Turning on water with a shovel

Elwood Mead (1858-1936), an engineer who pioneered western water law and development, worked tirelessly for over fifty years to ensure that water went to its best use. Ever the idealist, Mead consistently held to his nineteenth-century view of agrarian life based on the individual farmer living on a small, irrigated plot. This account of Mead's public life describes his key role in creating water policy and overseeing reclamation projects. His career spanned the history of irrigation from the first corporate ditch enterprises in Colorado in the 1880s through the construction of Hoover Dam a half-century later. In all his endeavors, whether serving as state engineer in Wyoming, investigating irrigation use for the Department of Agriculture, developing model rural communities in Australia and California, of administering the Bureau of Reclamation, Mead always sought to give the benefits of water to small farmers and average citizens. One of Mead's greatest achievements - the construction of Hoover Dam - was completed just as he died, and Lake Mead is named for him.