowed from the mountain in an open canal, however, which meant that nearly half of the water sank into the ground or evaporated on the way. The other problem was that the range cattle and sheep quickly discovered the canal and fouled the water while they drank. The availability of plentiful water encouraged citizens to pass a bond election in 1907 which financed installation of pipes from the headgates to individual homes, ending the old practice of dipping from road ditches. Still the water coming out of those taps was often filled with red sand if there had been rainstorms; certainly other impurities came out too because the canal was not enclosed. In 1920 another bond election was held, this time to raise $72,000 to enclose the city's water in a distribution system of wooden pipes. Later cement pipes replaced the wood. (More recently, iron and plastic pipes have replaced the cement ones.) Completion of this project was not accomplished until well into the 1930s with the aid of Federal Reconstruction Finance WATER 187 Corporation funds amounting to $150,000. These dollars were devoted to enclosing the canal from the Cottonwood Spring all the way to the city headgates. Finally in 1937, people could celebrate; they turned on their taps and received clean, cool water, a feat that would have brought tears to the eyes of their grandparents. (This New Deal largesse may have been one reason why county residents moved in large numbers to the Democratic column in the 1930s.) Enterprise Reservoir The saga of water development in Washington County-from the first diversion of streams to the later engineering undertakings- was not confined to the large communities of Dixie. For example, some people who lived in Hebron realized that there was not enough watered land to guarantee the future of their community in the northwest corner of the county. Since ranching rather than farming was the main concern of Hebron citizens, it seemed initially that Hebron could survive without irrigating much land. That was all right for a few cattle operators, but the small, self-sustaining families needed farmland and substantial gardens, so they diverted Shoal Creek water onto the land around Hebron. Many people left Hebron to search for more land, some going to Wayne County; others tried various locations in Washington County and elsewhere. Orson Huntsman was one of those who settled in Hebron but later moved because he could not get enough water to support his farm; however, other places had similar problems, so he eventually returned. His active mind kept him searching for a solution to the water shortage; he began talking with his neighbors about a major project-building a large reservoir at the head of Shoal Creek and bringing water in a steady, all-year delivery canal to the desert lands below Hebron. This was revolutionary in a way; it meant skirting Hebron and creating a new community. For Huntsman the idea was not just talk. He gradually took on the responsibdity of molding public opinion. In this he was initiat­ing a typical American frontier effort, something quite different from the church-planned land distribution of the first vfllages that earlier had shaped Dixie. His was a venture of individual initiative without the convenience of prestige or authority on his side. Huntsman soon 188 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY found that convincing people might be harder than building the dam. The older citizens of Hebron did not want to impair their hold­ings by diverting water to the proposed new community, Enterprise, even though it had a much larger potential as envisioned by Huntsman. His own father-in-law, Hebron bishop Thomas Terry, was not enthusiastic. He urged Huntsman to move to Beaver Dam, where the bishop kept a hiding spot for polygamists being pursued by fed­eral marshals. There was sufficient water there for one more family. That plan did not appeal to Huntsman, however; it did not solve the situation at Hebron. The reservoir idea had a potential for supporting dozens of families, not just one; he foresaw a community several times the size of Hebron. In 1891 he hired Isaac C. Macfarlane of St. George to survey a townsite of 130 lots about ten mUes below the reservoir site. He then filed on those 320 acres which he named Enterprise under the Federal desert land entry system. He reported: The people of Hebron, or most of them, did not want any stock in Enterprise, so I had to work on the people outside of Hebron to get a company organized. I preached reservoir for about three years in all of the surrounding towns. I went as far north as Parowan and as far south as the settlements in the Muddy Valley also to Clover Valley and Panaca in the west. I visited all these places two or three times a year and found a few people in most of the towns who would like to take stock if a company were orga­nized. 7 Such single-mindedness made Huntsman almost an outcast in Hebron. At best he was considered an irritant. One of the turning points in Huntsman's search for support was in St. George. He asked die LDS stake presidency to organize a meeting during the September 1892 stake conference where he could propose the reservoir and attract investors. Because of the press of time in the regular meetings they did not oblige him, but Thomas Judd and Huntsman stood at the doorways of the tabernacle and informed the exiting congrega­tion of a meeting early the next morning. Huntsman was skeptical that the stake presidency did not support him, but the next morning a large crowd was at the tabernacle early, including the presidency. WATER 189 He received a lot of verbal support, perhaps because Isaac Macfarlane gave a positive report of his survey. Stake President Daniel D. McArthur, A. W. Ivins, and Thomas Judd all spoke in support of the reservoir. They formed a committee, including Huntsman, to write a prospectus and have it printed. That writing took several months. Huntsman wrote the first draft based on Isaac Macfarlane's information. He took it to Ivins who corrected it, then Huntsman paid a printer eight dollars for a thousand copies. It read in part: It is the design of the company to construct a reservoir on the head of Shoal Creek at a point known as Little Pine Valley in Washington County, Utah with a capacity sufficient to irrigate an area of 5,415 acres of land. The estimates are based upon a calcu­lation by which the capacity of the reservoir shown to be 2,758,145,277 gallons which will give a depth of 16 inches of water over die entire surface of 5,415 acres of land. The reservoir will be one mile long by half a mile wide and the average depth of water will be about 45 feet. The ground covered by this area of water has an underlying strata of granite under its entire surface and there will consequentiy be very little loss, seep­age or evaporation. The land to be irrigated lies at the mouth of Shoal Creek where a very desirable townsite has been selected and surveyed on the county road between Hebron and Hamblin and is a fine sandy loam, very rich and admirable, adapted by climate and otherwise to the production of small grain, alfalfa and corn. This land is subject to entry under the Desert Act and it is the design of the company that all benefits to be derived through the cheap acquisition of tides shall be shared by all who assist in car­rying the enterprise to a successful termination.8 The dam was described to be 80 feet high, 20 feet wide at the bottom and eight feet at the top. The cost of the reservoir was estimated to be $18,947.00 and the canal at $12,923,00 for a total cost of $31,870.00. The sponsoring committee consisted of Thomas Judd, Isaac C. Macfarlane, Orson W. Huntsman, Anthony W. Ivins, Zora P. Terry (Hebron), George M. Burgess (Pine Valley), and Alfred Syphus (Panaca, Nevada). On 12 September 1893 a formal company was 190 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY organized with Bishop James Andrus as president and George A. Holt as secretary; work then commenced on the reservoir. No one knew it would take sixteen years to complete. A year later a glitch arose when George A. Holt was appointed bishop of Hebron. He switched gears and started a move to resurrect Hebron. He led an effort to build new ditches, dams, and roads to Hebron and keep the Shoal Creek water there instead of allowing it to flow to Enterprise. Huntsman and a few friends kept working on the reservoir dur­ing the winters. An itinerant mason, Chris Ammon, actually laid most of the stone, working at the task steadily. Then in November 1902 a severe earthquake hit the entire area; Hebron, especially, was damaged. The quake's center seems to have been in Pine Valley; it was felt in Salt Lake City. Chimneys were toppled throughout Santa Clara and Pine Valley. Many of the rock homes in Hebron were damaged beyond repair. By that time, some families had already moved to Enterprise or elsewhere; the earthquake prodded die rest to move and sell the water they controlled to the Enterprise Reservoir Company.9 Negotiations began immediately with the town of Hebron which was asking $19,000 for the water rights while the company was offer­ing $14,000. Unable to agree, they decided to place their case before the stake presidency and bind themselves to accept its decision. On 23 January 1904 the presidency-consisting of Edward H. Snow, Thomas P. Cottam, and George F. Whitehead-heard both sides and determined that the company should pay $17,500 in capital stock, and the people of Hebron would turn over the water of Shoal Creek. The way was open to complete the project, but the work dragged on slowly. Then in the spring of 1911, A. W. Ivins, now an LDS apostie, subscribed for 1,000 shares of stock in the Enterprise Reservoir Company to get the project moving. This amounted to about $7,500 and was a final factor in bringing the reservoir to completion. Huntsman was not an aggressive capitalist. Rather than seek profit from investment, he hoped to benefit a whole community and only be one of those who gained access to water and land. The initia­tive and persistence of Orson Huntsman, the sustained and skillful labor of Chris Ammon, the support of stake leaders, the investment of scores of local people in the Hebron/Enterprise area, and the fore- WATER 191 I 77<<- Wm^£^E^L^S!^*^^mm* mm. • ^- ~ 1 i L/ifci' .. /""•i 4 I'M B*ry*t*" -i IKS 1 , • - " ^ ' 5. <«S*>- E^^^Sofl jSSI* *s K i' . • 7 * * ^•" ',**- \::i&MMUm 4 The Enterprise Reservoir. (Photo by J. J. Booth, Heber Jones Collection) sight and resources of Anthony Ivins and many others brought about a marvel, the Enterprise Reservoir. To this day the reservoir is the key element for sustaining agriculture in the area. Groundwater pump­ing has been added as a source of water and makes large-scale agri­culture possible, but between 1920 and 1950 the reservoir was the lifeline for people in the northwest corner of Washington County. La Verkin Canal The La Verkin and Hurricane benches were obvious places where productive agriculture could be developed. The earliest settlers 192 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY inspected both sites in the 1860s, but both required that water be brought to them from the Virgin River. Because the riverbed was depressed in a deep gorge between the two benches, water could only be delivered to the promising lands if it were captured before it entered the gorge. Proposals to do this were considered in the 1860s but the costs involved seemed prohibitive; nonetheless, the idea always challenged enterprising men. In 1888 the widely involved entrepreneurs Thomas Cottam and Thomas Judd decided to venture. They hired Isaac Macfarlane to make a survey, and together they estimated that a canal could be built for $25,000. They formed the La Verkin Fruit and Nursery Company which included themselves, Eva Hardy as secretary, and Robert G. McQuarrie and Isaac C. Macfarlane as directors. Their idea was to establish orchards and vineyards on the La Verkin Bench and pro­mote major agriculture. This would be a large-scale enterprise, not a village farming system. Several people invested in the company, including Charles H. Rowe and Charles Brown of Salt Lake City and St. Georgers Andrew W. and Frank Winsor, Hector McQuarrie, and Samuel Judd. Men were hired to build a dam on the river and work on the canal. They were paid in Washington cotton factory scrip (Thomas Judd was leas­ing the factory at that time) and in company stock. The work was strenuous, hacking out a ditch in stone, even building a tunnel some 900 feet long: They went to work on the ledges, shooting them down so diat they could obtain a bed for the ditch. They made the grade six or seven feet wide, with a fall of about one inch in ten rods except near the upper end where the grade was somewhat steeper. The powder holes for blasting the ditch out of the grade thus provided were placed about six feet apart, filled with black powder, and exploded. Without tearing, the exploding powder lifted the rock, a great mass, so that about a rod of ditch could be made for every two shots (two were always placed together). The work moved along at a satisfac­tory pace, and in due time the stockholders had it completed.10 Everything appeared in readiness. In anticipation, the company had planted many acres of almond trees and grapes. They then WATER 193 turned the water into the ditch. The grade was adequate but little water came out to the land. The builders quickly discovered that the water was sinking into gypsum sections of the canal. That discovery was the start of numerous efforts to salvage the canal. They tried plugging the areas with cotton from the Washington factory. Mud was applied, making some improvement; but not until nearly 1900 did builders turn to cement, which had just become available and which finally solved the problem. In the interim, the company found it necessary to give much of the land to individual stockholders. They raised some capital thereby and finally cemented the canal all the way from the tunnel entrance to the dam. The long-range result was quite different from what the origina­tors envisioned. They had hoped for large-scale agriculture and an important company; but La Verkin actually became a community of individual farmers. The canal still remained the lifeline, and La Verkin did become a very productive area, especially for fruits and nuts. It also became a safety valve for families who could not find land elsewhere.11 Hurricane Canal Heroic tales abound in Dixie history, but none are more moving than those of the Hurricane Canal. Today we may prefer stories like those of Jacob Hamblin and the Indians where there seems to be more adventure, or perhaps we revel in the tales of outlaws on the Arizona Strip. But for sustained heroism and lasting impact, the tale of conquering the Hurricane Fault by building a canal is of real importance. The story begins with the same fundamental problem: where could the second generation find land and water to establish homes? By 1890 the idea of founding villages had passed. It was being replaced with the need to expand irrigation facilities and add farms for new families. The problem with the "up river" communities- Virgin, Rockville, Grafton, Springdale, and Shunesburg-was that their farming land was shrinking, not expanding. Floods had washed away much of the original farming area. Many families had moved away in discouragement. The grown sons of those who stayed faced 194 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY the crucial question: would they have to leave Dixie to support their families? The idea of harnessing the Virgin River as it cascaded down the Hurricane Fault and diverting it onto the vast Hurricane Bench came very early. Erastus Snow and John M. Macfarlane examined the site as early as 1867 but despaired of the engineering equipment to build such a canal. The possibility languished for many years, just as other big projects like the Cottonwood Canal and the Enterprise Reservoir had to wait until sufficient capital and engineering expertise made them possible. James Jepson of Virgin was the vital figure in the initiative. He discovered that John Steele of Toquerville was also thinking of the same idea. They selected a site in the Virgin Gorge where the walls were solid limestone. They proposed building a dam at that point, then digging a canal along the side of the gorge to bring the water from the dam to the Hurricane Mesa. The canal would be a seven-and- half mile channel through rock cliffs, requiring dynamite to carve out a bed for the water. In several places wooden sluices would have to be constructed to carry the water over breaks in the stone course. The canal would have the advantage of diverting the flow above the Pah Tempe sulphur springs, thus capturing the water while it was still good for crops. Jepson agreed to solicit the support of people in Virgin and die upper towns while Steele recruited in Toquerville and elsewhere. In June 1893 they formed an enabling committee which wrote by-laws, then organized a canal committee. J. M. Ballard of Grafton; David Hirschi of Rockville; Martin Slack, Sr., and W. A. Bringhurst of Toquerville; and Jepson drew up a constitution. Jepson was elected president of the company with J. C. Willis, vice-president; L. N. Harmon, secretary; and James M. Ballard, J. F. Langston, John W Isom, and L. J. Slack as directors.12 Work on the canal began in the winter of 1893 with J. C. Willis as construction superintendent. Nearly 100 men subscribed to the stock option and initially large crews arrived to begin the daring task of chipping out a canal from the side of the canyon's cliffs. The dig­ging was most difficult. Picks and shovels were the main tools; the men had to lower their tools and supplies as well as their food down WATER 195 into die gorge. Horses could not make it through the rock ledges, nor could workers get wagons near, so the they had to sleep under wagon covers. Some unemployed miners drifting about the country came to the area seeking jobs. Since local men were working for shares, the min­ers were not offered pay. In their desperation, they were willing to work for board. They brought skills of digging in rocks and using explosives that were sorely needed. This addition of non-Mormon skill and technology was a crucial benefit. The newcomers also added color, humor, and evening music to the band of workers who num­bered as many as 300. After two winters, the canal company ran out of capital and dis­couragement set in. Tunneling and pick-and-shovel work had been backbreaking, but now even harder stone blasting lay ahead. Enthusiasm for the task dwindled. Twice the dam broke, raising the question of whether the canal would ever receive water; but a third dam held. Only a few workers stayed with die dream. Some winters as few as three men kept at it. Those discouraging years dragged on. Wooden flumes were built where the canal could not be chipped out of the rock, but the builders had to have more capital to undertake the heavy blasting. Officers of the canal company met and decided to approach church leaders in Salt Lake City, aware that a civic undertaking could hardly justify using church funds; nonetheless, James Jepson was asked to plead their case with the church leaders. Boarding a train at Lund for the capital, Jepson first met with Mormon church president Joseph F. Smith. The following morning Jepson presented a report to the Council of Twelve and Smith. The church was itself in financial difficulties and as a matter of policy had generally refused further financial obligations. At the meeting, several apostles and President Smith asked Jepson about the project and how much money was being requested from the church. Jepson explained that diey were not asking for a donation from the church but rather for the church to purchase $5,000 worth of stock. It was discovered that the dollar amount Jepson was requesting for the project was about the same amount church members from the five wards involved had paid in tithing the previous year. Following a few additional minutes of con- 196 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY ' ;•*<: #ji<r. -- -~»*9ti Hurricane Canal Crew at La Verkin Hot Springs. From left to right: Sam Crawford, Bishop Hunter, Jess Lemmon, Joe Fames, Alfred Jones, John Hirschi. (W. L. Crawford Collection) sideration, the leaders agreed to purchase $5,000 worth of stock in the Hurricane Canal Company. Jepson later wrote, "When that motion carried, it seemed the happiest moment of my life."13 This external infusion of capital was crucial, leading to the final success of the project. Arrival of the water meant famdies could start building homes on the bench. Within two years, about a dozen fam­ilies had arrived. Soon more came; there was no difficulty finding takers for the land because about seventy-five members of the canal company had filed on the land during the canal construction to secure it for the company. Within a few years, 2,000 acres were under cultivation, watered by the Hurricane Canal. Today that acreage has been expanded to 4,000, including other water sources. The water came through a canal suspended in a rock-lined delivery channel ele­vated above the town on the edge of the Hurricane Fault. One of the tasks the newcomers to Hurricane inherited was "ditch riding." The canal had to be inspected constantly to prevent WATER 197 breaks and leaks. It was a tedious but absolutely crucial job. Frank Lee was one of those riders who will long be remembered because he died in an accident while riding the ditch. In this he joined at least one other, an Indian boy whose name has not survived. Lee lost his life in the construction to make the Hurricane Canal the lifeline for a whole new community. That canal delivered water to Hurricane for eighty years until 1985 when the water was placed in a pipeline, avoiding the old ditch route. In retrospect, the building of the Hurricane Canal characterizes Dixie-the terrible challenges of weather and landscape, the urgent shortage of land and water, the pulling together to conquer these dif­ficulties, the need of outside capital, and the endurance to carry out large projects that required years to complete. Some years later, James Jepson took George H. Brimhall, president of Brigham Young University, the length of the canal. Brimhall marveled that such a group of men would tackle a problem so difficult without capital. Jepson answered by asking the question, "Do you remember how Brigham Young called a group of people to Dixie and only about half of them responded?" "Yes," President Brimhall had heard something like that. "Do you remember that of the half who came, only half remained?" "Yes." "Well," said Jepson, "the men and women who built this canal are the children of those who stayed!"14 Mead/Adams Study Just as the Hurricane Canal was being completed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was also finishing an ambitious study of irrigation in the United States. It was headed by Elwood Mead, who was later honored for his work by having Lake Mead (created by the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas) named for him. One volume was devoted to Utah. A chapter by Frank Adams examined "Agriculture Under Irrigation in the Basin of Virgin River." This important study gives a detailed picture of the water situation at the turn of the cen­tury in Washington County. Adams spent a year in Washington County examining each of die canal companies and water projects. He garnered an understand­ing of die area's history and came to appreciate the etiiic of Dixie. His observations are insightful: 198 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY The type of institution in the Virgin Valley is essentially coopera­tive, as it is elsewhere among the Mormons. If the rights of one set-dement to water are encroached upon by the farmers elsewhere, the natural method is to stand firm as a local unit until the wrong is righted. If new lands must be brought under ditch to keep the young men at home on the farms, the usual procedure is a joining of forces until the result is accomplished. If water for irrigation is to be distributed, the only way the settlers know is to work together until each man has his rightful share. Thus it is that a forbidding country has been made fruitful where individual effort would have failed. . . . The farmer of the Virgin River is the farmer of small means and modest wants. Yet his 5 acres of alfalfa is his fortune.15 Stressing cooperation in the "forbidding country" and the search for land for second-generation sons, Adams went on to describe the Mormon village system: The farms on Virgin River, as elsewhere in Utah, are in commu­nity groups surrounding or not far from the settlements from which they are worked. Only in rare instances does a farmer live on his farm, but instead, in the village made up of his neighbor farmers. This compact village type considerably alters agricultural methods and makes the farms less diversified than is common in intensely cultivated farm homes. There is no place in the field for the fruit and vegetables that ordinarily supply so much of the farmer's living. Those products are grown in me village dooryards, where they can have the requisite care and attention. His field is essentially a one-crop field, generally alfalfa, or it may have also wheat or oats. He hauls his product 1, 2, or 4 miles to town, where he stacks it for the winter's feeding.16 Adams lists 6,504 acres in Washington County as well as 7,200 more in Kanab and the Muddy River Basin, bringing the total to 13,700 acres. He suggests that this amount could be increased to 61,700 acres if more water sources could be developed, but that would only bring the percentage up to 1.4 percent of the land sur­face. 17 One example of such an increase was occurring before his very eyes as the Hurricane Canal was being completed. He was deeply impressed with this development and described it at length. In one excerpt he said: "This undertaking has been carried on, not as an WATER 199 investment, but solely to create homes for the sons and daughters of the early settlers in the upper Virgin River towns."18 Adams concluded that the silting problem made it impractical to store reclamation water in the channel of the Virgin River. In this he was an indirect prophet of the later Quail Creek project that devised a way to divert Virgin River water away from the channel for storage. Adams discovered that the farmers of Washington County had not filed their water claims with the county recorder. Water, under the laws passed by the territorial legislature, was distributed by the county selectmen (county commissioners of today). These men served as the "guardians of the streams" and were charged to distrib­ute the water with equality and fairness based on the demonstrated need of the farmer. The county selectmen, acting on behalf of the common good of society, appointed watermasters to assist them to see that water was distributed fairly and used properly. The county selectmen issued water certificates to individual water users; through the common practice of usage, these became the basis for claiming rights to water. Until recently, little litigation over water rights has occurred in the county. Frank Adams and Elwood Mead noted at the turn of the century, "the irrigators from Virgin River are endowed with a propensity to peace, and are fairly well agreed as to their own and neighbor's rights."19 Despite this picture of harmony and isolation, Adams noted that there was some conflict over water, particularly on the Santa Clara River.20 St. George City Councd was given control of the flow of the Santa Clara River by the territorial legislature in the city's original charter of January 1862. The St. George-Santa Clara Canal Company was formed to give Santa Clara its established rights prior to 1862 as well as to give St. George its rights according to the charter. Nonetheless, the administration of water between Santa Clara and St. George for garden purposes was a continuing challenge for the Washington County Commission. An 1865 court settlement set out die parameters. The St. George-Santa Clara Canal Company was set up to deliver water to the lands in Green Valley, so there would be a basic plan; nonetheless, numerous compromises were necessary to implement the court order, and even then there were occasional harsh feelings. 200 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY Pine Valley was also given irrigation rights by the St. George City Council in the early 1860s, but that arrangement did not settle all future arguments. Serious disagreements about water on the upper creek were still unresolved, leading to a lawsuit taken to federal court. In State of Utah v. Royal Hunt, the United States Court in Salt Lake City on 20 May 1901 held that Hunt could appropriate the use of water from springs on his property and that the watermaster could not claim that water, as he had done, for users downstream. It is important to understand that the distribution of water in Utah followed a different pattern than it did in some other western states, notably California. The tradition of riparian rights, inherited from English law, was that land ownership included water ownership. The mindset of the Mormon leaders as they entered the Great Basin was different even though many of them had lived in New England and England. Their concern was for the thousands of Latter-day Saints who were yet to come west. They did not want tiiose who came first to have preemptory rights over those who would come later. Also, they were concerned that water would be in short supply in the Intermountain West. They chose to settle there because no one else wanted the land, and shortage of water had a lot to do with that undesirability. It was clear that water would have to be dealt with dif­ferently than in the riparian tradition. Brigham Young believed that people should have the right to use water, not to own it. Even before the Territory of Utah was organized, Young implemented that policy in the legislature of the Mormons' proposed State of Deseret. When the federal government organized the Territory of Utah, the legislature stated on 4 February 1852: "The County Court has the control of all timber, water privdeges, or any water course, or creek to grant mill sites, and exercise such power as in their judgment shall best preserve the timber and subserve the interest of settlements in their distribution of water for irrigation or other purposes." University of Utah economics professor George Thomas wrote of the Utah system: "the water of the streams and the lakes of the territory [of Utah] belong to the public and are subject to appropriation by individuals or to grants by the legislature or sub­ordinate bodies created by it; [this] shows a far keener appreciation of the needs of the arid regions."21 WATER 201_ Litigation was not often necessary. The Washington County Court and the St. George City Council, which were granted control of the water, were successful arbitrators and administrators, and their appointed watermasters enjoyed respect from the farmers. When Adams arrived soon after 1900, he found that the farmers did not feel it was necessary to file for water, nor were there court cases challeng­ing allotments of water.22 The Newcastle Venture In Washington County, some major engineering efforts were undertaken that failed to meet dreams to deliver water. In 1911 the St. George City CouncU undertook a project to store the Cottonwood Canal water delivered by the prized pipeline. The city councd com­missioned the building of a reservoir above the town near Black Knolls on the Red Hill. An earthen dam was built with lava boulders, taking twenty years to complete. It came to be called "Hernia Dam" because the huge boulders were so hard to move. Unfortunately, the soils underneath the reservoir were so porous that the structure would never hold water. Almost unknown by today's residents, it stands as a sUent monument to the tod of its builders. A much more ambitious idea was the Newcastle Reclamation Project. A private, for-profit undertaking, the effort involved the idea of delivering water from the Colorado drainage basin up into lands of the Great Basin. Proponents argued that there were few large tracts of flat land in the Virgin River Basin but that there were great flat areas just north, near the successful Enterprise area. If water from the upper Santa Clara River could be brought there, large farms could be sustained. In 1902 Congress passed the Federal Reclamation Act. This made federal funds available for irrigation efforts in arid lands, and it attracted several northern Utah entrepreneurs who saw the Escalante Desert as a likely site for water reclamation. They were convinced they could apply for federal funds to underwrite the water project and then use the funds to develop city lots and farms in the proposed development at Newcastle. WUlard Jones was instrumental in stimu­lating interest in the endeavor among Salt Lake City investors. Jones grew up in Cedar City and obtained an engineering degree from the 202 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY University of Utah. His enthusiasm guided the formation of the Newcastle Reclamation Company in 1908. The idea was to build a canal from the headwaters of Santa Clara Creek in Pine Valley to Grass Valley, bringing that water to a spot where they would budd a reservoir. At the back of the impounded lake, they would dig a canal to a tunnel through the mountain into Pinto Canyon where it then could flow down the canyon into Newcastle. It was a daring plan, but one fraught with difficulties. First, there was the problem of getting the cooperation of Pine Valley residents so developers could take water normally belonging to the Santa Clara users and divert it into the Great Basin. There were also the chal­lenges of constructing a canal with the correct fall as well as a reser­voir to store the water and raise its level so that the water could be taken from the back end of the resulting lake. Then the tunnel had to be constructed. Finally came the challenge of attracting sufficient capital and federal funding to underwrite these endeavors and turn the whole prospect into a profit-making venture. The amazing thing is that so much was achieved. The canal was built using Japanese labor, and by 1914 water was delivered to the reservoir. The tunnel was completed. The dam was finished by 1919 and the ditch was dug to the tunnel opening. A tremendous sales-promotion scheme was undertaken, including laying out the town of Newcastle and building a hotel where prospective buyers were courted, even to the detad of having limousines with chauffeurs avail­able to wine and dine potential investors. This undertaking had all the elements of capitalism: formation of a company, attraction of investors, a sales campaign, construction of major infrastructure, and an incentive for profit. But the dream ran into tough realities, situations that the distant investors had not sufficiently considered. The major difficulty was that the reservoir leaked, just like "Hernia Dam." Soils were too porous to create a lake large enough to back the water to the canal which entered the tun­nel. The inventive developers did not let that stop them. They changed their plan, extending the canal out of Pine Valley directly to the tunnel. But then they ran into objections of Pine Valley and Central residents, including the water companies downstream from Pine Valley. WATER 203 Steven A. Bunker, a Grass Valley rancher, was sufficiently aggrieved to sue. The company had filed on Pine Valley water, so that was no contest; but feelings in Pine Valley were very strong against the Newcastle people. Bunker had a much stronger case because the project builders had constructed a ditch right through his ranch. The ditch had the effect of draining a meadow and ruining its grazing value. Bunker's life became a tragedy over the problem; he sought redress unsuccessfully for fifteen years and finally had a mental breakdown. Although some water continues to flow through the tunnel, the Newcastie project never materialized. The hotel burned down a few years after its construction. Wells that were drdled in the town failed to produce sufficient water to make up for the flow that never mate­rialized from the dam in Grass Valley. Attempts to divert some Shoal Creek water to Newcastle set Enterprise and Newcastie into conflict. Litigation was costiy and feelings in the area were polarized. One can hike to the site today and see the tunnel, the ditch, and the reservoir, but the thousands of irrigable acres in Newcastle are still desert.23 Recent Water Development Since construction of the dramatic projects-Cottonwood Canal, Hurricane Canal, Enterprise Reservoir-area water develop­ment has been a steady process. St. George leaders soon discovered that the Cottonwood Creek water, as clear and wonderful as it was, would not be enough to sustain a growing community. When the city was nearing 3,000 people in the late 1930s, leaders began looking for supplementary water sources. Under the leadership of Bill Baker in the 1940s and 1950s, the city bought water rights from ranchers along Pine Mountain and from farmers along Mill Creek near Washington. City crews, led by Baker, worked consistently on water projects to increase the inflow to the Cottonwood pipeline by capturing spring water in East Fork, Cottonwood, Sullivan, and West Fork canyons. They constructed collection boxes on the Blake and Gubler side at Big Pine, Quaking Aspen, Slide Canyon, and Carter Springs. Often they had to carry cement in on pack animals and camp out at the construction sites because they were not accessible by road.24 204 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY The management of the whole water system for St. George was getting to be extensive, and the city fathers realized that expansion of the system would be an ongoing necessity. In December 1943, the city council assigned water-system supervision to a three-person com­mission that had been set up a year previously to administer munic­ipal power and light facdities. That commission, made up of Mathew M. Bentley, LeRoy H. Cox, and Harold S. Snow, hired councilman Clair Terry to be its secretary, requiring him to resign from the city council. He was succeeded in 1949 by Rudger McArthur, who became the director and continued in that position until 1952 when Lynne Empey took over for nine years. Rudger McArthur returned to the position untd 1985 when Wayne McArthur was appointed director. Since it is the St. George Water and Power Board's responsibility to develop new sources of water, the board has continued as a major institution in the county. Later members of the councd included Brown Hail, Shirl H. Pitchforth, and H. Bruce Stucki. Board mem­bership recently has been expanded to include Randy Wilkinson, Ross Hurst, and Craig Booth. Gunlock Reservoir The Gunlock Reservoir was one of the water and power board's early successes. Initially the board hoped that the federal government could be induced to fund this smaller project as well as a compre­hensive "Dixie Project" for the whole area. That did not happen; the city itself took leadership in promoting the dam on Santa Clara Creek. The St. George-Santa Clara Canal Company, the Santa Clara Canal Company, the Bloomington Irrigation Company, and the Seep Ditch Company banded together to seek funds from the state power and water board. Wayne Wilson of La Verkin served on that state board, representing five counties of southern Utah, and helped gain funding. Jay Bingham, an engineer from Salt Lake City, was instrumental in the design and construction of the Gunlock Reservoir. Governor George Dewey Clyde was an advocate of the project and a supporter of Jay Bingham. Bingham recounted that Clyde had been involved in water investigations in Dixie in the mid-1920s when federal econo­mists concluded that the county could not sustain an arable economy WATER 205_ because of inadequate water supplies.25 The reservoir was begun and completed in 1970 at a cost of about $1 million; however, the amount of water it stored was less than it would have been if the federal gov­ernment had built the Dixie Project, as was originally hoped. The water is used for irrigation purposes. An additional benefit has been in keeping the six wells charged that St. George City has developed just below the dam. Those wells produce culinary water that fills the 1.7-million-gallon storage tank located on the n o r th end of the Black Hill in the city. They produce seven mdlion gallons of water dady. Another major success was an undertaking to find water in Snow Canyon. City employees Rudger McArthur, Glen Gubler, and Shirl Pitchforth searched through the upper canyon area in the late 1970s. Dr. Harry Goode and Robert Cordova were employed by t he city and were instrumental in analyzing the geology. Pitchforth recalls: Dr. Harry Goode from the University of Utah stood with Rudger McArthur and me on die lava flats south of T Bone Mesa giving us advice on water aquifers as relating to the fault line on which we were standing. After advising us that we would be likely to find water on either side of the fault line but with dubious quality, he suggested we explore Snow Canyon. Our immediate answer was "Where is the fault line?" The next morning we met Dr. Goode at die mouth of Snow Canyon and he proceeded to instruct us on die possibility of finding water on the west side of the canyon near the fault line.26 Water witching was also used to select the site for drilling in Snow Canyon. Both approaches led the searchers to a place where drilling hit clear water at depths of from 700 to 1,000 feet. The spot was located inside the state park, which required careful negotiations. Santa Clara and Ivins joined in the effort and some water was shared with die park. Six wells are now pumping in the area, producing three million gallons of water a day. Kolob Reservoir and the Baker Dam Private property owners on Kolob Mesa were concerned about flood control in the late 1940s and 1950s. The St. George and Washington Canal Company and the Hurricane Canal Company began negotiations with the intention of building a reservoir on the 206 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY mesa. Ray Schmutz, Evan Woodbury, LeRoy H. Cox, and Woodrow Staheli represented the former, and Wayne Wilson, Winford Spendlove, and Raymond DeMille the latter. Wilson won a conces­sion from promoters of the Washington Fields on grounds that the Hurricane water was less dependable. Hurricane received 60 percent and the St. George Irrigation Company 40 percent of the water. The Hurricane Canal Company then made application to the Utah Water Resource Board for an interest-free loan of twenty years, which was granted. They assessed stockholders in order to buy property and construct the reservoir. That loan was paid off in the mid-1980s and the water added to the Virgin River, improving its flow for both irri­gation companies. A similar plan was followed for the Baker Dam below Central. The Santa Clara Irrigation Company and the town of Ivins joined together to gain a twenty-year interest-free loan from the Utah Water Resources Board. Once the project was approved by the state board, some people of Ivins and Santa Clara and St. George had second thoughts. They were concerned that the dam would endanger the proposed Dixie Project. Leaders from Central (Grant Keyes), Veyo (Jimmie Bunker), and Gunlock (Lee Leavitt) felt that the Dixie Project was a long time away from completion. They decided to go ahead with the Baker Dam. George Moses-Patrick Dougal became the contractor. The new company was led by Lee Leavitt, president; Max Cannon, first vice-president; Melbourne Cottam, second vice-president; with Lewis Bowler, Ether Leavitt, and M. Truman Bowler as directors. Truman Bowler was secretary-treasurer and remained a major leader in water development in the county. The dam was ded­icated 9 June 1954. Twenty years later, in 1976, it was paid for through water-user fees and has been a boon to farmers throughout the area. The Dixie Project The county's biggest water dream came on the heels of Hoover Dam near Las Vegas. There, massive investment by the federal gov­ernment created Lake Mead in 1935 and provided the water and elec­tric power that made modern Las Vegas possible. Local leaders in Washington County caught the spirit of Roosevelt's New Deal. The idea of a big dam on the Virgin River seemed to them as justified as WATER 207 was Hoover Dam. Such a reclamation project could realize a long-held dream to capture the potential provided by large runoffs during the early spring and from summer cloudbursts. Washington, D.C., officials seemed to favor water development in the West. Much of the initiative for the so-called "Dixie Project" came from Hurricane residents, including former mayor Wayne Hinton, former state senator David Hirschi, Claude Hirschi, J. Monroe Ballard, John W. Spendlove, Emil J. Graff, D. W. Gibson, Henry Gubler, Eugene Wadsworth, George Stevens, Chauncey Sandberg, Alvin Larson, Flint Wright, Rulon Langston, and J. Morris Wilson of La Verkin. Judge LeRoy Cox was an early backer. Others involved in lobbying for the project included William Barlocker, George Snow, Phillip Foremaster, Ray Schmutz, Claude Frei, Winfred Spendlove, Wayne Wdson, Evan Lee, Austin Excell, Orval Hafen, Dixie Leavitt, Lorin D. Squire, Malin Cox, and Governor George D. Clyde. This provided a broad base of leaders from throughout the county and beyond. Senator Frank E. Moss became lead man for the request in Washington. Representative Laurence J. Burton was helpful in the U.S. House of Representatives. A proposal was submitted to Congress in October 1961. The request was for $42 million, anticipating a large dam just below Virgin City and another (which eventually became the Gunlock Reservoir) on the Santa Clara. The Gunlock, Veyo, and Santa Clara farmers and ranchers were often impacted by drought and were anx­ious to have a steady agricultural water source. With backing from various local, state, and federal interests, Congress authorized the Dixie Project. The huge reclamation project, authorized at $42.7 million, was to be repaid in part from selling elec­tricity from hydroelectric power generated at the dam. Further engi­neering and geological studies of the proposed Virgin City dam site revealed that the gypsum and limestone floor of the canyon would not hold water. The geological problem could only be solved by a cosdy process of pumping cement under high pressure into dozens of drill holes. It was further discovered that the dam site was located over a fault line and severe crack lines in the earth's crust. The fault line forced the relocation of the dam site twenty-five miles down­stream, and the relocation of the proposed dam resulted in the loss of its capacity to produce electricity. This loss, the additional loss of 208 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY productive farmland, and increased costs for the new dam site would have increased the overall price of the project to $58 mdlion. Clearly the costs for the project had risen well beyond the means of Washington County to repay the federal government.27 The Dixie Project therefore was not funded. Wayne Wilson remembers making the announcement that the local Water Users Association was recommending rejection of the project.28 It was a major decision, but farmers felt the financial obligation was too big due to the fact that the project would not produce income from power generation. Many people at the time felt that the decision not to undertake the Dixie Project was tragic. Quail Creek Reservoir An outgrowth of the Dixie Project was the establishment of the Washington County Conservancy District, an entity that was required if the project was to be funded. Even though the project was not funded by the federal government, the conservancy district became a key planning agency. The district board anticipated tremendous population growth in the county. The discovery of the Dixie area by retirees made it clear that the once-isolated desert com­munities had become a destination for increasing numbers of people. The possibility of doubling the population each decade on a sus­tained basis was alarming, however. The development of residential projects like Bloomington and Green Valley convinced the board that such growth would continue. An alternative to the Dixie Project was on the minds of members of the district board. Under the chairmanship of Ron Thompson, the conservancy district board sought alternative funding mechanisms. It considered a proposal from Ellis Armstrong at the Bureau of Reclamation for a site near Purgatory, and it looked at a proposal from the 5M Corporation for a 10,000-acre foot reservoir, but the board finally decided on a project proposed by Creamer and Noble Engineers in St. George. It used as its precedent the Gunlock Reservoir, turning to the Utah State Water Board for loans to fund a new reservoir. This one was to be located at Quad Creek. The dam provided a solution to Frank Adams's warning in 1904 that a reservoir directly on the Virgin River would be destroyed by WATER 209 silting. The Quail Creek plan diverted water from the Virgin River through a canal system to avoid sdting. The district presented a bond election to county residents (instead of canal companies) for $20 mil­lion, and it passed. Bonding enabled the creative idea to be imple­mented; construction began in 1982 and the reservoir of 40,000 acre feet was half full and in use by 1987. Power generation in connection with Quail Creek was a contro­versial matter. Water falling from the diversion canal above the reser­voir allowed for some generation of electricity. The question was whether to grant that privdege to Utah Power and Light Company or to the Dixie Rural Electric Association (REA) which supplied power to several parts of the county. The conservancy district board was split on the matter, with strong feelings on each side. It was a ques­tion of receiving a firm commitment of funds from a commercial company, Utah Power, at a set amount or to gamble on the possibil­ity of a growing amount over time from a locally owned cooperative. Wayne Wdson was the chair and broke the tie vote in favor of Dixie REA, thus keeping power production in local hands. This proved to be a great revenue producer. The Dixie REA is not a federal agency; it is an electric-power-generating cooperative which includes several communities in Washington County and southern Nevada. This undertaking was budt without direct involvement by the St. George Water and Power Board, which would become its largest cus­tomer. Some delicate negotiations were required resulting in the city building a water treatment plant just below the reservoir. The city contracted to lease 10,000-acre feet of water, more than doubling the entire supply then avadable to St. George. The plant was constructed and ready for use as the reservoir filled with water. Then crisis struck. Like many other attempts to store water in Washington County, the Quad Creek dike began to leak. Sods under the lake were porous, and water seeped under the dike. Many attempts were taken to fill the leaks with cement, but the leaks con­tinued. Members of the board began considering options. They looked at two simdar dams which suggested some alternatives. Then, on New Year's Eve 1989, at 11:45 P.M., the dike broke. A massive flow of water burst out, scarring the land and rushing onto the floodplain of the Virgin River. Warning signals sounded, but many people 210 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY thought they were midnight celebrations for the new year. Quickly word spread, and all emergency personnel were called into action. Water rushed into the Washington Fields, swept away livestock, and destroyed fields and barns. The Quad Creek ddce was destroyed, a loss of $12 million. The bridge to the Washington Fields was destroyed as was the iron bridge in Bloomington Hills. The highway to Bloomington Hills was washed away, nearly isolating that suburb. Fears for the 1-15 bridge and the Bloomington bridge mounted as the waters approached, but the two bridges held. Several homes were flooded in Bloomington as the water reached the 100-year floodplain level. Miraculously, no lives were lost, but the property damage was high. The dam had held; the dike was the structure that broke. The Washington County Conservancy District and its executive, Ron Thompson, were targets of criticism because they had built an earthen dike instead of a cement one. District officials met through the night and determined to rebudd immediately on the basis of the other dams they had inspected. They talked to Governor Norman Bangerter by telephone; he came to the site the next morning and met with the district leaders. He joined them in a quick decision to rebudd, setting a tone of rallying to meet an emergency. A plan was announced to rebudd the ddce-this time not as an earthen structure resting on top of the porous sod but as a cement intrusion into the sod and side lulls that would surely hold the water back. The gover­nor pledged state support. Wayne Wdson had talked to members of the Utah Water Resources Board and gained a commitment from them to support another loan. He reminded them that all previous projects from Washington County had been paid back on time and assured them the same would occur with Quad Creek. There were a few tense hours, but unity was maintained both at the county and state levels. Within the year the replacement dike was underway, and was completed in two years. Fortunately the raging waters escaping from the ddce had flowed below the St. George water treatment plant, sparing it from damage, so when the new dike created a renewed Quail Lake, the facility was ready to produce high-quality culinary water. One might think that the final success of the Quad Creek project WATER 211 would solve Dixie's culinary water needs. For the 1990s, communi­ties involved in it can serve their growing populations, but the spiral-ing population increases will soon consume that capacity. Future growth of the county will require major expansions of water storage, as has been the case since the first springs and streams were diverted in the 1850s and 1860s. Water remains the most critical challenge for Washington County. Both ground-water and surface-water possibilities are promising. Geologic studies have identified new sources of ground water, and state and water conservancy district planning has pin­pointed sites for additional dams and dikes.29 There are, however, increasing numbers of environmental and political constraints that limit these water development options. Ultimately, water availabdity will be the prime limiting factor to further development of Utah's Dixie. ENDNOTES 1. Andrew Karl Larson, The Red Hills of November, 110-12. 2. Andrew Karl Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, 361; see also Bleak, "Annals" Book B, 43. 3. Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, 368. 4. Report of the State Board of Equalization, 1896. 5. Lyman Hafen, Making the Desert Bloom (St. George: Publishers Place, 1991), 11-14. 6. Ibid., 12-13. 7. "Diary of Orson Huntsman," vol. II, 30ff. 8. Ibid., 37-42. 9. J. Stewart Williams, and Mary L. Tapper, "Earthquake History of Utah, 1850-1949," Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 43 (July 1953): 203. See also Andrew Karl Larson, "Irrigation and Agriculture in Washington County," in Under The Dixie Sun, 54-55. 10. Larson, J Was Called to Dixie, 376-78. 11. Ruby Webb, A Brief History of the La Verkin Hot Springs and the La Verkin Canal, (n.p.: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1986), 32-40. 12. James Jepson, Jr., Memories and Experiences of James Jepson, Jr., ed. Etta Holdaway Spendlove (n.p.: Lucy Barnum and Zina Barnum, 1944), 20-21. 13. Jepson, Memories, 26. 212 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY 14. Alice Gubler Stratton, "The Story of the Hurricane Canal" St. George Magazine, Vacation Issue 1991,11-29. 15. Elwood Mead, Report of Irrigation Investigations in Utah (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904), doc. 720,58th Congress, 2d Session, 213. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., 262. 18. Ibid., 220-22. 19. Ibid., 227-331. 20. Ibid., 235-44. 21. George Thomas, The Development of Institutions Under Irrigation (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 44-45. 22. Mead, Report, 227. 23. York Jones, and Evelyn Jones, Lehi Willard Jones (Cedar City: n.p., 1972), 145-61; see also Walter Jones, "Newcastle Reclamation Project" (1985), Dixie College Archives, Gregerson Collection, 26. 24. Lyman Hafen, Making the Desert Bloom, 40. 25. "An Unexpected Visit with Governor George Dewey Clyde," letter from Jay Bingham to Douglas D. Alder, 8 August 1995, Dixie College Archives, Water File. 26. Letter, Shirl H. Pitchforth to Douglas D. Alder and Karl Brooks, 10 September 1994, Dixie College Archives, Water File. 27. David Lloyd, "The Politics and History of the Dixie Project, Utah," paper submitted to Dr. Frank H. Jonas, Western Politics Seminar, University of Utah, 1968, pp. 8,11, Dixie College Archives, Water File. See also Dixie Project, Utah, House Doc. 86, 88th Congress, 1st Session, 21 March 1963; and United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Region 3, "Definite Plan Report on Dixie Project, Utah," June 1967. 28. Washington County News, 22 March 1973, 1. See also Wayne Wilson, interview 19 November 1994, Dixie College Archives. 29. Utah State Water Plan: Kanab Creek/Virgin River Basin (Salt Lake City: Utah Board of Water Resources, 1993), 2-4.