Water: the key to ranching, farming, and survival in San Juan

by Janet Wilcox
Contributing writer
In 1911, when William Morley and Anna Black moved to Blanding, there were only 25 families and the town was covered with pine trees and sagebrush.
From any direction all you could see was the top of the Castle House built by Jens Nielson.
He also owned the Co-op store which had all the basics that new arrivals would need. However, newcomers seldom had cash and often paid in potatoes or other crops. 
The dirt roads were full of big ruts and rocks. In those early years most Blanding families had milk cows and 5-10 acres of land with small hay fields. 
When Clark Grover came home from the army, his grandfather had purchased a farm (now called Bulldog) where they raised bumper crops as well as turkeys.
For the Grovers as well as other farmers and ranchers, water has always been the lifeblood of San Juan County and were always looking for ways to improve delivery as well as the longevity of water.
As the Grover family expanded their farmland, the need for water became even more apparent. 
Native people and the earliest settlers hauled their water from West Water where there are natural springs.
Walter C. Lyman had the original dream of bringing water to White Mesa.  He and his brothers surveyed and began digging a ditch in 1898 to bring water from Johnson Creek. 
However, all three of them were called on missions; but when they returned in 1903 work began again and brought the canal to the area three miles north of Blanding. 
A few years later, another company was formed and they built a second canal sometimes referred to as the White Mesa Canal.  
The two companies eventually joined together and formed the Blanding Irrigation Company, a non-profit organization still existing today.
This company helped build the first three reservoirs and also put in ditches as well as the first wooden pipelines in Blanding which brought water to the homes in 1916.
The cost was $45,000. Water in a tap was such a joy to homeowners. However, the water was stale and had a terrible odor so most people boiled their drinking water!
The Blanding Tunnel was running out of money and contacted the Irrigation Company to see if they would help, which they did. 
Grant Bayles was the Irrigation Co. President at this time and he contacted the Utah Water and Power Board about a loan to complete the tunnel. It was finally finished on May 7, 1951.
The loan was $75000 and a lien was put on all their water rights, canals and improvements as security. 
Fred Lyman was President of the Irrigation company at the time the tunnel was completed.  A monument was erected there but it doesn’t mention these other large contributions. 
On December 24, 1936, the Irrigation Company agreed to sell Blanding one cubic foot per second of water and all three reservoirs for the sum of $10,000.
This was a true non-profit company.  When Clisbee Lyman was President, he and Tom Redd went to Salt Lake City to see if they could secure funds from the Division of Water Resources to build the Recapture Reservoir. 
Norman Nielson was the President of the SJ Water Conservancy District by the time that began. The Dry Wash Reservoir project was spearheaded by Johnson, beginning in 1987 and completed in 2015.
Lyman – and others who know water – talk in terms of second feet, acre feet, cubic feet and bottom feet.  A second foot of water would be the amount of water which at one cubic foot, one foot high, by one foot deep would pass by a spot in one second. 
This is approximately 7.49 gallons of water and would be a continuous flow, with the City of Blanding owning the bottom two cubic feet—as long as there is sufficient water in Indian Creek (from an oral interview by Gary Lyman with his father.)
The Grovers planted 100 acres of alfalfa south of town but had constant problems with prairie dogs and gophers.  The two ditches coming down from Recapture held plenty of water but when they irrigated via ditch, they lost water due to distance traveled and evaporation. 
It was then that Devon and Elmer Hurst and Jess Grover started talking about putting in a sprinkler system.  
At this time, the Grovers began doing custom hay cutting with a mower.  They bought land by Three Cedars, where the uranium mill is today. 
The Lyman family also farmed there, having bought a SITLA section from Loren Hawkins and Ken MacDonald. They in turn sold 80 acres to Jess and Merlin Grover.
Descendants of these early settlers continue to farm and ranch, in spite of heat, frost, and lack of snow. Sprinklers continue to be more efficient than ditches. 
Sprinkler wheel lines were then used, pumping water from Brown’s Pond which was owned by the ditch company.  Frost Black, Aroe Brown, Curtis Palmer, Ferd Johnson all served as ditch-masters at various times.
Kyson Shumway is the current ditch master.  A water meter is installed at each point and users are charged a fee each year for usage.  Those living in the southern part didn’t have to pump as much and could count on gravity flow. Everything is measured by meters. 
Doug Mitchell helped the farmers get loans to install this system. It was then that a company came selling irrigation pipes and the Grovers decided to deliver water to crops in this way. 
Jess Grover was president of the ditch company. At this same time Elmer and Devon Hurst started a greenhouse in Blanding.  
The Grovers were running three farm areas, as well as the TY Ranch at this time.  Once Recapture Dam was built in the 1970’s, there was more water for farmers to use.
Once the 3rd and 4th reservoirs were built, water was not such a worry. Lots of teenagers, including Clark Grover, worked for farmers in the summer, irrigating and hauling hay, which paid for many missions. To do so they had to be up by 5:30 AM and work hard all day.  
At this time, DJ and Eric Grover started doing custom haying for ranchers from Monticello to Bluff, including the Alexanders, Fred Halliday, Preston Nielson, Lloyd Adams, and others. 
They also would cut ryegrass for ranchers up on Mustang. They often ran two crews, hauling thousands of bales of hay all summer.
At the end of the summer was the county fair, which involved dozens of families via the FFA and FHA programs. Jess Grover would contact businesses to raise money for prizes awarded at the fair. 
This tradition continues today, via the FFA and FHA programs.  It was at this time that Jess Grover would contact businesses to raise money for prizes awarded at the fair.  This tradition continues today.