Built completely by hand, the Hurricane Canal opened the Hurricane Bench to farming and made possible the establishment of the town of Hurricane. In 1893, local men James Jepsen and John Steele decided to build it despite earlier reports that it was impossible, and company shares were sold to finance the project, with each share representing one acre of land with water rights. Nearly 100 men subscribed to stock in the Hurricane Canal Company, and many paid for their shares through labor. Construction was difficult and dangerous along the canal's 7-1/2 mile route, which clings to the sheer walls of the Virgin River Canyon, follows the Hurricane Fault, and circles the farmlands of the Hurricane Bench. The canal was 8 feet wide and 4 feet deep, laid out on a 12-foot shelf of conglomerate and limestone rock. Workers blasted twelve tunnels through solid rock, built six flumes on wooden trestles to span ravines, and constructed ten cisterns on the hillside below the canal to hold drinking water. Because the men also had to tend their farms, construction could be done only during the winter months, and progress was slowed when landslides wiped out months of hard labor. After eleven years of tenacious effort, the canal was completed in 1904, providing water for 2,000 acres of farmland and the new community of Hurricane.