John Wesley Powell was an explorer and a scientist. A true adventurer of the American West. He was the first white man to go down through the Colorado River.. checking out the grand canyon and everything. More importantly, he was one of the first to realize the American West was an arid region and that water was a scarce yet important resource. He worked hard to ensure that settlement of the American West went smooth. Unfortunately, settlers believed that God was on their side and rain would come as long as they plowed their fields. Of course, God did not change the Climate of North America and so the American West has encountered several problems as more and more people start to live in the arid regions.
One of Powell's ideas was for territories/states to have their borders based on major watersheds watersheds. This would keep things simple when dealing with State Water Rights. This of course never happened, and most states were designed in a geometric fashion. Had his idea been implemented though, a map of the western states may have looked like this.
There are many variations of this map. This is what I came up with and I think it looks pretty sweet. All borders of the western states run along watershed boundaries. The result is a lot different than what our borders are today
.
No comments:
Post a Comment