December 14, 2020
The cover illustration for “Vision and Place: John Wesley Powell and Reimagining the Colorado River Basin” is by Patrick Kikut, titled “Reservoir Powell/Crossing of the Cultures.”
Almost from the moment the oars of his wooden drift boat dipped into the flows of the Green River in Wyoming in 1869, John Wesley Powell began to shape Euro-American visions of this arid region. The Colorado River Basin, where Powell spent most of his time in the West, now supplies water to no fewer than 40 million people.
Recognizing the 150th anniversary of Powell’s epic 1869 expedition, two University of Wyoming professors and a University of Utah colleague have brought together a collection of original essays, artwork and maps that examine Powell’s legacy and how it might and might not inform approaches to a new “Great Unknown” in the Colorado River Basin.