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Show 38 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER sparse, until it faded away almost entirely in the colored, ragged seas of sage and grease wood and mesquite, and the cactus of the deserts. The thousands of migrants pushing westward feared most the great, high, arid plains, where there were few streams and sparse grass for their stock. Great ordeals were suffered in crossing this seemingly endless and forgotten land, and few persons considered settling in it. Oregon and Washington and California, the rich countries bordering the Pacific, drew them on, and there under a beneficent climate they prospered. The Mormons were a notable exception to this pattern of settlement. Seeking their own kingdom on earth, they stopped their westward trek in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. As the trail-weary eyes of their leader, Brigham Young, gazed down from the mountains into the burning desert, he is reputed to have said: "This is the place." Perhaps he had a vision of a green and bountiful land where he saw only sand and alkali and desert shrubs. Or perhaps he knew that his sick and suffering people could go no farther unless they perish. Whatever his thoughts, one of the first acts of the Latter- day Saints was to dig an irrigation ditch. Water ran over the parched earth, and they planted seeds. The Mormon empire of the West was born that day, and its cornerstone was irrigation. That was the beginning of modern reclamation in the interior West. It continued to expand, and it was not long before men were fighting to death over water claims and riparian rights. When the twentieth century began, reclamation was supplying water to more than ten million acres. That was a very small part of the arid West, but it gave notice that reclamation was |