Governor's Office. Emergency Relief Administration Drought Relief Program project files, 1934-1949.

These project files document the history of state-wide drought relief projects initiated through Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) grants and administered by state and local agencies. The Utah Emergency Relief Administration (UERA), Governor's Emergency Drought Relief Committee, Utah Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, and State Department of Finance used the records to review and authorize water development and conservation projects, allocate federal funds, manage the purchase of equipment and materials, supervise construction, and negotiate legal title to the projects after completion. The records contain social and environmental information on local communities such as hydrologic and geologic data on the area; number and condition of families, people, livestock, or acres involved; and names of sponsors. Letters from applicants are particularly interesting as they reveal the desperate conditions in which many Utah residents lived in this period, including somecorrespondence with the governor. The files contain maps, project plans, applications, scientific reports, surveys, legal agreements, cost and benefit analyses, petitions, purchase receipts, construction logs, completion reports, expenditure summaries, equipment advertisements, purchase orders, claims for labor, and assorted correspondence. The Pelican Point Pumping Plant project on Utah Lake, and the Strawberry Reservoir Outlet Works project are two particularly noteworthy projects completed under this program.

A decade of deficient precipitation presaged serious drought conditions for all Utah counties by the summer of 1934. Governor H. H. Blood requested emergency funds through the FERA at that time and created the Governor's Emergency Drought Relief Committee to oversee the UERA's administration of the grants. This committee consisted of Dr. William Peterson, Director of the Utah State Agricultural College, as Chairman; William Wallace, Chairman of Utah State Water StorageCommission; T. H. Humphreys, State Engineer; and J. W. Gillman, County Commissioner of Utah County. H. C. Jessen, UERA Chief Engineer, served as engineer for this committee.

The Utah drought relief program administered projects conducted entirely by the state and those requested by municipalities, irrigation companies, and community groups. All applications were submitted first to the UERA's Engineering Department, then to the Governor's Emergency Drought Relief Committee for approval. This committee was a subcommittee of the State Advisory Committee on Public Welfare and Emergency Relief. Approved projects were then assigned to one of five supervising engineers from UERA's Drought Relief Division who oversaw the construction of all approved projects. To stretch available funds and ensure completion of the projects, the Governor's Committee decided to dispense funds for materials and equipment only, requiring the project sponsors to furnish all labor.

Further, the UERA retainedtitle to all equipment and materials furnished for the projects. At the conclusion of the UERA program in 1935, title for these materials was transferred to the Utah Rural Rehabilitation Corporation (URRC). This agency created the Drought Relief Equipment Committee in that year to manage the transfer of title from the URRC to the project sponsors. But acquiring full ownership meant that companies, municipalities, or communities sponsoring projects would have to pay the URRC the original cost for equipment and materials. Consequently, the majority of records filed after 1935 concern the URRC's efforts to collect payment from all individuals or organizations involved in the projects. By 1949, The State Department of Finance had assumed responsibility for settling all delinquent accounts.