Hurricane Canal Company collection
Scope and Contents
The Hurricane Canal Company collection consists of records of the Hurricane Canal Company; historical records of the town of Hurricane, Utah; and records of the Bench Lake Canal Company. This collection documents the organization, struggles, and establishment of the town of Hurricane as the canal company worked to build and supply water to the Hurricane Bench.
The bulk of this collection is comprised of the minutes generated by the Hurricane Canal Company (1893-2002) as well as a few of the company's annual reports. The canal company minutes illustrate the development of the company from its creation through the struggles of drought and floods in southern Utah’s desert climate.
The town board minutes for Hurricane (1912-1930) are also contained within this collection. As the canal provided water to the area, the canal company worked to create and build the town of Hurricane. The town minutes show the development and improvements put in place by the settlers of Hurricane as they worked to build their new homes and town.
The final series in the collection comes from the records created by the Bench Lake Canal Company (1941-1996). These records include minutes of the company, financial records, Articles of Incorporation, contracts and affidavits, maps and water charts, stock records, and correspondence of the company.
Dates
- Creation: 1893 - 2002
Creator
- Hurricane Canal Company (Washington County, Utah) (Originator, Organization)
- Bench Lake Canal Company (Originator, Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open and freely available to researchers during Special Collections hours or by appointment. Researchers must complete an Application for Use and show a photo ID prior to accessing materials.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright restrictions may apply. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be obtained from the Special Collections and Archives.
Biographical / Historical
Latter-day Saint settlers in surrounding southern Utah towns realized the potential of Hurricane’s fertile land, but it lacked the water needed to allow for farming. The Hurricane Canal Company was temporarily organized in Toquerville, Utah on July 11, 1893 to determine if building a canal was feasible. The canal was built completely by the hands of the men who purchased company shares; their money and labor went to finance and build the canal. In return, each share purchased granted the holder one acre of land with water rights on the Hurricane Bench.
The company was organized, and Levi N. Harmon was elected President; Martin Slack, Secretary; with James Jepson, John A. Wood, and Charles A. Workman as directors. After eleven years of work and effort, the canal was finished in 1904, paving the way for the establishment of the town of Hurricane, which was settled in 1906.
The Bench Lake Canal Company was established on April 21, 1941 to give water access to farms on the Hurricane Bench that were outside the reach of the Hurricane Canal. With the use of pumps, water reached the outlying farm lands. The Bench Lake Canal Company was incorporated into the Hurricane Canal Company in the 1980s.
Full Extent
1.46 Linear Feet (3 tall gray legal document cases, 1 gray legal document case, 1 gray half legal document case, and 1 gray letter document case)
Language of Materials
English
Metadata Rights Declarations
- License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Creative Commons license.
Abstract
The Hurricane Canal Company collection covers the years 1893-2002 and holds the records of the Hurricane Canal Company, historical records of the town of Hurricane, and records of the Bench Lake Canal Company.
Arrangement
Collection is arranged by subject within series.
Subject
- Hurricane Canal Company (Washington County, Utah) (Organization)
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Amanda M. Reeve, Special Collections Paraprofessional
- Date
- April 23, 2013
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Edition statement
- Finding aid and physical arrangement of collection revised September 30, 2021 by Kathleen Broeder, Head of Special Collections & Archives. Folders were physically arranged to match the finding aid structure. Books were placed in folders. Folder names were clarified.
Repository Details
Part of the Utah Tech University Special Collections and Archives Repository
330 Holland Centennial Commons
225 South 700 East
Saint George 84770 United States
(435) 634-2087
specialcollections@utahtech.edu