RECLAMATION PROJECT HISTORIES
Reclamation began a project to research a basic history of each Reclamation project in 1993. Using student historians during the summers, we expect to develop a brief history narrative about each of the Reclamation projects in the American West. Samples of these essays are included here.
The essays are intended to provide basic history background about project location, construction history, major features, and economic effects in the area. Reclamation uses these essays for such activities as environmental statement preparation, summaries for publications, briefing presentations, etc.
Once narratives are in second draft, they are distributed to several history repositories that have large research collections devoted to the American West: the Water Resources Center Archives at the University of California at Berkeley, the Western History Collection of the Denver Public Library, the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the Beineke Library of Yale University.
Overview of the Central Valley Project
Project History - San Luis Valley Project.
Project History - The Eklutna Project, Alaska
Full text of completed project histories available on Project DataWeb
For a list of completed narrative histories, click here.