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History of Monticello, Utah
Taken from the Utah History Encyclopedia (Links Added)
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The Mormons claimed all of the water in the South Fork as well as three-fourths of it from the North Fork, and they learned from lawyers that the Carlisles had very little legal title to any of it. Since more water was available on the South Fork, the men there raised an initial crop of wheat, oats, and potatoes, and they experimented with both irrigation and dry-farming agriculture. In the spring of 1888 the settlers returned and undertook the construction of a town that was known as both North Montezuma and Hammond until it took the name Monticello in honor of Thomas Jefferson's estate.

To bolster this new colony, Hammond called twenty additional men from Moab, Bluff, and Mancos, Colorado. Together they fenced 320 acres, established crude homes from wagon boxes and tents, and started the arduous task of hauling wood from the mountains. Private homes and a meetinghouse arose from the sagebrush flats, while the irrigation ditch, built by the newly incorporated Blue Mountain Irrigation Company, snaked its way across the flats to water the crops.

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