Every Drop Counts: The Long Fight for Water in Hunter & Granger

Water Was Always an Issue”: Hunter & Granger’s Lifelong Struggle for Water

For the early settlers of Hunter and Granger — families like the Morrises, Todds, Gerbers, and Mackays — water was the difference between survival and failure.

A report from 1937 reminds us just how real the struggle remained, even generations after the pioneers first broke the sagebrush:

“The entire Hunter area, and part of Granger, lies on a stretch of land without adequate culinary water. Wells are few and often poor. Many families haul water from distant neighbors or the city mains. Even today, horses and wagons or early trucks make weekly trips hauling barrels to fill cisterns at home. Some families ration water by the bucket — every drop counts.”

In the 1800s, families hand-dug deep wells — some over 100 feet — driving pipe with sledgehammers, hoping to hit clean water. When canals finally reached the area, they transformed farming but brought new problems too: water seeped salts and minerals into fields, sometimes ruining once-fertile soil.

Still, canals were a lifeline. They turned dusty homesteads into green farms with orchards, gardens, and grazing flocks. But for drinking water — there was always worry. Many early dug wells turned out brackish or unfit to drink.

By the 1930s, some homes still relied on water hauled from “the bottoms” near the Jordan River or pumped from a distant neighbor’s well. Families stored it in big wooden barrels or hand-built cisterns. On wash days, extra trips might be made — for clean clothes, clean dishes, and one good bath.

This constant fight for water shaped how families farmed, how they built homes, where they dug gardens and orchards, and how close neighbors became — sharing wells, canal rights, and the hard work of making the desert bloom.

Today, when you turn on the tap in West Valley City, you draw from reservoirs and systems pioneers could only dream of — and every drop reminds us: water was always an issue.