AWWA Centennial Year

 Salt Lake City’s First Piped Public Water System

 Paper published in the May 1981 AWWA Intermountain Section Newsletter

LeRoy W. Hooton, Jr., Director, Department of Public Utilities

Interior of Brick Tank, City Creek Canyon. The 225,000 gallon reservoir was part of Salt Lake City’s piped water system. (Photograph taken November 1913)
Over 105 years ago, on October 3, 1876, the Salt Lake City Council passed an ordinance relating to the Salt Lake City Waterworks and the construction of a waterworks system to supply water from City Creek Canyon (a stream flowing to the east of the present-day Utah State Capitol Building). Mayor Feramorz Little signed the ordinance which established the Department of Waterworks, authorizing the positions of water superintendent and water rate assessor, and promulgating rules and regulations for the administration and operation of the new city department and its water system.

Up to this time water was regulated by the City watermaster under the direction of the City Council. Both the City’s culinary and irrigation water were conveyed through open irrigation ditches, but with the passage of the ordinance, the City entered into the modern age of the pressurized “piped” water system.

The City actually made the decision to pipe the water from City Creek Canyon twenty months earlier when on February 9, 1875 the City Council’s Committee on Waterworks made a report and recommendation to “...take the earliest step to obtain the right-of-way to lay pipe for conveying water from the waterworks tank (constructed in 1872) in City Creek Canyon to the streets in the City and to arrange for the purchase of sufficient pipe of twenty inches in diameter to reach from said tank to Eagle gate to the center of South and East Temple Streets…and then 12-inch pipe to reach two blocks south from said center.”  The City had been considering this action since 1871 when the City Council passed a resolution recommending that the City undertake the placing of water in a piped water system.

The Council acted on the recommendation and during the next six months the City sought out pipe manufacturers in the east to supply pipe for the water works system. The City negotiated with the firm of Dennis Long Company of Louisville, Kentucky to deliver cast iron pipe to Salt Lake City at approximately $70 per ton and the first 20 carloads of 37 arrived in the City on August 3, 1875. Other firms that provided material to install the water works system included David, Howe & Company for fire hydrants; L.J. Rumsey & Company of St. Louis for service pipe and plumbing tools; the Boston Machine Company for water gates and stop and waste cocks, and the Boston Sead Company for tin-lined water pipes.

The system was constructed under the early direction of Councilman McKean and later Thomas W. Ellerbeck. Ellerbeck was appointed Superintendent of Waterworks on July 15, 1875 and resigned on June 22, 1877 when the work was completed. Mr. Ellerbeck acted as both engineer and superintendent and was paid $250 per month for his services. The Salt Lake Gas Company was hired to join the water main and install the service pipe to the various customers. Prison labor in part was used to excavate and lay the cast iron pipe at $1 per day.

Work was begun the fall of 1875 and the Deseret Evening News in its September 20, 1875, edition noted that, “The excavation of the water pipes in City Creek is progressing under the immediate direction of the supervisor. This portion of the work has been completed a distance of 1,500 feet from the head of the works down the canyon, and in that distance there are alternate tunnelings and open excavations, some of which are nearly twenty feet deep from the surface of the ground.” And, later in its October 26th edition, “The pipes of East Temple had been laid a distance of two blocks from a short distance north of Second South Street to Fourth South Street. The excavations on the same street north of where the pipes had been laid would probably be laid tomorrow.”

Work progressed through the winter and by early spring the system was ready for testing, at least portions of the system were completed and tested by March 17, 1876, when the Deseret Evening News announced that, “The work and testing of lines and hydrants was a complete success.” It is assumed that the system was in operation sometime during the summer of 1876.

Apparently the early financing of the waterworks system ran into trouble. At the City Council meeting of August 31, 1875, Mayor Little stated that a large amount of money (tax revenue) had been paid out for pipe and freight and a considerable more would be needed for valves and hydrants. He recommended that the City negotiate a $50,000 loan with W. Thomas Wardell, payable in two years at one percent (interest) per month, which the city did. Later, in September of the same year, Brigham Young loaned the City $14,000 to carry the waterworks.

Under the terms of the ordinance establishing the waterworks system, those who desired to obtain water from the system had to make application and pay in advance the cost of the service pipe and connections, calculated from the center of the street (regardless of the location of the main) to the inside line of he curbstone and to pay water rent as per the schedule of rates. As the City had not found suitable meters annual flat rates were established. The rates were paid semi-annually and in advance and were assessed by the assessor. The highest rate was charged to “beer saloons and liquor stores,” at $15 to $50 per annum with the typical house or residence (one to four rooms) $8; each additional room cost $1. The Council established a rate of 10 cents per 1,000 gallons where volumes could be determined.

The benefits of a pressurized water system were editorialized in the October 6, 1876, Deseret Evening News, “The City authorities, with laudable enterprise, have built reservoirs and laid pipes to convey the water of the creek to the principal portion of the City and also put in numerous hydrants for the use in extinguishing fires and in sprinkling the street as well as a few planned running fountains for street use for drinking purposes. It now remains for the citizens, who reside where the pipes are laid, to take advantage of these circumstances and have service pipes laid to take the water into their houses, so that they may enjoy the inestimable boon of good, clear water constantly at hand and in their every rooms, as many of them as they may wish, and in quantity and quality all that can be reasonably desired. …what a difference in the quality and the convenience of this water from that which runs in the ditches, either in the summer or in the winter is it very clean or sweet.”

Thus, the initial City’s pressurized water system was placed into service and would eventually extend to serve all the inhabitants of Salt Lake City.

Early records indicate that this first pipe project consisted of 1,000 feet of 20-inch pipe and 2,000 feet of 16-inch pipe from the headworks and reservoir in City Creek Canyon to the northeast corner of Temple block. Approximately 3, 168 feet of 12-inch and 1,584 feet of 8-inch pipe were extended down East Temple Street (State Street), to Fourth South; and approximately one thousand feet of 8-inch pipe from City Creek Canyon along First North to the center of Temple Square.

It is not certain how much more pipe was laid, but by 1980 nearly 9,400 feet of 6-inch mains were connected to the East Temple main and extended in east-west directions on South Temple, First, Second, Third and Fourth South Streets. It is assumed that some of the pipe may have been laid during the first construction project.

The piping of water from historic City Creek Canyon was a significant milestone for Salt Lake City. It was fitting that City Creek, which provided the original Mormon Pioneers their water supply would later be diverted into a pressurized pipe and distributed to the City’s downtown area. It signaled the beginning of modern waterworks practices and the conveniences of a “piped to the house” water supply and more importantly, it improved water quality and public health for the consumers.

During the Water Department’s centennial celebration in 1976, the original pipe laid in City Creek was excavated to determine its existence and conditions. The excavation took place one-half block east of the LDS Church Office Building, just off Second Avenue on Canyon Road. This original section of the 16-inch cast iron pipe was in excellent condition and bore the letter, “D.L. 1875,” which verified that it was purchased from Dennis Long & Company of Louisville, and manufactured in 1875. The original pipe still provides service and judging by its condition, will continue to be an integral part of Salt Lake City’s water system during the next century.