AZ: The History of Arizona podcast

With both versions of the Colorado River Compact seeming to hit brick walls, proponents switched their focus to helping California pass the Swing-Johnson Bill, which would basically enforce the terms of the compact. But guess which state and its leaders really had a problem with this bill…

After growing tired of Arizona’s refusal to ratify the Colorado River Compact, the other states contemplated how to move forward. Their best solution was to just ignore Arizona completely.

The Colorado River Compact had been signed by the commission delegates, but soon enough a whole new round of squabbling started in the individual state legislatures. And the biggest roadblock of all would turn out to be Arizona and its forceful governor, George W. P. Hunt.

When the Colorado River Commission reached an impasse, Delph Carpenter proposed an idea. To get around the myriad of competing entrenched interests, he went with something both simple and (eventually) problematic - why not avoid talking about individual states all together?

By 1922, everyone along the Colorado River agreed to get together and decide how to split up the water amicably. Unfortunately, their first attempt would only last four days.