Lake Mead

By Erin Elizabeth Eichenberg

The drastic contrast between its desert landscape and the deep, blue waters of Lake Mead makes it difficult to envision the park's creation as merely incidental. After the completion of the Hoover Dam, the waters of the Colorado River began to flood the river valley and form one of the largest man-made lakes in the United States. The Bureau of Reclamation soon realized the vast recreational opportunities that Lake Mead would provide. Through a memorandum of agreement, the National Park Service was tasked with managing the first national recreation area, formerly known as the Boulder Dam National Recreation Area.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Feb 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439649596

Erin Elizabeth Eichenberg

Erin Elizabeth Eichenberg is a museum specialist for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Eichenberg began working for Lake Mead as an archaeological technician and assisting with managing the park's museum collection. She actively shares her knowledge of Lake Mead's history with the community through various public outreach projects conducted within the park.

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INTRODUCTION

When tourists gaze at the spectacular views of Lake Mead, it is difficult to envision the history that lies beneath the striking, sapphire waters. The public generally appreciates the lake as a modern place for busy city dwellers to play and unwind. Most visitors are unaware of the recreation area’s rich cultural resources and administrative history. Lake Mead is not merely a by-product of the damming of the Colorado River, but also the result of two federal agencies working together to create the first national recreation area in the National Park Service system.

Prior to the construction of the Hoover Dam, animals and humans had been utilizing the natural resources of the Lake Mead area for thousands of years. Before the waters of Lake Mead rose, scientific excavations and surveys were conducted throughout the park ahead of the inundation of the area’s natural and cultural resources. Paleontological excavations revealed the presence of Pleistocene (2.5 million to 10,000 years ago) giant ground sloths, camels, horses, and mammoths in rock shelters along the Colorado River. The presence of stone projectile points found with the megafauna suggests over-hunting may have been the cause of their extinction. Additionally, the disappearance of megafauna in the paleontological record coincides with the appearance of humans in the archaeological record.

Based on archaeological findings within Lake Mead National Recreation Area, evidence of Archaic peoples utilizing the area appeared some time after 3000 B.C. In 1924, prehistoric artifacts and ruins along the Virgin and Muddy Rivers were discovered, leading to the excavation of the sites by Mark Harrington and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The Ancestral Puebloan (Virgin Branch) ruins were originally named Pueblo Grande de Nevada by Harrington, but the media exaggerated the find, deeming the site the Lost City. The Lost City settlement was occupied from the Basketmaker II Period (300 B.C.–A.D. 400) through the Pueblo II Period (A.D. 1000–1150). The abandonment of the Lost City area may have been due to climate change resulting in drought.

Later peopling of the area began around a.d. 1000 when the Southern Paiute entered the Great Basin area. The Southern Paiute lived in crude brush shelters and traveled in small hunter-gatherer bands. Other Native American groups occupied the Lower Colorado River portion of Lake Mead NRA. Archaeological evidence of the Cerbat-Pai and Amacava-Mohave occupying these areas dates back to A.D. 750.

Spanish explorers conducted early explorations of the Colorado River in the 1700s. Natural resource surveys and mapping expeditions were later sponsored by Congress to document flora, fauna, and the navigability of the Lower Colorado River. John Wesley Powell’s expedition in 1869 determined the river would need to be controlled in order for long-term settlements to prosper in the area.

Mormon missionaries established townsites along the Colorado River in the late 1800s. Brigham Young, the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, encouraged missionaries to establish settlements along the river in order to ensure the safe transportation of people and goods along the waterway. It was unforeseeable, but the townspeople would soon be forced to move once plans for the Hoover Dam were carried out. Townsites such as St. Thomas and Fort Callville would eventually be submerged by Lake Mead.

In 1928, Congress passed the Boulder Canyon Project Act in order to build a dam that would control flooding of the river and provide water year-round to all seven Colorado River states: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada. Under President Hoover, funds for the dam were appropriated and construction began in 1931. The Hoover Dam (initially known as Boulder Dam) was completed in 1936, and