Hurricane began in 1906 when eleven families came to establish their homes: the families of T. Maurice Hinton, Ira E. Bradshaw, Anthony Jepson, Thomas Ison, Bernard Hinton, Erastus Lee, Jacob Workman, Charles Workman, Amos Workman, Nephi Workman, and Frank Ashton. Its story is tied to the movement that began in Palmyra, New York, where a new church was organized on April 6, 1830, and whose people became known as Mormons. Because of their beliefs and a new book of scripture translated by Joseph Smith, they were persecuted and driven from state to state until they reached Nauvoo, Illinois, their last stronghold in the United States at that time. On June 27, 144, a mob killed Joseph Smith, and as hatred increased, by February, 1846, the people fled again under the leadership of Brigham Young. The first wagons crossed the Mississippi River on solid ice toward the Rocky Mountains, and many died or suffered greatly from exposure and bitter weather. Brigham Young entered the Great Salt Lake Valley with the first company on July 24, 1847. Over the next twenty years, numerous covered wagon trains and hand-cart companies crossed the plains, including many converts from Europe; from 1846 to 1866 nearly 80,000 made the trek to Utah, and more than 6,000 were buried along the 1,300-mile trail. To become self-sufficient, Mormon leaders sent exploration parties to find places to colonize, and this area became known as Utah’s Dixie because of its semi-tropical climate. During the Civil War, church leaders called families south to raise cotton and other crops suited to the warm climate, but after the coming of the railroad and peace with the U.S. Government, the need for cotton gradually declined. The Virgin River Basin was then left with many small towns struggling to survive amid malaria fever, isolation, a turbulent river, large families, and too little land, and Hurricane became the last pioneer settlement in the area. The arid bench land had little value without irrigation, so the building of the Hurricane Canal became central to the town’s creation. Long considered impossible, the project was undertaken by pioneers who spent twelve years using hand tools and dynamite to carve a 12-mile channel from the deep Virgin River Gorge to Hurricane Bench. The canal ran high above the canyon floor on the south side of the gorge, through ten tunnels of solid rock and over five trestled flumes, and Hurricane was incorporated in 1912.