The Tunnel Builders

Water was the whole problem, and the settlers who took up land on the Muddy northeast of Emery answered it with four years of brutal hand labor. From 1885 to 1889 they bored a tunnel twelve hundred feet through blue slate rock — pick, shovel, and blasting powder their only tools — hauling out the spoil in a two-wheeled cart and hoisting it from three sunk shafts in wooden buckets pulled by horses. They lived in dugouts along the creek while they worked. The tunnel finally brought the town its water; the marker on Highway 10 remembers the cost.

What the plaque says

Daughters of Utah Pioneers No. 142 Erected Sept., 1949 The Tunnel Builders From 1885 to 1889, the pioneers who located on the Muddy three miles north east from the town of Emery, built in their poverty a tunnel 1200 feet long through blue slate rock to bring water to the town. Their only tools were pick and shovel and blasting powder. They hauled dirt out in a two wheeled cart and sank three shafts to hoist dirt in wooden buckets by horse power. Their living quarters were dugouts along the creek. Camp Muddy Creek

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Manti-La Sal National Forest — 27 mi
  Alpine peaks rising above red rock desert
• Palisade State Park — 30 mi
  A pioneer-built lake turned central Utah's favorite state park
• Manti — 32 mi
  Sanpete's first settlement, crowned by an 1888 oolite temple
• Manti Temple — 32 mi
  A striking pioneer-era temple crowning a hilltop above the Sanpete Valley

More markers nearby

• Wilberg Mine Disaster Monument — 21 mi
• First Settlers in Castle Dale — 21 mi
• Wilberg Mine Memorial — 22 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of Manti — 31 mi