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Show Overview The Utah Construction Company incorporated in Ogden, Utah, in 1900, with Thomas Dee as president and a principal stockholder, along with banker David Eccles and railroad-builders William H. Wattis, Edmund 0. Wattis, and Warren L. Wattis. The company soon refashioned its skills and accepted dam-building projects. In 1931 Utah Construction led a consortium called Six Companies in a successful bid to build the Hoover Dam. The Wattis brothers died before the 1935 completion of the Hoover Dam. Financial wizard Marriner Eccles, a son of David Eccles, assumed company leadership, meanwhile serving President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the Federal Reserve Commission. Throughout the 1930s Utah Construction joined its former Six Companies partners, including Harry Morrison of Morrison Knudsen and Henry Kaiser, on a variety of dam and canal projects soon followed by military contracts. After World War II, Utah Construction gradually increased its interest in mining; in 1959 the company name changed to Utah Construction & Mining. In 1971 the company became Utah International, Inc., with projects in 16 countries on six continents. After a merger with General Electric in 1976-the largest merger of its type in United States history to that time-Utah International operated as an independent entity until its 1984 purchase by Broken Hill Proprietary, Ltd. Photo of Henry Kaiser courtesy of National Archives |