Delta is rather
unusual among the primarily agricultural towns in the state, since it
was founded in the twentieth century and owed virtually nothing regarding
its establishment to direction from the general hierarchy of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The previously
settled West Millard farming area was already becoming prosperous from
alfalfa seed production when Frederick R. Lyman and others of his Oak
City family began investigating the possibility of diverting Sevier
River water upstream from the relatively new Gunnison Bend Reservoir,
which was used for cultivating lands at Oasis, Deseret, Hinckley, and Abraham. After farmers from those communities claimed winter runoff
water and commenced building a larger Sevier Bridge Reservoir in southeastern Juab County, Lyman persuaded his fellow members of the Millard LDS Stake
presidency, Orvil Thompson and Alonzo A. Hinckley, to call attorney
James A. Melville to determine the feasibility of forming a new irrigation
company in connection with this reservoir project. The Mellville Irrigation
Company was organized for that purpose on 24 March 1906. Twenty-nine
of the thirty-four original incorporators were residents of Millard
County.