A self-made geologist and ethnologist who lost an arm fighting slavery in the Civil War, Powell led geological expeditions into Colorado and Utah, becoming in 1869 the first white to make the hazardous boat trip through the Grand Canyon. His 1875 account of the exploit was a major contribution to physiographic geology. He was instrumental in establishing in U.S. Geological Survey, serving as its director from 1881 to 1892. But Powell’s greatest accomplishment was his long campaign to persuade the U.S. government to develop irrigation in the West as a means of “reclaiming” land for agriculture. In his Report on Lands of the Arid Region of the United States (1878) he pointed out the dangers of soil erosion and advocated large-scale dam and irrigation projects west of the 100th meridian where annual rainfall was less than 20 inches. He criticized the 160-acre units allotted under the Homestead Act as unsuited to the environmental conditions of the West, urging instead land apportionment based on geography and water supply. His vision of a unified, rational, scientific approach to federal land policy was not shared by Western developers and Congressmen who rejected his reform proposals. But Powell’s ideas eventually triumphed. In 1902, Congress passed the Newlands Reclamation Act, which accepted the principle of federal management of western waterways and created the Bureau of Reclamation.

Tags: geological expeditions, Homestead Act, irrigation, John Wesley Powell