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by Karen L. Monsen
W
.....hen Brigham Young “called” thirty-eight families to grow cotton in southern Utah in 1857, they faced searing heat, drought, flash floods, quicksand, and alkaline soil. They planted different crops in various locations, trying to make the desert bloom.
36 | VIEW ON MAGAZINE | July / August 2025
To newcomers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Virgin, Santa Clara, and Muddy rivers looked manageable but proved destructive. The first dam on the Virgin, built in 1857, washed out twice that season, and washouts continued—twice in 1858 and three times in 1859.