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6 unusual facts about Utah Construction Company


Frank Crowe

Morrison-Knudsen had recently signed a partnership with the larger Utah Construction Company to build dams.

Utah Construction Company

With Frank Crowe as the chief engineer, the MK-UC partnership successfully built dams throughout the American west.

The Wattis Brothers original $8,000 investment, in 1900, grew to $478 million after the 1976 acquisition by the General Electric company.

Thomas D. Dee served as the first president of Utah Construction until his death in 1905, David Eccles served as the second president, and David Eccels son Marriner Stoddard Eccles became the president of Utah Construction concurrently with being the Federal Reserve Chairman.

The company merged with the General Electric company in 1976 for a value of over $2.2 billion, the largest corporate merger in history at that time.

This situation spurred the American Government to plan and build the Alaskan Army Highway, later renamed the Alaska Highway.


Edmund Orson Wattis, Jr

In 1917, Utah Construction Company was awarded the seven million dollar O'Shaughnessy Dam contract, a controversial project that impounds the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of California's Sierra Nevada mountains.


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