The Congress of President Theodore Roosevelt passed the Reclamation Act of 1902 which created the U.S. Reclamation Service (later becoming the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation), focused on developing irrigation projects to serve small family farmers and stabilize settlements in the arid west.

The first draft of the Deschutes Project consisted of four units within the Deschutes watershed: the East Side Unit (35,000 acres), the South Unit (48,460 acres), the West Side Unit (20,325 acres) and the North Unit (99,330 acres). This whole project required two reservoirs to support: the first at Crane Prairie and the second proposed at Benham Falls (later moved to Wickiup to avoid loss to lava tubes).

Landowners within Jefferson County establish North Unit Irrigation District to vow their commitment to the construction of the the Deschutes Project North Unit. Though as a result of World War I and constrained funding offers, a good option for funding became hard to find.

North Unit Irrigation District (NUID) changed their name to Jefferson Water Conservancy District under the impression that a new name would help the irrigation district sell their bonds without stigma of the failed NUID scheme. This cycle of farm failure and abandonment accelerated in the later 1920’s and early 1930’s as drought conditions in the west grew even more extreme and the Great Depression spread worldwide.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented his “New Deal” emergency relief program which brought a tide of agency funding. With this funding, the Bureau of Reclamation revived the Deschutes Projects and began feasibility studies for Crane Prairie Reservoir and Wickiup Reservoir, and reconfigured the designs for the North Unit Irrigation District’s and (now) Central Oregon Irrigation District’s main canals to divide them into two separate operating systems.

Construction on the North Unit Project began on July 21, 1938, but was stalled due to the arrival of World War II.

Construction began on Wickiup Reservoir in 1939 but was not completed until 1947 due to the national call for manpower and resources for World War II. The first fill in 1947 revealed many leaks in the reservoir but after 2 years of repairs, the reservoir was complete and ready for full service in 1949.

With the completion of the North Unit canal in 1946, water was delivered to 17,000 acres during 1946 and 1947.

By the spring of 1949, all 50,000 acres were receiving water.

Rather than waiting two days for water to arrive from Wickiup Reservoir, Haystack Reservoir was constructed to give the District re-regulating control over its distribution system. What had once been a prosperous farm was converted into one of the Districts most pivotal means of water management.

Post-construction of the Deschutes Project, the District funded its own connection to a supplemental water source. Pulled from the Manhattan Project, 9 450-horsepower pumps were installed on the Crooked River to help the District endure water shortages felt from its primary Deschutes source. The pumps push water 125 ft up out of the Crooked River Canyon and into the North Unit Main Canal