People above scenery: The struggle over the Grand Canyon dams, 1963-1968 Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Pearson, Byron Eugene, 1960- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 10/10/2021 16:38:36 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282716 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master UMI films the text directly fi'om the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be fi-om any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zed> Road, Ann Aibor MI 4S106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 PEOPLE ABOVE SCENERY: THE STRUGGLE OVER THE GRAND CANYON DAMS, 1963-1968 by Byron Eugene Pearson copyright ® Byron Eugene Pearson 1998 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 9 8 DMI Nimiber: 9901686 Copyright 1998 by Pearson, Byron Eugene All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9901686 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeh Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA ® GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Byron Eugene Pearson entitled "People above Scenery": The Struggle over the Grand Canyon Dams, 1963 - 1968 and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy / *7 ^ f Weyjc^ Ph.D. ^ Date Katherine Morrissey,y^'h.D. Date Garcia, Ph.D. Date Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. j ^ Dissert^ion Director Douglas Ueiner, Ph.D. ( J Dite 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made avziilable to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could never have completed this project without the guidance, help and patience of some very special people. First and foremost, I wish to thank Dr. Douglas Weiner my dissertation director for challenging me intellectually, for sharing his expertise in environmental history and for his enthusiasm about this topic, which helped carry me through the occasional doldrums of research and writing. I also wish to thank the other two members of my dissertation committee. I am indebted to Dr. Katherine Morrissey for her rigorous and constructive critiques of my ideas and writing style, as well as her willingness to share her insights about Westem United States history, and her desire to mentor a fledgling graduate student who at times doubted whether he had made the right choice in leaving the legal profession for a Ph.D. in history. Likewise, Dr. Juan Garcia has not only contributed his insights and knowledge about twentieth century American history, but sets a standard for teaching which I hope someday to emulate. 1 thank you all. I have also benefitted from many archivists whose knowledge of source materials have opened new and varied paths for me to research. Peter Steere, former curator of the Morris and Stewart Udall Papers at the University of Arizona, helped me immeasurably as I mined these immense resources. Joe Schwartz of the National Archives in College Park Maryland pointed me to National Park Service and Interior Department records, while Barbara Walton of the Conservation Archives in Denver introduced me to the Wilderness Society and Richard Bradley collections. The archival staffs at the Denver Federal Records Center, Indiana University of Petmsylvania, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, Clemson University, and the Bancroft Library at U. C. Berkeley all helped me utilize the resources held in these repositories while Colleen Hyde and Carolyn Richards of the Grand Canyon National Park Museum helped me to maximize my time at the canyon. I would also like to thank the many individuals with whom I have corresponded and interviewed. In particular I wish to acknowledge Dr. Stephen Jett of U.C. Davis, who testified in behalf of the Navajo tribe during the House hearings in 1966-1967 and who initiated a lively, thoughtfiil exchange of letters with me. I wish also to thank the following people who granted me personal or telephonic interviews: Stewart Udall Jeff Ingram, Sharon Francis, Frank Gregg, Floyd Dominy, George Hartzog, John Carver, Orren Beaty, and David Brower. Each of these individuals enabled me to break free of the documentary record, and experience history as they lived and shaped it. Finally, I wish to thank my parents, Ben and Kathryn Pearson for their love and support and my wife Paula, whom I cherish. Although all of the aforementioned people have facilitated the writing of this dissertation, inadequacies of interpretation or argument the reader may fmd are mine and mine alone. For Paula, my continuing inspiration . 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES 7 INTRODUCTION 10 CHAPTER I: "A PROFITLESS LOCALITY" 25 CHAPTER 2: NEWTON DRURY: CANYON DEFENDER 69 CHAPTER 3: PRESERVATIONISTS RESURGENT 117 CHAPTER 4: THE PRAGMATICS OF WATER DEVELOPMENT 161 CHAPTER 5: THINK BIG! 206 CHAPTER 6: THE BATTLE IS JOINED 248 CHAPTER 7: THE NINTH CRUSADE 291 CHAPTER 8: CANYON IN THE BALANCE 337 CHAPTER 9: THE HINGE OF FATE 390 CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION 457 WORKS CITED 488 7 LIST OF RGURES Figure LI Lees' Ferry, Grand Canyon National Park as created in 1919 .... 66 Figure 1.2 Arizona Highline Canal, Colorado-Verde Project, various dam sites surveyed during the 1922 La Rue expedition including Bridge Canyon and Red-Wall, which later became Marble Canyon 67 Figure 1.3 Grand Canyon National Monument as created in 1932 68 Figtire 2.1 Overlapping jurisdictions contiguous to the Colorado River in Grand Canyon including Indian Reservations, National Park Service lands and National Forest lands 114 Figure 2.2 The Marble Canyon-Kanab Creek Project 115 Figure 2.3 The Coconino silt retention dam and reservoir and their relation to Wupatki National Monument and Grand Canyon National Park and Monument 116 Figure 3.1 Hualapai and Navajo Reservation boundaries 160 Figure 4.1 Map showing the Prospect Dam site 205 Figure 9.1 Grand Canyon National Park after the 1975 expansion 456 8 ABSTRACT Between 1963—1968, western water interests sought to construct two dams in Grand Canyon as part of the Central Arizona Project. The Sierra Club led a national opposition campaign that environmental historians argue defeated the dams. Environmentalists claimed a great victory, and scholars and popular writers lauded the Sierra Club as the savior of Grand Canyon. Despite the laurels heaped upon the Sierra Club, its ability to mobilize public opinion did not enable it to appreciably influence Congress where the issue was actually decided. California politicians thwarted Arizona's attempts to build the project for decades, and when Stewart Udall, a former Arizona congressman became Interior Secretary in 1960, he promoted a regional plan predicated upon water importation from the Columbia River to gain California's support. Washington Senator Henry Jackson, the powerful Interior Committee Chairman, opposed the scheme, and California water strategists used Jackson's opposition and the environmentalists' campaign as pretexts to withdraw their backing in autumn of 1966. Knowing that Arizona's disproportionate political influence would end with his and Senator Carl Hayden's impending retirements, the pragmatic Udall obtained congressional passage of a bare-bones CAP without dams just months before he and Senator Hayden left office in 1968. However, the anti-dam effort was an important event in American envirormiental history because it propelled the Sierra Club to the undisputed leadership 9 of the environmental movement. Although most conservation organizations curtailed their lobbying efforts after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Federal Lobbying Act in 1954, the club continued its legislative agenda into the next decade.