Nature
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In the Spring of 1905, the Colorado River, swollen by heavy rainfall and snow-melt, surged into an irrigation canal east of this location. The great "red bull," as settlers called the river, overflowed the canal’s banks and spilled into the Salton Sink, a desert basin about 278 feet below sea level. The flooding continued for two years and challenged engineers, railroad barons, and President Theodore Roosevelt. In the end, settlers and indigenous people from Southern California, Arizona, and Mexico finally contained the Colorado’s unchecked flow. By then, a shallow lake stretched 35 miles across the desert floor.
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