River histories
River histories
People and each river, its biggest flows and the floods that mattered, with sources.
Lower Colorado RiverLees Ferry, Marble Canyon and the Grand Canyon: since 1963 the river's flow is set mostly by Glen Canyon Dam, but floods still pour in from the side canyons.
Upper Colorado RiverCalled the Grand River until 1921, it carries Rocky Mountain snowmelt through Grand Junction, Moab and Canyonlands.
Green RiverThe Colorado's biggest tributary, from Wyoming through Dinosaur, Desolation and Gray canyons to Canyonlands.
San Juan RiverFrom the San Juan Mountains through Farmington and the Navajo Nation to Lake Powell; its largest known flood came from days of fall rain, as October 2026's did.
Salt RiverThe river that made Phoenix: Hohokam canals, one of the first big dams of the Reclamation era, and floods that took out the Valley's bridges.
Virgin RiverA small desert river with a big temper: it drains Zion and the Pine Valley Mountains and floods hardest in winter rain-on-snow storms and summer cloudbursts.
San Rafael RiverA desert river born of three mountain creeks, crossing the San Rafael Swell to the Green.
Escalante RiverThe last river of its size to be mapped in the lower 48 states, cutting a maze of slickrock canyons to Lake Powell.
Lake MeadThe reservoir behind Hoover Dam, the largest in the U.S. when full, filling the lower Virgin and Muddy valleys and the Colorado's last canyons.
Lake PowellGlen Canyon, drowned by Glen Canyon Dam, now the Upper Basin's great reservoir.