Mormon+MILLER

Mormons: The Mormon settlers were the first Americans of northern European descent to develop agricultural practices that were adapted to the arid West. Their resourcefulness in making the Great Basin desert around Salt Lake "blossom as a rose" is the stuff of legend, although historians have questioned both the degree to which they actually advanced the arts of irrigation and the degree to which their techniques could be effectively applied to other regions of the West. In fact, the abundance of small streams emanating from the Wasatch Range meant that early settlers needed only to construct relatively short canals in order to irrigate their fields. No attempts were made to build large reservoirs for water storage in the area until the 1870s. The Mormon settlers were the first Americans of northern European descent to develop agricultural practices that were adapted to the arid West. Their resourcefulness in making the Great Basin desert around Salt Lake "blossom as a rose" is the stuff of legend, although historians have questioned both the degree to which they actually advanced the arts of irrigation and the degree to which their techniques could be effectively applied to other regions of the West. In fact, the abundance of small streams emanating from the Wasatch Range meant that early settlers needed only to construct relatively short canals in order to irrigate their fields. No attempts were made to build large reservoirs for water storage in the area until the 1870s.