Hand-Dug Canals: Promise and Peril

The Early Settlement Era (1847–1879)

Settlement west of the Jordan River began in 1848, just a year after the first pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. Joseph Harker and a handful of settlers built dugout shelters near present-day 600 West and 3300 South, spending a harsh first winter with little more than the earth to protect them. Early accounts described the land as dry, desolate, and nearly waterless—“no water within five miles fit for man or beast to drink.” Yet, despite its challenges, the area was optimistically named Granger, a word suggesting fertility and growth.

The reality of life west of the river was far less generous. Native tensions during the Walker War led Brigham Young to advise settlers to fortify themselves. By 1853, the community had built the Old English Fort, also known as “Fort Hardscrabble.” Made of rock and adobe, its two-acre enclosure contained homes, a school, and a church. A shallow well supplied water, but only in meager amounts, and by 1858 the fort was abandoned. Still, hardy families persisted, grazing sheep and cattle across the wide stretches of land.

The landscape began to change in 1869 with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. New spur lines improved travel and trade, and the opening of the federal Land Office in Salt Lake City allowed settlers to claim homesteads. The Homestead Act brought a new wave of farmers who pushed westward, establishing the communities of Granger and later Hunter. Moving away from the river bottoms to the higher flats, they discovered more fertile soils—but also new hardships.

Water remained the defining struggle. Farmers dug wells, hauled barrels, or shared from small ditches, but the lack of clean culinary water led to disease, including deadly outbreaks of typhoid fever. By the 1870s, determined settlers dug canals by hand and horse scraper: the Parker Ditch, Decker Ditch, and Gardner Mill Race. These modest channels culminated in the North Jordan Canal (1877) and its extensions, including the Ridgeland Canal, which carved across present-day 3500 South.

The canals brought promise, but also unintended consequences. Farmers over-irrigated, causing alkali and minerals to rise to the surface, poisoning crops and forming vast saline lakes that swallowed more than 1,000 acres between 2100 South and 5600 West. Desperate to save their fields, farmers dug drain lines to carry the water away.

Despite backbreaking labor and repeated setbacks, the settlers of the west side held on. Their persistence carved the foundations of what would, generations later, grow into West Valley City. In their story of forts, canals, floods, and farms, one finds the familiar rhythm of Utah settlement: resilience against the land itself, and an unyielding belief in the promise of tomorrow

Brighton Canal- east of Redwood Road