Colorado Desert

All around the southern edge of the sea is the Imperial Valley, a developer’s name for the southernmost tip of California’s agriculturally productive lands; before irrigation, not much would grow in what was then called the Colorado Desert, although water historically came in irregular bursts.

I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen Amy Wilentz 2006

All around the southern edge of the sea is the Imperial Valley, a developer’s name for the southernmost tip of California’s agriculturally productive lands; before irrigation, not much would grow in what was then called the Colorado Desert, although water historically came in irregular bursts.

I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen Amy Wilentz 2006

Under his influence Rockwood eventually cut his ties to Beatty, preserving from the scam only his surveys and equipment—and the vision of an irrigated Colorado Desert bringing forth an agricultural bounty.

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

Reasoning that few humans would willingly commit their life savings to a place known as the “Colorado Desert” or, worse, the “Salton Sink,” the man who had founded dreamscapes with the exotic names of Etiwanda and Ontario decreed that henceforth the territory stretching a hundred miles from the Colorado River toward the sea would carry the name “Imperial Valley.”

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

Reasoning that few humans would willingly commit their life savings to a place known as the “Colorado Desert” or, worse, the “Salton Sink,” the man who had founded dreamscapes with the exotic names of Etiwanda and Ontario decreed that henceforth the territory stretching a hundred miles from the Colorado River toward the sea would carry the name “Imperial Valley.”

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

At one point Rockwood discovered him ensconced in a lavish top-floor suite in the finest building in Providence, Rhode Island, among “show cases and tables filled with oranges, lemons, bananas, figs, apricots, all products of the Colorado Desert, which at that time was producing nothing but a few horn toads and once in a while a coyote.”

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

Under his influence Rockwood eventually cut his ties to Beatty, preserving from the scam only his surveys and equipment—and the vision of an irrigated Colorado Desert bringing forth an agricultural bounty.

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

The legislation was introduced by a Unionist congressman, John W. Crisfield of Maryland, with a nonchalant condemnation of the Colorado Desert as utterly worthless territory “not in a condition that a rattlesnake could live on it.”

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

At one point Rockwood discovered him ensconced in a lavish top-floor suite in the finest building in Providence, Rhode Island, among “show cases and tables filled with oranges, lemons, bananas, figs, apricots, all products of the Colorado Desert, which at that time was producing nothing but a few horn toads and once in a while a coyote.”

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

His most important mark was Rockwood, who had come out of the Colorado Desert possessed by the dream of a rejuvenated wilderness.

Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010