by John F. Ross
forced the resignation: Michael W. Bowers, The Nevada State Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 17–18.
claimed that “Stewart’s Castle”: Kathryn Allamong Jacob, Capital Elites: High Society in Washington, D.C., after the Civil War (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), 82.
“grew jealous of the attentions”: The Daily Critic, June 11, 1890, 1.
“Hold the waters”: “Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates of the First Constitutional Convention of North Dakota, Assembled in the City of Bismarck, July 4–August 17, 1889,” (Bismarck, ND: Tribune State Printers, 1889), 412.
“Such monopoly by the speculators”: The Cheyenne Daily Leader, July 30, 1889, 1.
to irrigate 200,000 acres: Pisani, 148.
suspended 134,000 filings and entries: Ibid., 150.
“The segregation of irrigable lands”: Rocky Mountain News, January 21, 1889.
“generated more venom”: Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 324.
“Scientists Wage Bitter Warfare”: New York Herald, January 12, 1890, 10.
integrating water rights: Holmes, “Pushing,” 311.
had failed to reckon: J. W. Powell, “The Lesson of Conemaugh,” The North American Review 149, no. 393 (August 1889), 154.
“What these people want is”: Report of the Special Committee of the United States Senate on the Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands. 51st Congress, 1st Session, Sen. Rpt. 928, Pt. 5, 90.
“What we want now”: Ibid., 95.
By all accounts: For these and other details about Dutton, see Wallace E. Stegner, “C.E. Dutton—Explorer, Geologist, Nature Writer,” The Scientific Monthly 45, no. 1 (July 1937), 83.
“has been better spent”: Report of the Special Committee, Pt. 5, 146.
approach as a “one-sided affair”: Ibid., 169–70.
“great blunders . . . involving”: Ibid., 183, 186.
“I would rather be defeated”: Stewart to M. L. Power, May 29, 1890, in John M. Townley, “Reclamation in Nevada, 1850–1904” (PhD diss., University of Nevada, Reno, 1976), 161, 167.
lest lands and waters fall: Report of the Special Committee, Pt. 1, 135.
“hydraulic feudal system”: Evening Star, May 28, 1890.
“a mass of humbug”: Evening Star, May 29, 1890.
“drunk with power”: Worster, A River Running West, 502.
“a frequent, almost daily visitor”: The Daily Critic, June 11, 1890, 1.
Noble categorically denied: “Letter from the Secretary of the Interior,” 51st Congress, 1st Session, Senate Ex. Doc. 141, 2–8.
“charged Reagan with falsehood”: The Daily Critic, June 13, 1890.
“almost a criminal act”: Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill, 51st, 1st Session, Sen. Rpt. 1466, 60.
“Senator, in the first place”: Ibid., 79.
“self-government by hydrographic basins”: J. W. Powell, “Institutions for the Arid Lands,” Century Illustrated Magazine 40, no. 1 (May 1890), 114.
“to the Government: Hands off!”: Ibid., 113.
“better servants than wild clouds”: J. W. Powell, “The Irrigable Lands of the Arid Region,” Century Illustrated Magazine 39, no. 5 (March 1890): 768, 766.
“powers of the National Government”: Pisani, 164.
“tycoon of many tails”: Evening Star, July 17, 1890.
not return to classifying lands: Rowley, 66.
“likes strong loyalty”: Mary C. Rabbitt, Minerals, Lands, and Geology for the Common Defence and General Welfare. Vol. 2, 1879–1904 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980), 213.
“Whatsoever might be bold”: Clarence E. Dutton, Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon District (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1882), 141–42.
CHAPTER 12: LAST STAND
twenty-five-day “grand excursion”: Clifford M. Nelson, “The Fifth International Geological Congress, 1891,” Episodes 29, no. 4, 279; W. M. Davis, Biographical Memoir of John Wesley Powell (Washington, D.C.: The National Academy of Sciences, 1915), 56.
“good humor prevailed.”: K. R. Aalto, “The ‘Grand Excursion’ of the Fifth International Geological Congress (1891): Celebrating geological exploration of the American West,” Rocky Mountain Geology 46, no. 1 (Spring 2011), 98.
“We have nothing comparable”: Worster, A River Running West, 510.
Powell accepted the Cuvier Prize: Aalto, 99.
Senate cut the survey’s budget: Manning, 204.
560 state and private banks: A. Bower Sageser, “Los Angeles Hosts an International Irrigation Congress,” Journal of the West 4, no. 3 (1965): 411.
“not merely a matter”: William E. Smythe, The Conquest of Arid America (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907), 267.
“but a sterile wilderness”: “The Arid Land,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 1889, 6.
applauded the choice of venue: “An Important Gathering,” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1893, 4.
delegates gawked at: Sageser, 421; Official Report of the International Irrigation Congress, Held at Los Angeles, California (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1893), 5.
Very heated remarks were made: Albuquerque Morning Democrat, October 14, 1893: 1.
“first sensation of the delegates”: The Irrigation Age 5, no. 7 (November 1893): 148.
“[T]he powers of nature”: “Annual Address of the President,” Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington 6 (1884), LII.
ARID AMERICA IS FIGHTING: The Irrigation Age 5, no. 7, 147.
in the best of odor: “Irrigating Arid Lands,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 16, 1893, 4.
total under cultivation today: Worster, A River Running West, 530.
“America’s version of the Egyptian”: Howard G. Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson, and Richard W. Hazlett, The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 231.
never crystallized coherent: Pisani, 334.
“by sheer force of character”: “Twenty-Third Annual Report of the Director of the United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior, 1901–2” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902), 12.
EPILOGUE
irrigate nearly six million acres: David Owen, Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River (New York: Riverhead Books, 2017), 6.
Every locality wanted: Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 116.
not enough river water for everyone: John Fleck, “Taking more water from the Colorado River’s upper basin,” June 23, 2015, http://inkstain.net/fleck/.
a curious omen befell Washington: H. H. Bennett, “Tons of Dirt from Central Plains Deluged City,” Washington Post, March 10, 1935, B9; “D.C. Invaded by Dust Storm from Midwest,” Washington Post, March 22, 1935, 1.
relying too heavily on: USGS Third Annual Irrigation Survey, see K. John Holmes, “A historical perspective on climate change assessment,” Climactic Change 129, no. 1–2 (March 2015): 353.
“common practice of public fraud”: C. D. Wilber, The Great Valleys and Prairies of Nebraska and the Northwest (Omaha: Daily Republican Print, 1881), 71.
“Irrigation emerged as an individual”: National Research Council, New Era for Irrigation (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 1996), 6.
will also take time: K. John Holmes, “Pushing the Climate Frontier,” Nature 501 (September 19, 2013), 311.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
abolitionism,
6–7, 11–16, 21–22, 36
Cincinnati riots of 1836, 12
Methodist church’s attempts to stifle, 12
Powell’s father’s adoption of, 11
Powell stoned for father’s views on, 15–16
Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains (James), 254
Adair, George W., 205
Adams, Ansel, 223
Adams, Henry, 214, 247, 288
Adams, John Quincy, 253
Adams, Sam, 112
Adrenaline Alley, 158
Agassiz, Alexander, 295–96
Agassiz, Louis, 250
agriculture,
Powell’s experience with, 27–29
Powell’s views on, 32–33
U.S. Department of, 315, 323
Alaska, 26
Aldine, The (magazine), 228
Algonquin Indians, 118
Allison, William B., 290–91, 297–98, 316–18
Allison Commission, 290–99
Agassiz’s testimony, 295–96
final report, 296–99
Powell’s testimony, 290–94
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 299
American exceptionalism, 256–57
American Express, 77
American Fur Company, 217
American West, 25–27, 336
artists and photographers of, 223–24, 336
federal surveys of, 212–42
Turner’s frontier thesis, 223, 336
Anasazi Indians, 154, 184
anthropology. See ethnology
anticline, 139–40
Appalachian Mountains, 5, 8, 13
Appleton’s, 237
Aridity (arid lands), 301–2, 328–29, 340–41
Great American Desert and, 253–56
irrigation survey, 303–24
Powell’s Arid Lands report, 260–63, 270, 302, 318, 335
Powell’s National Academy address, 251–53, 260
Powell’s Senate hearings, 1, 2–4, 308–11, 313–15
“Arid Lands of the United States” (map), 2–4, 308–9
Arid Lands report (Powell), 260–63, 270, 302, 318, 335
Arizona Strip, 181–82, 193, 206–9
map, xvii
Arizona Territory, 26, 104–5, 108, 206, 220
Arkansas River, 226, 253, 304
Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, U.S., 212, 214, 215, 219–20, 255
Army of the Tennessee, 64, 68–69
Around the World in Eighty Days (Verne), 307–8
aquifers, 333, 340
artesian wells, 309, 330
Arthur, Chester, 277, 280
Asey, Joseph, 169–70
Ashley, William, 118, 121, 131
Ashley Falls, 122
“Ashley” inscription, 121–22
Atkins, John, 259, 269–72, 274–75, 282
Atlantic Monthly, 232, 244, 245
Baird, Spencer, 214, 216–17, 218, 230, 286
Baker, Jim, 81
Baker, John H., 270
Baker-Fancher Party, 186–87
Ballou, W. H., 307–8
Baptists, 9
Barboncito, chief, 196–98
barometers, 123, 129–30, 131, 145, 163, 180
Battle of the Little Bighorn, 245
Beagle, HMS, 20
Beaman, E. O.
publishing of photographs of expedition, 237–38, 239, 246
in second Colorado River Expedition, 201–3, 204, 207–8
Bear Lake, 306
Beauregard, P. G. T., 53–54, 57, 59
beauty vs. sublimity, 231
Beaver Dam Mountains, 172
Becker, George, 286–87
Beckworth, Jim, 81
Bee Hive Point, 121
Bell, Alexander Graham, 243
Bennett, Frank, 196–98
Bennett, James Gordon, Jr., 308
Benton, Thomas Hart, 83, 255
Berlin X-Roads, 13–15, 21, 22
Berthould Pass, 81–82
Bible, the, 7, 8, 10, 21
Bierstadt, Albert, 81
Big Drop, 150–52
Billings, Josh, 311
birds, 18, 37, 101, 121, 140
Birney, James, 12
Bishop, Francis Marion, 188, 202, 207, 208
Black Canyon, 84
Black Hills, 217, 249
Black’s Fork, 111
Blaine, James, 277
Blizzards of 1886, 300
Bloomington Daily Pantagraph, 102
Bly, Nellie, 307–8
Bonito Canyon, 196
Bonney, William “Billy the Kid,” 336
boundary-lines, 265, 266–67
Bourne, William Oland, 71
Bowles, Samuel, 95, 96–97
Bradley, George
background of, 111–12
in Colorado River Expedition, 111–12, 114, 116, 121, 132–37, 144–48, 149, 153, 154, 156, 157, 161–69
post-expedition life of, 169–70
Breckinridge, John C., 116–17
Bridger, Jim, 101, 218
Briers Party, 220
Bright Angel Creek, 210–11
Bross, John, 95
Brower, David, 338
Brown, Joseph (Joseph Stanley-Brown), 278, 279
Brown’s Park, 111, 124–25, 139, 202
Bruinsburg Landing, 63
Buell, Don Carlos, 52, 59
Buffalo, 32
bullwhackers, 113
Bunyan, John, 29–30
Bureau of Ethnology, 230, 275–76, 279, 285, 303, 335
Bureau of Indian Affairs, 248–49, 266, 276
Bureau of Reclamation, U.S., 334–35, 338, 339, 342
Burke, Edmund, 231
Burroughs, John, 312
bushwhackers, 48
Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, 124
Byers, Libby, 165
Byers, William, 80–81
background of, 80–81
disappearance of Howland party, 172, 198
Powell’s Colorado River Expedition, 102, 141–42, 199
Powell’s Rocky Mountain expeditions, 81–82, 88, 93, 95–96, 100, 107
Sumner and, 86, 198–200
Cairo, Illinois, 48
California, 26, 78, 184, 255
California Trail, 78, 255
California Water Wars, 334
Callville, 106, 182, 201
Camp Mojave, 221, 222
Camp Sorghum, 69
cannibalism, 83, 148
Canonita, 205, 209, 210
Canyonlands National Park, 82, 104–5, 181
Cape Girardeau, 48–51
Capitol Reef, 82
Cárdenas, García López de, 232
Carey, Joseph M., 316
Carson, Kit, 49, 81, 86, 255, 256
Carson River, 304
Castle Rock Butte, 110
Cataract Canyon, 149, 150–54, 181, 204–5, 338
“Cataract of Lodore, The” (Southey), 126
Cataract Rapids, 150–54
catastrophism, 20, 125
cattle, 300. See also Grazing
census, U.S., 8, 44, 275–76
Centennial Exposition (Philadelphia), 233, 243–45, 246
Central Arizona Project, 339–40
Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 318–22
Chase, Salmon, 15
Chasm of the Colorado, The (Moran), 233
Chenoweth, J. Q., 294–95
Cherry Creek, 79–80
Cheyenne, 92, 111
Cheyenne Daily Leader, 306
Chicago Academy of Sciences, 76
Chicago and North Western Railway, 78
Chicago Tribune, 109, 141–42, 177
Chidlaw, Benjamin, 6
Chiefs Head Peak, 98
Christianity. See also Methodism
Earth’s history and, 19, 20
Christian revivals, 6, 9
Chuarumpeak “Chuar,” 188–89
Cincinnati, 6, 12, 177
Cincinnati Riots of 1836, 12
Cincinnati Weekly and Abolitionist, 12
circuit-riding preachers, 9–11, 21
Civil War, 35, 46–70
Powell’s views on, 46
Civil War Battles
Atlanta, 68
Big Black River Bridge, 64
Cape Girardeau, 48–58
Champion Hill, 64
Fredericksburg, 111
Gettysburg, 66–67
Nashville, 68–69, 87
Shiloh, 1, 52–58, 168, 278, 335
The Wilderness, 290
Vicksburg, 61–66, 74, 87
Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain), 39–40, 110, 222, 305, 311, 318
Cleveland, Grover, 291, 303, 327–28, 329
climate change, 340–41, 342
Cloud, Preston, 283
Coal Canyon (renamed Gray Canyon), 144, 146–47
Coastal Survey, 293, 294–95
Coast and Geodetic Survey, U.S., 246, 267, 290
Cody, William “Buffalo Bill,” 336
Colburn, Justin, 227–28, 229
Colfax, Schuyler, 95, 97
Collodion photography process, 202–3
Colorado, 26, 78, 81
Colorado Daily Tribune, 88
Colorado Plateau, 104–5, 206–9, 211
Colorado River, 87, 225
damming, 261–62, 338–40
environmental challenges to, 338–40
first explorations of, 83–85
Ives’ expedition, 83–85, 109
merger of Green and Grand Rivers, 87, 89, 104, 143, 147–48
Newberry’s journey, 109–10
Paiute Indian run, 106
Powell’s expeditions. See Colorado River Exploring Expedition of 1869; Colorado River Exploring Expedition of 1871-1872
Powell’s initial idea to explore, 82, 86, 87, 89–90
Wheeler’s expedition, 221–22, 225
White’s alleged run, 106–8, 109
Colorado River Compact, 339–40
Colorado River Exploring Expedition of 1869, 104–69, 182