Archives West Finding Aid

The Melville Irrigation Company Papers chronicles water development on the Sevier River primarily in the Delta area of Millard County. The collection covers the years 1907-1930, focusing on three different time periods.

The significant topics covered in the collection are three.

First, are records from the companies beginning and its first four years of existence.

Second, are documents that examines the companies operation between the years 1913 through 1930.

The final set of documents pertain to the Millard County Drainage District #4. The last set of written records in the collection concern the workings of this drainage district during the 1920s. In addition the collection contains a large map of the drainage the drainage district, showing where the different drains are located in relation to landowners. This map is not dated, but was likely drawn in the 1920s. It appears to have had information added onto it over the years.

In addition to the documents the collection also contains a variety of maps and reports. Include here are two reports from Brice McBride, the water commissioner of the Sevier River and several construction blueprints from various projects.

Though the collection is far from a complete history of the Melville Irrigation Company or the Sevier River area, it does give a good overview of water development in the area during the first thirty years of this century. Three secondary sources and one primary source are housed at Special Collections that also shed light upon water development in the area. The primary source document is a volume from the Desert Irrigation Company. The volume found at Special Collections is a record of the board of directors form the company during the 1910s. Of the secondary sources the most compete history of the topic is the monograph by Dudley C. Crafts entitle History of the Sevier River Bridge. The book is primarily a compilation of the different court cases that occurred during the construction of this dam. Gertrude Baker has written a good contemporary account of life on a Delta area farm. The Bakers came to Delta in 1912 to buy a tract of land offered by the Delta Land and Irrigation Company and stayed for the next 25 years. Finally, William Jensen's 1972 master's thesis written at Utah State University describes three areas of land - irrigation speculation in Utah, one being the town of Delta.