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
Cottonwood Valley (Arizona and Nevada) Cottonwood Valley (Arizona and Nevada) Cottonwood Valley is a wide valley, on the Colorado River on the border between Mohave County, Arizona and Clark County, Nevada. It extends east and west from the river into both states and is the first wide valley south of the Black Canyon of the Colorado, the last in a series of great canyons the Colorado River passes through after leaving the Rocky Mountains on its way west and where it makes its turn to the south toward the Gulf of California. All of the Colorado River in Cottonwood Valley and the lower reach of