The Carey Act and Conservation in Colorado

The Carey Act and Conservation in Colorado is an environmental history of the endless missteps and unforeseen consequences that characterized Colorados participation in the Carey Actan 1894 federal law that granted one million acres of desert-classified public land to each western state for private irrigation development and settlement. In this inclusive narrative, author Gerald Morton reveals how this obscure law affected thirty-four of Colorados most arid stretches of landscape.   Morton contextualizes the Carey Acts significance in Colorado through a study of the Two Buttes and Muddy Creek projects in the states southeastern cornertragic examples of the disconnect among developers seeking windfall profits in the face of financial rollercoasters, the challenge of reclaiming remote sagebrush country, and settlers seeking viable livelihoods that eventually led conservationists to reimagine the failures as public wildlife refuges. A collision of values between developers and settlers lay at the center of those wildlife habitat conservation efforts, forcing people to rethink their relationship with the land and ephemeral streamsan awareness that correlated with the advent of modern ecology.   The Carey Act and Conservation in Colorado is the untold story of the manipulation of nature and the reconceived use of land for public wildlife areas on the southern plains of the American West. Offering original research on arid lands policy, federal and state agency oversight, irrigation bond financing, heartbroken settlers grievances, individual developers motives, and the rise of wildlife conservation, this compelling tale of misfortune will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in conservationist and environmental history in the American West.     See more