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Show The Price River Project "I christen this, the Price River Canal, and may it always bring prosperity." pros-perity." Thus was the dream of President Paxnian, Grace Bros., Geo. M?cCunc, W. D. Livingston and" J. H. lToggan of seven years ago realized, last week when -with the words quot- ; ed above a little daughter of W. D. Livingston, broke a bottle of wine on the great concrete diversion dam in the center of Price river, and the Stream being turned at the moment into the great hcadgatc the waters that arc next summer and thereafter to reclaim 18,000 to 20,000 acres of the desert country of Carbon and Emery counties went coursing down through the twenty-three miles of canal and flumiug and tunnels. I The formal dedication was preceded with an appropriate address from Dr. G. II. Brimhall of Brigham Young University at Provo in the presence of four members of the state board of land commissioners, officials and stockholders of the company, visitors from Salt Lake City and hundreds of citizens of Price, Helper, Wellington -and surrounding communities. Notwithstanding the fact that the weather was cold there were many women present. After the christening some one in the crowd suggested the hinging of the "Star-Spangled! Banner." Ban-ner." The song was quickly taken up by a male voice in the throng, and then followed "America," and afterward after-ward several patriotic airs were played by the Wellington Brass Band, while the crowd marched to a Rio Grande 1 Western passenger train which was waiting nearby with its Pullman cars. The enterprise had its conception some years ago. A party of Ncphi citizens with Messrs. Livingston and Hoggan built the reservoir and dam , with the idea of taking the water through the mountain and over the n&w famous Lcvan Ridge. Some $100,000 was expended in building the dam and reservoir. The parties referred re-ferred to invested some $41,000 in this project and this with the amount invested in-vested by other parties made a total , expenditure of $100,000. Owing to a miscalculation on the part of the engineer, en-gineer, the original scheme had to be abandoned. Later Mr. Hoggtm purchased pur-chased the Reservoir," Dam, etc., at a great sacrifice to the original inves- ! tors. On Sept. 19, 1906, a company consisting of W. D. Livingston, D. M. Landrcth, R. W. Crockett, L. N. Harmon and Fitzgerald Bros, took over the holdings from Mr. Hoggan and began work on the canal. On Dec. 7, 1907, this company merged with the Abraham Company into what is now known as the Irrigated Lands Company. The officers of this company com-pany number on its personnel some of the tbest known business men oi the state. HJon. J. Y. Smith, the well known financier of Lchi is President, W. D. Livingston, General Manager, and these with Jas. Melville, Chas. Tyng, Van D. Spalding, D. M. Landrcth Lan-drcth and J. H. Burtncr constitute the directorate. The canai of the Irrigated Lands Company, into which water was turned, comes out of the Price River at a point about half way between Helper and Price, where a diverting dam of concrete costing in the neighborhood neigh-borhood of $30,000 turns the water to the south side of the Price river. The canal runs in a generally southeasterly southeaster-ly direction for twenty-three miles, through Carbon and well into Emery County. On the canal line there arc numerous pieces of side hill, tunnel and flume work, one piece of fluming and excavating for the same having cost in excess of $25,000. The ditch is sixteen feet wide at the bottom, twenty feet at the top, and carries an average depth of four and a half feet. Laterals of Various sizes and dimensions dimen-sions are to distribute the water along the canal to users. One tunnel just west of Price is 300 feet long, eight feet overhead and sixteen feet in width, concreted most of its length. Unlike many propositions of this kind, there is no dead1 territory along the canal's route, for land may be watered from it within the first half mile from the river's diverting point. The Spanish Fork Construction Company Com-pany has had the work as contractors. F. R, Coates of Boston is the consulting consult-ing engineer; M. S. Darrow, chief cn-enginccr, cn-enginccr, and H1. B. Daugherty, engineer engi-neer in charge of the work in the field. A. R. Kerstetter is superintendent of construction. acres of lands under this new irrigation irriga-tion system, Carbon county promises tpjfc&prne quite as famous for agri- culture, horticulture and stodk raising as for the production of coal and coke, the two latter at this time her chicfest industries. Fruits of all kinds, with the exception perhaps of peaches, grow here as well as in any Gf the other sections of the state. No better wheat, oats, alfalfa and vegetables veget-ables arc prod"uccdanywhcrc in Colorado Colo-rado or Utah. The soil is ideal for sugar beets, as is shown by govern ment and-statc tests by experts. Farmers Far-mers of the valley get as high as sixty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, tut perhaps forty would be nearer the average. Wheat averages forty-five bushels. As high as 300 to 500 bushels bush-els of potatoes arc taken from an acre of ground. Four to five tons of alfalfa al-falfa are grown to the acre. It is now selling at $10 to $12, and not enough is produced for home consumption. Price River valley has taken prizes for its peaches on several occasions. Honey from this valley is the best produced anywhere, taking first prizes at St. Louis and Chicago World's Fairs. Dry farming as far as experimented with on the bench lands surrounding this valley 'has been quite successful. Source of Water Supply. The Irrigated Lands Company, to begin with, acquired valuable water rights ami a reservoir site in Gooseberry Goose-berry Valley, about half way between Fairvicw and Scoficld, where -it i pps- H siblc to impound 50,000 acre feet by H rescrvoiring. Additional high Watt'i H rights arc owned in the Price River H At the Gooseberry the reservoir Of H Concrete and earth has been com H pletc'd to a point where 25,000 aru H feet of water may be impounded for H use during the season of 1909. It H comes down a natural channel into H the Price River, and is taken into the H canal at a point of diversion. The H first watering for crops is from the H high water source, while the two sec- H ond waterings of the season arc from H the impounded reservoir water. Fif- H ty thousand dollars has up to this H time been spent on this reservoir, and H the same will be completed to its in- H tended original proportions when re- H quired or il is found expedient. ThU H asset is a part of the original hold- H ings of the old Mammoth Reservoir H Company, which at one time proposed H to take this water over into Sanpete H County. The canal now (built and the H reservoir in connection therewith an jH along the lines attempted several H years ago by Isaac Macfarland of St. H George, who was acting for Price peo- H pic, who at that time made a failure H of the deal. From time to time there H has been quite if not fully $500,000 H spent in trying to take this water one H place or another. H (Continued on page 9) H THE PRICE RIVER PROJECT. ' , a (Continued from page s) When it is remembered that from one end of Price River Valley proper ,- to the other from Castle Gate to ,, " Iarnham, a distance of perhaps forty milesthere arc not at this .time over 2,500 acres of land under water, some idea of what the reclaiming of 25,000 acres moans to the country, as well - as the state. Adjacent to these lands and furnishing as good a market as 1 here is in the world, arc the coal and railroad camps of Sunnysidc, Helper, Kcnil worth, Castle Gate, Hales, Sco-field, Sco-field, Colton, Clear Creek and Winter Quarters, all reached in a day by railroad rail-road or wagon. At these places every month there is now paid out in cash I more than $300,000 to workingmen and others. And all must be fed. What better markets exist anywhere in the country, to say nothing of points farther on to the cast and to the- west of here? In all the settlements settle-ments of the valley there arc good schpols- and churches. All of the lands soon to go under cultivation arc within marketing and trading distance of Price, a county scat, with two High schools (public and Methodist mission). Another coal camp, that of - Miller Creek, is being opened to the southwest of Price seventeen miles. , In another year several hundred men will be employed there. A railroad, .the Southern Utah, will bring the coal and coke out and Uikc the produce pro-duce hereabouts in. This railroad ; will be completed by next spring and 1 is to traverse some of the lands covered cov-ered by this big canal. , It is just two years ago that the I Utah Irrigation & Power Company undertook to build what is locally ,. known as the "high line canal." It came out of the Price River at a point above the town of Helper, and if ilniilt would have reclaimed fully 50,000 acres, twice the acreage of the present pres-ent project. The old company, under the management of T. H. Fitzgerald of Salt Lake City, spent $65,000 In surveys, canal work, water rights -and reservoir sights. Then the panic of that year came on, and a Chicago bond firm, which was going in for $300,000 of the company's securities, failed to "come through," and work had -to be suspended entirely. Later this corripany'a" affairs were absorbed 5rthe Irrigated Lnmjs .Company,, Utah capital, and a loan of $100,000 from the state board of land commissioners commis-sioners made it possible to take the proposition out on a smaller scale, the result being the work that was formally completed last week. More Money Required. After this $100,000 from the state had been expended it was found necessary nec-essary to have an equal amount additional. addi-tional. This was secured on the personal per-sonal notes of fifteen of the principal stockholders of the company, and. has been most economically and judiciously judici-ously expended. Not a single dollar of the $250,000 that has gone into the Price project is wasted or unaccounted unaccount-ed for, say engineers, contractors and management.. With the liquidation of the $200,000 indebtedness of the company com-pany by land and water sales, it is not unlikely the high line proposition will be taken up and completed during the coming year or in 1910. Such are the hopes of the men behind the enterprise. enter-prise. The water and land is here. Money, combined with brains and engineering en-gineering skill and good management, manage-ment, ought to accomplish the rest. As to the Price Project. The proposition was undertaken for the purpose of extending the irrigaiblc lands of this valley by conserving and utilizing the surplus waters of the Price River. The project is to water 25,000 acres of land lying adjacent to the Denver & Rio Grande railroad and the Southern Utah railroad, now building out of Price to the south. These lands arc typical of the Price River Valley, and will yield as proli-fically proli-fically as the land's now being cultivated culti-vated along the Price River. The water rights arc represented by one share of stock in the Price River Irrigation Company for each acre of land. The water rights arc adjudicated by decree of court, and allowed by awards of the state engineer. engi-neer. The land owners will own and control the water system after one year. They will always fix their own annual maintenance and operating charges. The system will be completed, operated op-erated and tested for one year without with-out cost to the Price River Irrigation Irriga-tion Company. Water is now available avail-able for all crops on any of the lands under the canal. Land and water are sold by the company on easy ten-year payments. Prices depend upon location loca-tion -almost entirely. ; . , Planting and Plowing.. The promoters of the Price project arc showing their faith by their works, as it were. At this time 4,000 acres of land arc being fenced and plowed and will be put to wheat, oats, alfalfa and fruit trees the coming spring. This is all company land, however. In several instances the same is being done for non-residents or those who would prefer improvement improve-ment of their holdings in this manner to giving the same their personal attention. at-tention. Two cars of peach, apple, pear and other trees arc coming from Rochester, N. Y., and will later demonstrate dem-onstrate what may be accomplished here in a horticultural sense. This work is under the dircc ion of A. R. Kcrstcttcr, who did the same for the company at Abraham, in Millard county, and clscwjierc. |