Lack of water hindered the early growth of Provo Bench, the level elevated ground north of Provo, even though its rocky soil suited fruit trees and settlers could water them only by hauling barrels from the nearby Provo River. At Brigham Young’s request, Jesse Fox, surveyor general of the Utah Territory, studied the river and found it full, free of claims, and available on the settlers’ terms. Believing irrigation would make cultivation and colonization feasible, landowners formed the Provo Bench Irrigation Company and began building the Provo Bench Canal in 1862 from the mouth of Provo Canyon southwest along the east edge of the bench to just above 400 South in Orem. Using mules and homemade tools, workers cut a furrow from the river toward the bench, then widened and deepened it as water soaked the ground and was directed farther onward. The work was arduous and involved the whole community, including men working in payment of the road-ditch tax required of every male over eighteen. Completed in the mid-1860s, the canal was 2 feet deep and 6 feet wide and carried water to 2,000 acres of dry land; it was soon enlarged to irrigate 4,000 acres, raising land values from $1.25 to $2.00 per acre. Additional ditches followed, creating a network that watered Provo Bench and helped transform it from sagebrush and rock prairie into a thriving fruit-growing community where the City of Orem was incorporated in 1919.