The Utah Construction Company was a construction company founded by Edmund Orson Wattis, Jr, Warren L. Wattis and William. H. Wattis in 1900.
A short four years after its founding, the company was awarded the contract to build the Feather River rail route between Oakland and Salt Lake City. This $60 million contract was challenging, but after five years, very profitable. The Feather River route was completed for the Western Pacific Railroad in 1...
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The Utah Construction Company was a construction company founded by Edmund Orson Wattis, Jr, Warren L. Wattis and William. H. Wattis in 1900.
A short four years after its founding, the company was awarded the contract to build the Feather River rail route between Oakland and Salt Lake City. This $60 million contract was challenging, but after five years, very profitable. The Feather River route was completed for the Western Pacific Railroad in 1911. The Utah Construction Company thrived, and soon captured a large share of the tunneling, grading, and track projects for the rapidly expanding railroads in the mountain west. Seeing the end of railroad expansion, the Wattis brothers looked for ways to diversify their construction risks.
In 1917, Utah Construction Company was awarded the $7 million O'Shaughnessy Dam contract, a controversial project that impounds the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Success with the O'Shaughnessy Dam...
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