IRRIGATION AND STATE BOUNDARIES. 



A PROBLEM OF THE ARID WEST AND ITS SOLUTION. PART II. 



BY ORREN M. DONALDSON. 



IN the IRRIGATION AGE for February I presented a 

 plan for the repartitionment of arid America by 

 drainage basins, as an ideal solution of the per- 

 plexing problem of the division of interstate waters, 

 and as a radical remedy for the fundamental error in 

 the existing system of State boundaries in the Western 

 half of the United States. As to the degree in which 

 such a proposition is practicable, there will doubtless 

 be a wide difference of opinion. A tew years of 

 united effort on the part of the irrigation interests of 

 the' country would accomplish it; but such an effort 

 is unlikely to be brought about, and it is well to rec- 

 ognize at the outset that whatever changes of bound- 

 ary are made will have to be the result of aroused 

 local sentiment; here a little and there a little, until 

 perchance the incongruities and monstrosities of the 

 present system of division are removed. 



It will simplify matters somewhat to admit that the 

 formation of the proposed States of North California, 

 South California, West Texas and South Texas, is not 

 necessary from the irrigation point of view, although 

 they would help to maintain the proper equilibrium 

 of power among the Commonwealths of the Pacific 

 coast and of the extreme South. Of the remaining 

 States and Territories many would undergo little 

 modification in the repartitionment. Kansas and 

 Nebraska would each retain practically its present 

 area and population. Montana, Washington, Oregon, 

 Nevada and Oklahoma would lose no essential part 

 of their present identity, while Idaho and New Mexico 

 would keep sufficient of their present territory and 

 people to claim continuity of existence. 



The same would be true of Colorado, although its 

 partition would be one of the most serious difficulties 

 to be confronted. A natural line of cleavage, how- 

 ever, follows the " Great Divide," and if once this 

 line could be drawn the remainder would be com- 

 paratively easy of accomplishment. The southwest 

 corner would gravitate toward the adjoining sections 

 of the Rio Grande and San Juan basins, while the 

 local pride of the southeastern quarter would help 

 join it to those parts of the Arkansas river basin to 

 the south and east for the formation of the State of 

 South Colorado. The northeastern quarter, which 

 would unite with the rest of the upper Platte basin to 

 make the new Colorado, would retain fully one-half 

 of the population of the present State. The inter- 

 change of territory and people between Colorado and 

 Wyoming for the formation of the new Colorado and 

 new Wyoming, would be well balanced. W T yoming 

 retaining 17,500 square miles of its territory and 

 12,000 of its population, according to the census of 

 1890, would give to Colorado 26,800 square miles and 

 87,000 people, and would receive in return from Col- 

 orado 40,000 square miles and 49,000 people, Each 

 State, under the new boundaries, would retain its 4 

 present statehood, Colorado passing along the map, 

 so to speak, to the east and north, and Wyoming 



passing to the west and south; the former to be com- 

 posed wholly of the upper Platte river basin, includ- 

 ing a section of Western Nebraska, and the latter of 

 the upper Colorado river basin, including a section 

 of Eastern Utah. An accessory before the fact in this 

 change would be the division of the present Wyoming 

 about midway of its width on an east and west line, 

 following the water-shed between the Yellowstone 

 basin and the Platte and Colorado basins. The whole 

 Yellowstone basin could then be easily brought to- 

 gether in the Territory or State of Yellowstone. 



The problem of the re-union of the Dakotas and 

 their re-division along the line of the Missouri river 

 could best be solved, perhaps, by making the new 

 Dakota heir to the statehood of South Dakota and 

 passing the sovereignty of North Dakota over to the 

 new West Dakota. Thus each State would have a 

 continuous existence. Nine-tenths of the inhabitants 

 of North and South Dakota would be in the new 

 Dakota. They would thus have to support one State 

 instead of two, and would have a Commonwealth 

 equal in population and development to many of the 

 older members of the sisterhood of States. Its area 

 is an agricultural unit, almost wholly in the humid 

 region, and it ought not to be divided politically. 

 West Dakota would be an irrigation State, new and 

 undeveloped, but with sufficient population, under 

 well established precedents, to warrant it a place in 

 the Union. 



The separation of Eastern Washington and Oregon 

 from the parts of those States west of the mountains 

 will probably come in the natural order of events. 

 The City of Spokane ought to see to it that it becomes 

 the capital of a State that shall include all the region 

 between the Rockies and the Cascades north of the 

 lower course of the Shoshone and the Columbia one 

 of the grandest empires on the continent. And then 

 Walla Walla, or some other city, ought to follow the 

 good example and gather around itself the corre- 

 sponding territory south of the rivers and make another 

 State of scarcely less importance. These divisions, 

 for lack of better names, I have called, respectively, 

 Missoula and Wallowa. 



The remainder of the proposed changes are more 

 simple. It ought not to be difficult for Idaho to ac- 

 quire those small portions of the Shoshone basin now 

 in Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and Oregon; or for Utah 

 to acquire those parts of the Bear River valley in 

 Wyoming and Idaho, or those sections of Arizona and 

 Nevada tributary to the Kanab, Rio Virgen and other 

 streams that flow south into the Colorado. Arizona 

 could probably get from California and Nevada the 

 narrow strip west of the lower course of the Colorado 

 and tributary to it. And Nevada ought to be able 

 to acquire from California the territory east of the 

 Sierra Nevadas, and the lake region from Southern 

 Oregon. Such accessions would nearly double the 

 population and would add immensely to the economic 



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