Marble Canyon Dam States Geological Survey, which designated sites for "an unbroken string of [hydroelectric] dams from the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming to the last canyons of the Colorado River along the California/Arizona border". Although the Bureau of Reclamation expressed interest at this time in developing hydroelectric generation at the Marble site, these plans were postponed in favor of building the Hoover Dam, which would provide a much greater storage capacity for irrigation and flood control. However, once Hoover was completed the Bureau once again set its sights on the Grand Canyon, which has the greatest hydroelectric potential of any canyon in
Steamboats of the Colorado River to make only two trips with forty tons in that time. Trips farther up river to the vicinity of Fort Mohave took at least twice as long. The same difficulty plagued the "Colorado" carrying cargo between the estuary and Arizona City. By the fall of 1863 there was a backlog of twelve hundred tons of freight at Arizona City or in ships anchored in the estuary waiting to be brought up river. Between ten and fifty tons of ore waiting to be brought down to the estuary at each of the landings up river above Arizona City. Some of this