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Show 300 APPROPRIATION OF WATER appropriate water, in place of the widespread "do-it-yourself' method of diverting water and putting it to use with or without the form of posting and filing a notice of intention. Second, it established a coordinated system of acquiring water rights, adjudicating them, and distributing water to the appropriators in accordance with their relative rights. This comprised the three broad functions of public water rights control, of which all administrative fea- tures were exercised by an organization headed by a single constitutional board. The basis for this Wyoming system was laid in the State constitution, and it was promptly implemented by legislative action.400 It was the forerunner of the varying administrative systems that were installed in most of the other West- ern States during the ensuing 30 years. For some of them, it served as a model. Elwood Mead's part in creating this complete and unprecedented Wyoming water rights system was of major proportions. He was Assistant State Engineer of Colorado, among other occupations, before being appointed first Territorial Engineer of Wyoming in 1888. Then 30 years of age, Mead brought to Wyoming firsthand knowledge of the workings of the Colorado system and developing ideas of changes and additions needed to cope with the growing water problems of the West. Events in Wyoming in 1888 were rapidly moving toward statehood, which was attained 2 years later. The Act of Congress admitting Wyoming to the Union provided "that the constitution which the people of Wyoming have formed for themselves be, and the same is hereby, accepted, ratified, and confirmed."401 Within this 2-year period: (a) Mead clarified and organized his ideas of the place of water in the growing economy of the West, the inadequacy of current water laws in solving the growing problems, and the need for establishing certainty as to the nature, acquisition, and protection of water rights by recourse to public supervision, (b) He also made his ideas well-known in the Territory, and he took a leading part in the proceedings dealing with water problems in the constitutional convention. The Wyoming convention produced a constitution that contains, in contrast to those of other Western States, an exceptionally large number of provisions relating to water. It created the first complete water rights administrative organization in the West. In Dr. Mead's own words, "accumulated water rights complications made irrigation one of the most important questions to be considered in the constitutional convention." Fortunately, he said, the membership of the convention included "a number of men who were unusually well informed on the subject, and who sought not simply to correct the mistakes of the past, but to create a system suited to the needs of the future."402 Mead also outlined the legislation necessary to implement the constitutional provisions. He became Wyoming's first State Engineer, and he held this office 400Wyo. Const, art. I, § § 31-33, art. VIII § § 1-5, art. XIII, § 5; Laws 1890-91, ch. 8. 40126 Stat. 222(1890). 402Mead, Elwood, "Irrigation Institutions," p. 252 (1903). |