South Jordan Settlement

South Jordan began with one stubborn blacksmith. Alexander Beckstead, a Canadian who'd already helped dig the first ditch that powered Gardner's mill upriver, moved his family down the Jordan in 1859 and carved a dugout into the west bluff to live in. The valley floor was level and farmable — if you could get water to it. So Beckstead and his neighbors dug the two-and-a-half-mile Beckstead Ditch, which still runs today, watering city parks and a golf course. The town he started is now Daybreak, a master-planned suburb; the ditch is older than all of it.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• International Peace Gardens — 11 mi
  A hidden garden where 28 countries are represented in miniature
• Lehi Roller Mills — 12 mi
  The flour mill from the movie Footloose
• Bingham Canyon Mine — 12 mi
  The largest man-made excavation on Earth
• Gilgal Sculpture Garden — 13 mi
  A surreal and eccentric sculpture garden hidden in a residential neighborhood

More markers nearby

• Hope Rising - To Lift a Nation 9/11 Memorial — 1.6 mi
• Utah Freedom Memorial — 1.6 mi
• Utah Freedom Memorial Battlefield Cross — 1.6 mi
• West Jordan — 3.4 mi