The heartbeat of the American southwest—the Colorado River—stretches 1,450 miles from Colorado’s Continental Divide to the Gulf of California in Mexico. It is the fifth longest river in America, and, while Americans were working to tame the West during the last half of the 19th century, it was clear the Colorado River could not be tamed. When the River flooded in 1905, resulting in a path of destruction and the creation of California’s Salton Sea, it became clear that the power of the Colorado River needed to be harnessed and controlled.
Concerns over flooding, as well as ways to utilize the Colorado River to assist in agriculture and provide water for the public, led the citizens and politicians from the affected states of the Colorado River Basin—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming—to seek an ecological compromise. Numerous meetings were held between 1918 and 1920, but representatives of the states could not come to an agreement. Eventually, a request was sent to the federal government for help.
