Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, CCC Terraces, Following the north-south trending ridgeline of the Wasatch Mountains from Francis Peak, south along Skyline Drive and the major ridgeline, to their terminus on the eastern benches above Centerville., Farmington

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS UT-6. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Civilian Conservation Corps terraces run along a generally north- south trending ridgeline of the Wasatch Mountains from Francis Peak, south along Skyline Drive and the major ridgeline, to their terminus on the eastern benches above Centerville in Davis County, Utah. They are located completely on unincorporated Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest land east of the communities of Fruit Heights, Farmington, and Centerville. Lat: Long: (southern terminus of terraces, Google Earth, Simple Cylindrical Projection,

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS UT-6. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Civilian Conservation Corps terraces along the western flank of the Wasatch Mountains in Davis County, Utah were a locally, regionally, and nationally significant effort that retain an incredibly high level of integrity and still continue in their original function. These resources are nationally significant due to their construction by the and as a clear physical and historical response to generations of mismanagement of the nation s watersheds. Overgrazing of the steep slopes of the Wasatch Mountains in Davis County led to damaging and deadly mud-rock floods in the and destroying over a million dollars in property and killing at least six.

In partnership with the United States Forest Service (USFS), the State of Utah, local municipalities and private owner, concerted efforts were made to control future calamities through transfer of ownership of key lands from private to public managers, and to construct terraces and re-seed the abused vegetation. The Organic Administration Act that formed the Forest Reserves, specifically called out the protection of watersheds as part of the mandate, and thus after the creation of the United States Forest Service in this mandate continued (Glasser In the Reed W.

Bailey of the USFS in Ogden, Utah, applied modern technological and engineering advances in the construction of 700 miles of trenches, and whose innovative design and successful implementation led to their use in other locations in Utah. These terraces, which are clearly visible from aerial imagery and from modern communities in the valley below, are still a landscape defining feature in Davis County. The CCC terraces are a landscape- level modification of the natural environment as a direct result to human overuse of the watershed resources, and its deadly consequences. The USFS, and these simple earthen trenches contributed significantly to the history of Utah and the United States. UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO.

UT-6 PAGE 2 Description: Between and the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed over 700 miles of terraces and associated features on six major drainages (Farmington Canyon, Steed Canyon, Davis Canyon, Barnard, Parrish Canyon, and Centerville Canyon) in the Wasatch Mountain Range in Davis County, Utah. These structures have not been actively maintained or managed since their completion in the However, these structures are visible not only from the publicly accessible Skyline Drive, but are clearly seen by those in the valley several miles below and in aerial photography. On the ground assessments of the terraces in by the author indicates that the majority of the terraces retain high levels of integrity. In steep areas with natural gullies, some of the terraces have now breached.

In addition, the terraces themselves have filled with vegetation and several inches of soil over the 80 years of existence. This, however, was the desired outcome for these features to become hosts for native vegetation to absorb runoff from spring floods and heavy rains. An unscientific appraisal of the integrity of terraces suggests that over 80% of the original lengths of terraces still are recognizable and still operating as designed. History: In the early to mid-20th century, devastating floods swept out of the Wasatch Mountains of Northern Utah, destroying everything in their path downstream.

Contemporary research determined that these destructive floods directly resulted from abuse of the natural landscape through overgrazing, as inadequate capacity of the flood-source areas to restrain runoff was unnatural and brought about by long-continued overgrazing by domestic livestock, and unwise burning (Bailey Between and the United States Forest Service directed hundreds of men from Civilian Conservation Corps in the construction of 700 miles of contour terraces in six drainages in Davis County, Utah in hopes of preventing future calamities.

Six people died in catastrophic floods resulting from a combination of overgrazing and heavy rain in and included a swath of destruction that wiped out homes, businesses, crops, and infrastructure in Farmington and Centerville (Bailey A flood event alone covered the state highway at the base of the canyons with 12 of soil deposit including several boulders weighing over 10 tons striking the Bamberger Railroad line (Bailey According to Bailey it is estimated that floods created an estimated one million dollars in damages between and or the equivalent to over $14 million in In the early Utah Governor George H. Dern appointed a special committee of engineers, geologists, and ranchers to determine the causes of flood and formulate plans to stop them (Davis County Clipper. September 17, 1).

Heading the newly appointed commission was Sylvester Q. Cannon, a former Salt Lake City Engineer (Alexander According to a survey, United States Forest Service officials noted that with over half of the grazing season left, livestock had denuded the majority of vegetation (Bailey Without a UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO. UT-6 PAGE 3 protective layer of vegetation and litter to hold soils together and absorb moisture from rain events, dramatic floods ensued. To halt the destructive and deadly flood events, Federal, State, local officials, and members of the public worked collectively to transfer ownership of the watershed lands from private to public ownership.

Once the majority of these lands were transferred to the then Wasatch- Cache National Forest, efforts focused on stabilizing soil and restoring vegetation. The federal government mobilized members of the CCC based out of Bountiful, Utah to initiate reclamation work by creating 700 miles of contour trenches on acres of watershed lands between Farmington and Centerville Canyons (Bailey Alexander notes that while the CCC contributed to a variety of infrastructure projects in the Intermountain West, one of the program s greatest achievements and significant contributions to local and regional economics and safety was construction of erosion control devices. Members of the Bountiful, Lake View and Woods Cross CCC camps completed the majority of the terrace construction work between and Orin C.

Bain, a member of the Woods Cross CCC Camp, penned an editorial in the Davis County Clipper to highlight the terrace construction of which he considered, a beautifier and a credit and a boon to Davis county (Bain CCC work on the terraces in Davis County received nationwide publicity, with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace visiting the in-progress construction twice in (Salt Lake Telegram, December 28, Reed W. Bailey, Watershed Engineer for the United States Forest Service designed and oversaw construction of the terraces throughout Davis County, and used the successful design for other terracing projects in Weber and Utah counties.

However, historian Kenneth Baldridge notes that of all the Civilian Conservation Corps terracing completed in Utah, the most outstanding examples were in Davis County between Farmington and Centerville Canyons (Baldridge While use of contour trenching was not a new idea to control flooding, Bailey modified the design in hopes of better controlling the flow of water into and out of the trenches. Overall, the design of the terraces was to each hold of runoff and to: (1) To break up the established gully system; (2) to impound rain and thereby keep storm runoff out of channels; and (3) to create favorable soil-moisture conditions for the reestablishment of a plant cover comparable to that which existed before depletion.

(Bailey Constructed terraces averaged nine-feet wide and spaced twenty to twenty-five feet apart and 1 deep, dependent on slope. While trenches were a common UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO.

UT-6 PAGE 4 means of erosion control, those in Davis County used a specially constructed cross dam (slightly shorter than the main trench) to divide each long trench into compartments between 20 and 40 long (Bailey Baldridge These compartments distributed the destructive forces of snowmelt and heavy rain by distributing water throughout the many sections (Baldridge Bailey s reports notes that bulldozers roughed out the terraces, with horses plows and hand shovels used on rocky areas, slopes exceeding 50 percent, and to finish the exacting measurements of the trenches and cross dams. Impressively, the CCC employed only a single bulldozer in the construction of the 700 miles of terraces during those few years, with the bulk of work completed with animal and human power (Baldridge 1971a211).

To assist in holding soil in position, CCC crews planted five types of perennial grasses within the terraces including smooth brome, mountain brome, Kentucky blue, slender wheat, and English rye (Bailey Forest Service scientists measured water retention of the soils in areas of Parrish Canyon subjected to the intensive overgrazing and burning in and again in after reclamation. According to the report, the Forest Service estimated that .95 of precipitation in 15 minutes moved cubic feet of soil in Parrish Creek canyon in but only cubic feet were lost in the same location in after reclamation (Bailey Salt Lake Telegram July 15, Reports indicate that the treated areas would have witnessed significant mud-rock floods in in the and flood events (Bailey E.N.

Munns, Chief of the National Watershed Service in Washington, visited Davis County in to tour the reclamation work, and expressed complete approval of accomplishments on this guinea pig area of watershed flood control (Davis County Clipper, September 17, Since the initial construction, the Forest Service or municipalities downstream have not actively managed or maintained these terraces. Regardless, the 80 year-old features are still operating in most locations and the area has not seen catastrophic mud-rock flows since the Active Forest Service management of grazing and burning, however, yields a rich density of grasses, forbs, shrubs, and trees that help to control flooding in addition to the CCC terraces.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS UT-6. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Alexander, Thomas G. The Rise of Multiple-Use Management in the Intermountain West: A History of Region 4 of the Forest Service. Publication No. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Ogden, UT. UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO. UT-6 PAGE 5 Bailey, Reed W. Floods and Accelerated Erosion in Northeastern Utah. Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station Miscellaneous Publication No. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Ogden, Utah. Bailey, Reed W., George W. Craddock, and A.R. Croft Watershed Management for Summer Flood Control in Utah. Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station Miscellaneous Publication No. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Ogden, Utah. Bain, Orin C. Boys Building Terraces in Top of Mountains.

Davis County Clipper, Bountiful, Utah. October 12, page 1. Baldridge, Kenneth W. 1971a Nine Years of Achievement: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Utah. Unpublished Dissertation, Department of History, Brigham Young University: Provo, UT. Reclamation Work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Utah Historical Quarterly Davis County Clipper Forest Official Praises Flood Control. Davis County Clipper, Bountiful, Utah, September 17, page 1. Gingery, Barbara W. Watershed Terraces Built by the CCC Still Keep Davis Area Deseret News, Salt Lake City, April 16, Page 1. Glasser, Stephen P. Short History of Watershed Management in the Forest Service: to In Advancing the Fundamental Sciences: Proceedings of the Forest Service National earth Sciences Conference, San Diego California. U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, OR. Salt Lake Telegram Davis Terrace Work Gains Recognition. Salt Lake Telegram, Salt Lake City, Utah, December 28, 21. CCC Terraces Block Floods. Salt Lake Telegram, Salt Lake City, Utah, July 15, page 13. UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO. UT-6 PAGE 6 Historians: Christopher W. Merritt, and Cory Jensen, Utah Division of State History, 300 S. Rio Grande Salt Lake City, UT July 14, Entry HALS Challenge: Documenting Landscapes of the New Deal Figure 1: Damage to homes and property in Flood events in Farmington- Centerville area. From Bailey UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO.

UT-6 PAGE 7 Figure 2: CCC Terraces under construction in the mid-1930s, Bailey UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO. UT-6 PAGE 8 Figure 3: CCC Terraces, Overview, Facing South. Photo by Cory Jensen. Figure 4: CCC Terraces, Overview, Facing Southwest. Photo by Cory Jensen. UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO. UT-6 PAGE 9 Figure 5: CCC Terraces, Detail, Facing North. Photo by Cory Jensen. Figure 6: Overview of Davis County from CCC Terraces, Facing Southwest. Photo by Cory Jensen. UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO. UT-6 PAGE 10 Figure 7: Location of Davis County CCC Terraces, Topographic Baselayer. UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO.

UT-6 PAGE 11 Figure 8: Overview of Davis County CCC Terraces, Aerial Imagery Baselayer. UINTA-WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST, CCC TERRACES HALS NO. UT-6 PAGE 12 Figure 9: Detail of Davis County CCC Terraces from Aerial Photography.