AGRICULTURE AND LIVESTOCK INDUSTRIES
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desert, in 1892 Oscar Huntsman proposed constructing a reservoir in the Bull Valley Mountains at a site above Hebron. The Enterprise Reservoir and Canal Company was organized and dam construction begun in 1893. The community of Enterprise was laid out in 1895. Plots were then filed on under provisions of the Desert Land Entry Act of 1877. Construction of the dam was held up by poverty and dissension among the people, but it was finally finished in 1909. 42 Enterprise is in Washington County, two miles south of the county line, but its farms extend into Iron County. About the time the Enterprise Reservoir was completed, planning began for the ill-fated New Castle Reclamation Company dam and reservoir in the Pine Valley Mountains. Boosters thought the combination of water from Pine Valley and virgin soil on the Escalante Desert held great promise for farming. Twenty thousand acres of irrigable land was for sale at $55 per acre and up, but two city lots were free to anyone building a thousand dollar home on one before 1 January 1914. The entire project was lauded in various magazine and newspaper articles. 43 Prospective buyers were offered special rates from Salt Lake City or Los Angeles on the Union Pacific to Beryl and then were chauffeured in company Cadillacs to the townsite, midway between Beryl and Enterprise and six miles west of Newcastle. They were entertained at the New Castle Hotel, toured the valley, and examined available acreage. T. Willard Jones and his wife Sophia moved to the town site in late 1907 and remained committed to farming the Escalante Desert. Although the reservoir was completed and water overflowed the spillway during wet years, the project was fraught with problems and finally failed. Typical New Castle settlers were Parley and Maud Moyle, who purchased sixty acres from the reclamation company along with water rights from Grass Valley Reservoir. Parley moved to the farm in February 1913, bringing horses and machinery with him, and Maud came by train in April with their household goods and other machinery. They soon realized they would get no water from the reclamation company. Many families moved away, but the Moyles chose to relocate north on the desert near Beryl, where they obtained 320 acres by homestead and desert entry. A seventy-five-foot well and a
