Powell’s position was vigorously fought by the railroads, eager to sell land to pioneers, and equally eager to haul manufactured goods and harvested crops. Reisner notes how explorer John Wesley Powell believed the arid West to be unsuitable for agriculture, except for 2 percent of the land with water. Reisner examines how the West changed from “the great American Desert” to a land developer’s Promised Land, all courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. How to understand water and the West? A good starting point is Marc Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water,” published in 1986 and updated in 1993.
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