Series 24307
EMERGENCY RELIEF ADMINISTRATION [343]GOVERNOR'S EMERGENCY DROUGHT RELIEF COMMITTEE CORRESPONDENCE, 1934-1936.0.25 cu. ft.
Storage is off-site; contact the Utah State Archives to order.
A separate agency history is available.
DESCRIPTION: This series contains State Engineer, T. H. Humphery's correspondence relating to his duties as a member of the Governor's Emergency Drought Relief Committee. Governor H. H. Blood appointed the four member committee in May 1934 to review all drought relief project applications and allocate funds for approved projects. Most of Mr. Humphery's communications concern requests for the review of proposed water development or conservation projects; conferences with supervising field engineers on the status of approved projects; concern over the environmental consequences of specific projects; and contract negotiations relating to the legal right and use of water allotments. Brief discussion of the history and explanation of Governor Blood's efforts to secure federal drought relief funds is also included. Various other documents accompany the correspondence including civil case files, project status reports and work-sheets, newspaper clippings, project lists by county, and project applications.
The cooperation of the state engineer was crucial to the Emergency Drought Relief Committee's mission. The state engineer is the state's leading administrator for water rights. The main functions of this office include surveying all water systems within the state and managing the appropriation, adjudication, and distribution of that water in cooperation with other state and federal agencies. Humphery's appointment to State Engineer came in 1933 and he held that office until the early 1940s. Other members on this committee included Dr. William Peterson, Director of the Utah State Agricultural College, as Chairman; William Wallace, Chairman of Utah State Water Storage Commission; and J. W. Gillman, County Commissioner of Utah County. H. C. Jessen, UERA Chief Engineer, served as chief engineer for this committee.
ARRANGEMENT: This correspondence is arranged chronologically by year, month, and day.
RELATED RECORDS: DROUGHT RELIEF PROGRAM PROJECT FILES, 1934-1949, series 19542, contain the original applications and other documents for many of the drought relief projects, approved and rejected. This series includes an agency created contents list arranged by project number which records project name, location, county, type, amount requested and amount approved, and date reviewed. Researchers wanting to review projects by location should see "Report of the Utah Drought Relief Administration" in series 17943.
GOVERNOR'S EMERGENCY DROUGHT RELIEF COMMITTEE REPORTS, 1934-1937, series 14104, contain the committee's minutes, statistics, expenditures, and lists of approved and rejected projects.
UTAH EMERGENCY RELIEF ADMINISTRATION REPORTS, 1934-1936, series 17943, contain several reports that provide detailed administrative histories of the Drought Relief Program. One entitled "Report of the Utah Drought Relief Administration" gives a detailed analysis of the projects by county, with maps and photos.
STATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WELFARE AND EMERGENCY RELIEF MINUTES, 1933-1935, series 2696, contain occasional administrative mention of the Drought Relief Program beginning in late 1934.
RELIEF PROGRAMS, 1933-1940, series 191, contain reports, correspondence, project descriptions, and various other records from Governor Blood's office pertaining to federal and state relief programs. Further, STATE AGENCY CORRESPONDENCE, 1933-1940, series 14207, and CORRESPONDENCE, 1933-1940, series 186, both contain records documenting how different state agencies dealt with each other and the needs of Utah's citizens during the Depression.
WATER RESOURCES REPORTS, 1912-1941, series 1180, contain a few related reports and maps of Emergency Relief Administration water projects, including drought relief projects collected by the State Planning Board.
PROCESSING NOTE: The small size and low expected reference use of this series make microfilming unnecessary. These records will be retained in their present format. Some documents may hold intrinsic historical value, particularly the letters from despondent Utah residents and the Governor's correspondence, and should be preserved. This series was processed by Michael A. Church in 2002. This series was originally part of series 889 Flood control drought relief records, State Engineer, until I pulled the drought relief correspondence to create the present series.
PREFERRED CITATION: Cite the Utah State Archives and Records Service, the creating agency name, the series title, and the series number.
