The American West: History, Myth, and Legacy

John Wesley Powell and the Desert Southwest (1x18)

Air date: Jan 01, 2017

Twenty years after the end of the Mexican War, thousands of square miles of desert land the U.S. received had yet to be mapped and settled. That's where John Wesley Powell came in, whose report on these arid regions sparked the rise of irrigation farming techniques that would lead to unimaginable bounty.