The Hurricane Canal begins at a diversion dam on the Virgin River at the Narrows and follows the south side of the river along the canyon walls before turning south along the Hurricane Cliffs and then west to carry water to the fields on the Hurricane Bench and to the town of Hurricane. Built completely by hand, the canal took eleven years and sixty thousand dollars to complete, much of that cost represented by the labor of canal company shareholders who worked during the winter months to pay for their shares. Workers blasted twelve tunnels, constructed six wooden flumes, carved a twelve-foot-wide shelf through limestone, conglomerate, and gypsum, and built an eight-foot-wide, four-foot-deep canal under dangerous conditions made worse by floods, landslides, and the lack of road access into the canyon. The dam itself failed twice before a third design, reinforced with rocks, juniper, a recovered pine log, and heavy galvanized wire, finally held after about six years of effort. By 1901 work had nearly stalled, but in 1902 James Jepson secured five thousand dollars in assistance from Church President Joseph F. Smith, allowing construction to continue. On August 6, 1904, water finally flowed over the dam spillway, through the canal, and onto the Hurricane Bench, bringing irrigation to two thousand acres of dry land and helping create the successful village of Hurricane, Utah. The canal later also supplied part of the community through ten cisterns along the cliffs, and although those cisterns were abandoned after a modern water system was completed, the canal still follows the same course as when first completed in 1904.