The Blanding project on the Blue Mountain was developed to bring water to Blanding; it took 30 years to complete and cost thousands of dollars but without it the town would not have survived.

Having enough water has always been a problem to the town of Blanding. At first cisterns were dug and filled with water from the ditch system that ran through the town. The only time there was fresh water was during the spring run off. The settlers built reservoirs for water, but the water rarely lasted until August. There were some good springs at Westwater, so a pump was installed and a pipeline was put in that ran to town. This helped the problem a little bit, and every little bit helped then.

Germs Couldn't Stand Terrible Water

"The late summer reservoir water we used to drink here," Hazel Lyman said, "was simply terrible. I don't know why we didn't have diseases of different kinds. I used to figure that the water was so nasty not even germs could stand it."

Many early Blanding residents confirm that it was terrible water. It's not an exaggeration to say that sometimes "you'd open the tap end and something else [besides water] would come out. You'd have to hold your nose to drink it. It was really that bad."

The water problem was acute and a regular source needed to be found. (See Dave Black's role in finding the stream on Blue Mountain.)

Blanding Needed Water to Grow

The men who were interested in helping the community grow began to promote the idea of a tunnel through the mountain. The first project they needed to do in building the tunnel was to build a road to where the tunnel was going to be located, so they could get supplies they needed to the work site.

The work began with men digging from both sides. The men from town would go on the mountain to work on the tunnel and stay for a week or two at a time.

Some of the men who worked on the tunnel project were Oscar Hurst, Doug Galbraith, and Paul Black.

Fried Eggs for Dinner

"One night the men sent Paul Black down to camp to cook dinner for them. He went down and fixed up dinner and when he got it ready he gave out a yell. He had fried eggs for dinner and they were dark black. He didn't know what had happened but when the men got to investigating they discovered Paul had fried the eggs in honey. A can of honey had turned hard and he thought it was lard." (Lyman 33-34.)

First Failure on the Tunnel

The first work on the tunnel didn't last long; the only equipment the men had were a drill, single jack, and a wheel barrow to haul the muck out. The men only dug in about forty or fifty feet when the project ran out of money.

Work on the Blanding tunnel was dropped and would not start up again for 20 years.
 

George and Lona Hurst. George Hurst, Jr. and four other men went to Blue Mountain to see if there was any way water could be diverted through a tunnel into Johnson Creek.  
- Donated to the San Juan Historical Commission by Sam Lyman Butt (Blanding, UT) in 1988.
 
In 1939 Marvin F. Lyman was mayor of Blanding; John Rogers was Bishop; Durham Bayles was president of the irrigation company. These men along with Walter Lyman and George Hurst, Jr. went to Dry Wash to check on the water there. They wanted to see if there was any way this water could be diverted into Johnson Creek and brought to Blanding. (Lyman, Lynn and Hazel. 35)

At this time M.F. Lyman told the men about the water of Indian Creek so the man went over and looked at it. The stream there ran about 30 or 40 second feet of water.

"A second foot of water is a cubic foot passing a given point every second. A second foot of water amounts to about 450 gallons a minute."

The men decided that Blanding had to have that water. A water company was organized and a mass meeting was held to tell the people about it.


The Blanding Tunnel Project Continue
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