History of the Grand Canyon area stretched along a 278-mile (447 km) segment of the Colorado River from the southern border of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area to the eastern boundary of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Grand Canyon National Park was designated a World Heritage Site on October 24, 1979. In 1935, Hoover Dam started to impound Lake Mead south of the canyon. Conservationists lost a battle to save upstream Glen Canyon from becoming a reservoir. The Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1966 to control flooding and to provide water and hydroelectric power. Seasonal variations of high flow and flooding in the spring and
Steamboats of the Colorado River the river, except for the "Searchlight" that lingered on as property of the U. S. Reclamation Service until it was sunk in 1916. Steamboats were tried in Glen Canyon, the Green River in Utah and Wyoming and the Grand River, (after 1921 renamed as the upper part of the Colorado River), above its confluence with the Green River in Utah and in Colorado. Unlike the Lower Colorado, the railroads made possible most of this steam navigation on the Upper Colorado, bringing in the boats or their parts and their fuel to the points on the river where they were assembled