Making the great American desert: Timelines and baselines ; The first Americans and the legacy of Coronado ; Major Stephen Harriman Long and the United States topographical engineers ; John C. Fremont and the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Juggernaut of change: Early impacts of trapping and hunting on western rivers ; The gold rush and its legacy ; Property rights, barbed wire, and the fencing of the American west ; The vanishing forest. From desert to oasis: Colorado's first ditches ; Working with the land ; Digging ditches ; The course of development ; Documenting a desert's demise. The ditch: Ditch companies; Annual meetings ; Ditch operations ; Laterals : getting water to ditch users ; Failed dreams. Boulder's pioneer ditches: Anderson Ditch and the growth of a city ; The first water right : the lower Boulder Ditch ; Farms to industry ; McGinn Ditch and the end of domestic water use of ditches ; The first becomes last. Taking Colorado: Promises and broken promises; 1864. Left Hand Ditch and the emergence of Colorado's prior appropriation doctrine: The Left Hand Ditch Company; The legacy of Coffin v Left Hand. Corporate opportunities: Emergence of corporate ditches ; Refining the corporate model : the Davidson Ditch and Reservoir Company ; Thinking big : Community Ditch and FRICO ; Boulder's last corporate ditch ; Backlash to corporate water : radical farmers, the grange movement, and progressive politics. Colonizing Colorado. Making the South Platte. Secondary water development in Boulder Valley: Seepage ditches. Privatizing nature: Water rights and appropriation in the Boulder Creek Watershed; A creekside look at stream administration. Great and growing cities: Boulder's Silver Lake Watershed ; Under the Great Divide ; Growing cities, shrinking ditches ; Denver Water's Moffat Tunnel Collection System ; Expanding Boulder's water supply : Boulder Reservoir and the Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric Project ; The quest for clean water ; Limits to growth? People and ditches: Uneasy neighbors; A ditch runs through it. An unnatural history? Ecological changes ; Out with the old, in with the new ; Water development ; Conserving and managing hybrid ecosystems ; Romantic landscapes and the problem of restoration ; Hybrid freshwater ecosystems ; Manmade lakes and wetlands ; Making a natural area ; Beyond the South Platte. Conclusion: The new nature. Epilogue: The Great Flood of 2013: Wednesday, September 11 ; Thursday, September 12 ; Past Boulder floods ; Friday, September 13 ; Saturday, September 14 ; Sunday, September 15 ; The rain stops : Monday, September 16 ; How big was this flood? ; The shadow of Gilbert White.