William Henry Wattis
While William continued to try to find construction projects, Edmund focused his energies on running a sheep ranch the brothers had established in the Weber Valley.A short four years after its founding, Utah Construction Company was awarded the contract to build the Feather River route between Oakland and Salt Lake City.The company thrived, and soon captured a large share of the tunneling, grading, and track projects in the rapidly expanding railroads in the mountain west.[1] 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.As president he oversaw the new L-shaped addition equipped with elevators, making Dee one of the most modern and up-to-date hospitals of its time at an estimated cost of $160,000.[6] Due to political and legal troubles with the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, Wattis was indicted on price fixing charges and was found in contempt of court by Judge Tilman D. Johnson, which caused him to withdraw from a 1920 run for governor.In 1929, the Wattis Brothers spearheaded the formation of Six Companies to build the Hoover Dam, which was the largest construction project ever tackled by the US Government up to that time.On March 23, 1931, Time Magazine wrote: Last week small, spry, white-haired William Wattis was in San Francisco's St. Francis Hospital taking the Coffey-Humber cancer treatment when word reached him that his company had won the contract to build Hoover Dam.