Dividing Western Waters: Mark Wilmer and Arizona v. California

The Scopes Monkey Trial, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, Brown v the Board of Education, and even subsequent televised high profile murder trials pale in comparison to Arizona v California, argues author Jack August in Dividing Western Waters, August’s look at Arizona’s Herculean legal and political battle for an equitable share of the Colorado River. To this day Arizona v California is still influential.

By the time Mark Wilmer settled in the Salt River Valley in the early 1930s, he realized t...