The Ditchdigger

When I was in high school in order to motivate you the teachers would say that you need to get an education so that you wouldn't end up being a ditch digger.  As if being a ditch digger is a bad thing.  Some of them that use machinery today can make some good money. 

Anyway I have been wanting to tell this story for some time.  Joe Curtis apparently was one of the best ditch diggers around.  I have found some documents to back this up so it is official.  He is a good ditch digger.  I know he did other things as well.  He was a farmer, rancher, pioneer, family man, business man and did his share of prospecting.  Joe was one of the first settlers of Woodside credited with that honor partly because he settled with his family present.  In one of my earlier posts I alluded to some of the place names that were named after him.  The Curtis Formation and Joe's Holes are probably the most prominent.  One of the first recorded instances of his ditch digging prowess follows:

     Sylvester and his brothers, George, Nick, Chris, Davis and Silas, built a one-room log house that serves as a schoolhouse, church and amusement hall.  Davis Wilson and William Higby called for the dances and George Biddlecome, with his fiddle, was the musician.  Harmon Curtis, son of Simmon(s) P. and Emeline Curtis of Springville, came to Castle Valley when he was but a boy of sixteen, with his brother Joseph and his wife, who settled a mile or so south of Castle Dale on land purchased from Andrew Rasmussen.  The Curtis brothers helped plow the first irrigation ditch south of Castle Dale.  Harmon Curtis was the first school teacher.  He taught for three years and had from twelve to fifteen students of all ages from Wilsonville and the nearby ranches.  The only desks were homemade benches and the books were brought in from Sanpete County by horseback.  School was only held for about four years. 

Kate B. Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, Volume 13. p. 495. 

He probably helped plow this irrigation ditch before he moved to Woodside.  The Woodside documentation is next:

      Woodside, on the Price River, lies approximately halfway between the town of Price and Green River. 

     The first settler, Henry Hutchinson, was attracted by gold pay dirt in the Cedar Mountains.  In 1885 Pete Peterson and Sanderson also located here.  The next to come were Scott Miller and Joe Curtis.  Indians told them to turn back or they would starve; but they ignored the Indians and proceeded to take up homesteads, diverting the waters of the Price River for irrigation.  Joe Curtis and Scott Miller both had families. 

Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Castle Valley, p. 324. 

There are two irrigation ditches at Woodside.  I wonder if Joe helped with them.  From the above information it would seem that he did. 

The third documentation of his ditch digging prowess seals it.  The Castle Dale and Woodside ditches were probably made in the 1880s.  This article postdates them.  It affirms Joe as one of the best: 

                Joe Curtis, of Lower Crossing, was in our town this week.  Joe is not only a good miner but can throw as much mud out of an irrigating ditch as any man in the west. 

Eastern Utah Advocate

January 22, 1891

And a ditch at Desert Lake:

                John L. Thayne and Joseph Curtis are running a four or five-mile ditch from the extreme north end of the Cleveland Canal to carry water to a reservoir north of Desert Lake for culinary and stock watering purposes.  

Eastern Utah Advocate

November 23, 1905

Wow, as much as any man in the west.  He must have been pretty good.  This ditch from the Cleveland Canal to Desert Lake makes at least the third ditch that Joe helped on.  That is pretty good.  My dad used to say when talking about people that they hauled the dirt to make this country.  That would seem to fit Joe very well.