Who is Lake Mead named after?

The man who oversaw the construction of what many consider North America’s most impressive feat of civil engineering is considered a trailblazing pioneer of water management.

From 1924 to 1936, Elwood Mead served as the first commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, a division of the federal Interior Department tasked with managing dams and water in the West. He died shortly after what was then called Boulder Dam was dedicated to former president Herbert Hoover in September 1935, having died that following January.

Under his tenure, the agency built two more complicated water features: the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state on the Columbia River and the Owyhee Dam in eastern Oregon.

Still, Hoover Dam and the reservoir it props up were his crowning achievement.

“Lake Mead was a monument to this preeminent champion of the conquest of the arid West,” wrote author James Kluger in his biography of Mead titled “Turning on Water With a Shovel.”

The project became a standard for New Deal-era projects under then-President Franklin Roosevelt, according to the Wyoming Historical Society.

Today, Lake Mead is the lifeline of Las Vegas, one of dozens of cities, towns and sovereign Native American tribes that rely on the reservoir and now house millions. The reservoir — and its infamous “bathtub ring” that shows how high water levels were long ago — serve as reminders of the importance of water conservation as climate change dries out the Colorado River Basin.

Adviser to Jewish settlers

While he was lead engineer on the Hoover Dam project, Mead advised what would one day become the Israeli government on water management in the 1920s.

Mead threw his support behind the Zionist effort to create a Jewish state in Palestine, even visiting in 1923. Townson University professor Robert Rook wrote in a 2000 journal article that Mead saw parallels between Jordan Valley and California’s Imperial Valley, envisioning a bountiful agricultural region.

Though Jordan Valley didn’t become a big player on the international stage for farming, the region’s water reserves proved crucial to the development of Israel.

The passage of Israel’s Water Law of 1959 was a post-effect of Mead’s influence, according to Rook. The law declared all water — surface water, groundwater, wastewater and floodwater — public property and under state supervision for the explicit purpose of the country’s development.

Shortly after returning stateside, Mead declared that he didn’t see a path forward for Palestine with Arab populations in power.

“I regard the Jewish Colonies in Palestine as the most important and valuable influence now being exerted in this country for the improvement of agriculture and the creation of a stable and enlightened rural life,” Mead wrote in a memorandum to Zionist leaders after his visit.

Architect of Wyoming water law

Another legacy Mead left was in Wyoming, the state where he served as top water regulator.

Though he began his life in Indiana, Mead found his way out west soon enough, becoming Wyoming’s engineer in 1888, when it was still a territory. At 32, Mead wrote nearly all of what became the state’s water law.

The territory adopted the so-called “prior appropriation doctrine” still found in Western state constitutions today. The “first in time, first in right” establishes the concept of senior water rights, or those claimed first.

“As the demands upon the water supply have grown, necessity has led to a gradual decrease in the freedom of the appropriator and an increase in the control exercised by the public authorities,” Mead wrote in a 1903 book. “It seems only a question of time when the doctrine of appropriation will give way to complete public supervision.”

One new idea he drafted was state control of water resources, giving Wyoming the power to grant or deny water rights applications based on practicality or benefit to the public. Mead established an expert “Board of Control,” too, that decided water disputes in lieu of a court or judge.

Time well spent

Following his time in Wyoming and before his trip to Palestine, Mead was called to another part of the world: Australia.

The Victorian government of Australia offered him a position as chair of the newly formed State Rivers and Water Supply Commission in 1907. He remained chair for eight years, influencing the country’s desire to establish more water resources.

Having a lasting impact in several countries and states, Mead leaves behind a legacy of orchestrating the most important water project for Nevadans and the West.

“The mighty waters of the Colorado were running unused to the sea,” Roosevelt said during the dedication ceremony for what is now called Hoover Dam. “Today, we translate them into a great national possession.”

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.