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"The Worst Floods In History" Federal Government And The Floods Of 1944 In The Elkhorn River Basin, Todd Kerstetter

Great Plains Quarterly

Water has played a critical, even defining, role in the history of the American West. Typically, scarcity determined water's significance. Farmers descended of European stock found too little water in the West to continue their traditional agriculture. Battles linger to this day over water rights for irrigation and urban usage. In a less-examined phenomenon, excess water has shaped the otherwise arid Plains by influencing the relationship between humans and their environment. In Nebraska's Elkhorn River Basin, a steady history of flooding led humans to alter the basin in attempts to control or mitigate flooding. Record flooding in 1944 revealed the …