WATER AND THE NATIONAL FOREST D u r i n g the first twenty years of settlement, most controversies over land involved water rights. Orson Hyde, the LDS general church authority resident in Sanpete County, would not live in Manti because in his day he found the water in Manti Creek too muddy and too unpalatable. Establishing himself in Spring City, where the spring water was more to his liking, Hyde administered a de facto water court. The LDS church controlled water directly in the first decades, but later mutual irrigation companies were formed to supervise the use of this most important natural resource. After ditches and canals were dug, farmers sought to increase the amount of water available through reservoirs, tunnels to bring water from the San RafaelIGreen River drainage on the east side of the mountains into Sanpete Valley, drainage endeavors, artesian wells, and the use of mechanized sprinkling systems.
Early Irrigation Eforts Manti was one of the first communities to complete an "extensive irrigation enterprise," a "canal about five miles long, six feet wide
