In 1911, the Jewish Agricultural and Colonial Association of Philadelphia purchased 6,085 acres of land and water rights from the Utah State Land board for an agricultural experiment named Clarion. Association members sent to choose the site told friends and neighbors in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York City that the soil was fertile, that the state-built Piute Canal would soon be completed, and that the location would meet the needs of prospective farmers. Clarion was planned to be settled in stages, beginning with twelve men who would prepare the land for planting and irrigation, after which the land would be divided into family farmsteads with equipment shared among the settlers, and families would arrive fifty at a time each year until all association members had been relocated from the East. Instead, the settlers found that life in arid Utah differed sharply from those promises, as the soil was very poor and productive only with extensive irrigation. The colony depended on a reliable water supply for irrigation and domestic use, but the Piute Canal, expected to be finished before the colonists arrived in 1911, was not completed until 1918, two years after Clarion had already failed. The limited water that was available could not meet either the needs of the colony or the requirements of the land to become fully productive.