Colorado River Commission of Nevada

The State of Nevada expressed official interest in the development of the Colorado River as early as 1869, soon after acquiring from Congress the area that became the southernmost portion of the state. The river formed the eastern boundary of the new addition. That year the Legislature passed a resolution instructing the senators and requesting the representative in Congress to seek a federal appropriation for making the Colorado ("the natural channel for the commerce of the greater portion of the country lying between the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains") navigable "to the mouth of the Los [sic] Vegas, or to the town of Callville."

In 1883 a similar resolution called for federal funding for improving navigability between Fort Yuma, California, and a point thirty miles above the confluence of the Colorado and Virgin rivers. The resolution asserted that improved river transportation would benefit the state's mining and agricultural interests. Foreseeing the need for federal and interstate involvement in such an endeavor, the lawmakers asked the governor to send copies of the resolution to the Secretary of the Interior and the governors of California, Arizona, and Utah, "requesting their hearty support and earnest co-operation in obtaining said appropriation. . . . "

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