The Carbon Canal is an irrigation canal in the central portion of Utah, United States. The canal was constructed by the Carbon Canal Company between 1907 and 1909 to provide water to agricultural fields west and south of the Price River.
Description
The Carbon Canal is a 28-mile long canal containing lined and unlined (i.e., earthen) sections. It begins at a weir on the Price River near the Spring Glen turn-off on U.S. Highway 6 and extends through Carbonville and the community of Price into Emery County to a point northeast of Elmo. It contains numerous flumes that carry the canal over rolling terrain.
History
From the beginning of Euro-American settlement in Carbon County, the Price River was one of a few perennial freshwater sources on which pioneers could rely. The river’s drainage was first permanently settled by Mormon pioneers in the late 1870s at Spring Glen. Within three years, other small settlements appeared at Carbonville, Price, Wellington, and Helper. With the exception of Helper, which was established to support trains making the climb over Soldier Summit, these communities depended on agriculture for basic subsistence. Thus, their dependence on freshwater sources—particularly the Price River—for more than culinary water was strong and deep. Crop production on the dry uplands was limited by a lack of facilities to carry water from the river. The first settlers reportedly carried water from the river in wooden barrels and tanks to their fields. This lasted until the settlers dug a series of small ditches to convey irrigation water to their fields.
The ditches proved generally sufficient to serve the needs of the limited settler population until 1883, when the Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) Railroad was completed through Utah. The railroad passed through the Price River communities on its way north through Spanish Fork Canyon and on to the Wasatch Front. The completion of the railroad transformed the communities from isolated farm towns to a booming railroad region almost overnight. The arrival of the railroad coincided with the discovery of vast coal reserves in the area, and within a few years, the communities of the Price River bustled with hundreds of miners, railroad men, and entrepreneurs, forever changing the sleepy Mormon bergs into Utah’s mecca of ethnic and religious diversity.
The arrival of the railroad and mining industries saw a concurrent increase in the general settler population of the area as the economy grew sufficiently to allow for a community of supporting commercial enterprises. Most settlers not directly involved in the mining and railroading industries as laborers at least supplemented their household economy with agricultural pursuits if not relying entirely upon them. As the population grew and the demand for irrigation water increased, early ditches reached the limits of their capacity. It soon became clear to area farmers that a more extensive system was needed.
The first large-scale effort to develop an irrigation system occurred in the late 1880s, when the newly formed Price Water Company completed what became known as the Price Canal. The canal, which was fed by a diversion on the Price River near the Spring Glen turn-off on SR-6, was completed in 1888. The canal—still in use today—carries water east and north of the Price River, skirting the northern and eastern parts of the Price community and ending several miles east of Wellington.
Initial construction
As the new century of the 1900s dawned, area farmers had reached a tipping point—either acquire more water or forever limit agricultural production. By 1906, several representatives of the community joined together to incorporate the Carbon Canal Company (known over the years by other names). In August of that year, the company, represented by R. W. Crocket, applied to the State of Utah for water rights on the Price River for the purpose of constructing a canal that would carry irrigation water to lands west and south of Price and lands south of Wellington and the river. The water right was granted on August 30, 1906 and received final approval in March 1907.