Colorado River

[W. Gray]

The Colorado River begins at 9,000 feet at Rocky Mountain National Park in north central Colorado.

The river runs 1,450 miles. It flows out of Colorado through Utah and Arizona almost stopping at Hoover Dam near Las Vegas.

From there, it flows south hugging Arizona and California before "flowing" into Mexico. Only 75 miles exist in Mexico before the big river empties into the Gulf of California—sort of.

Upstream US communities and agriculture take so much water from the Colorado that most years it dries up well before reaching the coastline.

In the early twentieth century, the Colorado River was a few hundred miles shorter that it is now and did not flow through the state of Colorado.

The Colorado River started in Utah at the junction of the Green and Grand rivers.

In 1921, Congress changed the name of Colorado's Grand River to the Colorado River.

Grand Junction, Grand Mesa, Grand Lake, and Grand County in Colorado all take their name from the former river.

[Diane Amberg]

I just learned something. Thanks! I was going to make a comment about stopping in Las Vegas to pull a few slots, but decided a big river would be too smart for that.

[W. Gray]

Congress authorized Boulder Dam and construction began in 1931 during Herbert Hoover's administration.

The name Boulder Dam came from the proposed location in Boulder Canyon of the Colorado River.

However, the dam was not built in Boulder Canyon. It was built in Black Canyon.

Black Canyon had a more stable foundation under its riverbed. Nevertheless, the name remained Boulder Dam.

The Secretary of Interior under Hoover's Republican administration changed the name to Hoover Dam shortly after construction began.

When Roosevelt's Democrat administration took over in 1933, his Secretary of Interior renamed it Boulder Dam.

When the dam was dedicated in 1936, Hoover was not invited although he had told Roosevelt's Secretary of Interior he would like to be there. 

Roosevelt's Secretary of Interior stayed into the Truman administration. After he retired in 1946, a republican congressman introduced a bill that changed the name back to Hoover Dam effective in 1947.

The law passed both houses and Truman signed it into law.