How to Survive the Desert: Cities of the Southwest

Summary

American History Hit: "How to Survive the Desert: Cities of the Southwest"

Podcast Information:

• Title: American History Hit
• Host: Don Wildman (History Hit)
• Description: Don Wildman explores the depths of American history to shed light on the United States of today. Topics range from pre-colonial times to modern-day issues, featuring conversations with leading experts.
• Episode: How to Survive the Desert: Cities of the Southwest
• Release Date: May 15, 2025

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Introduction to the American Southwest

In the episode titled "How to Survive the Desert: Cities of the Southwest," host Don Wildman delves into the intricate history of the American Southwest, exploring how vast arid landscapes have been transformed into thriving metropolitan areas. The discussion centers around Kyle Pauletta’s new book, American Oasis, which examines the historical, cultural, political, and economic impacts shaping this vibrant region.

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Expansion Post-Mexican-American War

Don Wildman begins by contextualizing the Southwest's transformation following the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The war’s conclusion via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo expanded the United States by approximately 525,000 square miles, incorporating present-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and parts of Wyoming. This territorial gain was a manifestation of the Manifest Destiny ideology, driving westward expansion and introducing complex challenges such as water scarcity, indigenous rights, and the spread of slavery.

Key Point:

• The annexation created economic opportunities but also escalated national tensions and logistical hurdles, especially regarding water management in arid territories.

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Settling the Arid Land: The Birth of Phoenix

The conversation shifts to the establishment and growth of Phoenix, Arizona, now the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Kyle Pauletta outlines how the city overcame its desert conditions through innovative water management.

Notable Quote:

Kyle Pauletta (07:45): "Phoenix's emergence as an enormous metropolis is something that continually surprises people. When it surpassed Philadelphia as the fifth largest city in the country, it was a watershed moment."

Historical Development:

• Early Irrigation: Ancestral Sonoran peoples first harnessed the irregular Salt River with rudimentary irrigation canals and dams, supporting agriculture from 500 to 1500 CE.
• Anglo Settlement: Post-1870s, Anglo settlers like Jack Swilling revitalized these irrigation systems, leading to Phoenix’s growth.
• Bureau of Reclamation: Founded by Theodore Roosevelt, it built the Roosevelt Dam to stabilize water supply, enabling sustainable expansion.
• Central Arizona Project: Completed in 1993, this 300-mile aqueduct draws water from the Colorado River, though modern demands continue to outpace supply.

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Indigenous History and Spanish Colonialism

A significant segment of the episode addresses the indigenous cultures that inhabited the Southwest long before Spanish arrival. Kyle Pauletta emphasizes the sophisticated agricultural practices of the Pueblo people and their resilience against Spanish colonization.

Notable Quote:

Kyle Pauletta (12:10): "Many Pueblos are effectively huge apartment complexes, built with adobe blocks from local materials, situated far from rivers to mitigate flood risks."

Key Historical Events:

• Spanish Conquest: Initiated with Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expeditions in the 1540s, leading to violent encounters and the establishment of permanent colonies like Santa Fe in 1610.
• Pueblo Revolt of 1680: Led by Popé, indigenous groups temporarily expelled the Spanish, highlighting sustained resistance against colonial oppression.
• Legacy: Modern New Mexico reflects a complex interplay of Anglo, Spanish, and indigenous cultures, often marked by historical tensions and debates over memorialization of colonial figures.

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Modern Water Challenges and Sustainability

The episode transitions to present-day issues, focusing on water scarcity exacerbated by climate change and population growth. Kyle Pauletta discusses how cities like Las Vegas have become models of water efficiency through innovative recycling and conservation practices.

Notable Quote:

Kyle Pauletta (40:54): "Las Vegas is the most efficient water user in the country, returning 40% of water pumped from Lake Mead back into the reservoir."

Strategies Highlighted:

• Water Recycling: Significant investments by cities such as Los Angeles and Phoenix in advanced water recycling technologies.
• Infrastructure Innovations: Las Vegas’s extensive underground tunnel systems capture and redirect rainwater, mitigating reliance on Lake Mead.
• Sustainable Practices: Emphasis on reducing consumption and optimizing water use to ensure long-term viability of urban centers in the desert.

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Conclusion: The Ongoing Struggle and Future Prospects

Don Wildman wraps up by underscoring the importance of understanding the Southwest's history to navigate its future challenges. The growth and sustainability of cities in the desert are depicted as a continuous balancing act between human ambition and environmental constraints.

Final Thoughts:

• Historical Awareness: Recognizing the region’s layered history is crucial for addressing contemporary issues like immigration and resource management.
• Adaptation and Innovation: The Southwest's ability to adapt through technology and sustainable practices offers lessons for other arid regions globally.

Recommendation: Don Wildman highly recommends Kyle Pauletta’s American Oasis as an essential read for anyone interested in the profound history and ongoing developments of the American Southwest.

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About the Author: Kyle Pauletta Kyle Pauletta is a seasoned journalist with contributions to the New York Times, Harper's, New York Magazine, and more. Raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Pauletta brings personal insight and extensive research to his exploration of the American Southwest’s history and its impact on contemporary society.

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This episode adeptly combines historical analysis with contemporary issues, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of how the American Southwest has evolved and continues to thrive amidst environmental and cultural challenges. Whether you’re a history enthusiast or simply curious about the forces shaping modern cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas, this episode offers valuable insights and compelling narratives.

Transcript

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[Don Wildman]

In the life giving rivers of the American Southwest, history runs deep. The Salt river winds through the heart of the desert, cradled by jagged mountains, burning gold at dawn, turning violet at night. Under a sky as wide as forever and a sun that won't give up. It is a river that comes and goes. It floods, it dries, but it always returns. For more than a thousand years, each time it came back, its waters were welcomed, coaxed through hand dug irrigation canals, turning the desert green. Then new voices were heard along its banks, Spanish missionaries planting wooden crosses along its way. Later came ranchers, then railroads, dreams demanding more and more water. And so the river was captured behind dams, forced through concrete tunnels to quench the thirst of a new city risen from the desert. Phoenix, Arizona welcome back to American History Hit. Glad you could join us. I'm don Wildman. In 1848, after victory in the Mexican American War, the United States grew Its landmass by about a third, some 525,000 square miles. A gigantic geography that would go on to become the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, even some of Wyoming. The Rio Grande river was recognized as a major stretch of America's southern border with Mexico, and Mexican claims on parts of Texas were relinquished. Manifest destiny was essentially made manifest by the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty, which ended that war. The United States of America would now officially stretch from sea to shining sea. This vast territorial annexation was obviously a boon to national pride and economic potential. It was now a realistic option for any American with horse and wagon to go further west, and not just to Oregon. But this presented huge challenges as well, heightening divisive national issues having to do with enslavement, state and federal jurisdictions, and the rights of indigenous peoples. No less complicated was the practical consideration of how these new regions would be settled when so much of them were made of dreadfully arid lands and parched desert. Somehow, someway, they would be settled, making a deep and continuing impact on American culture, altering the nation forever. Journalist Kyle Pauletta has authored a brand new book on the subject entitled American Oasis, and tracks the historical, cultural, political, and economic impact of this dry, dusty, yet vibrantly populated realm we call the American Southwest. Hello, Kyle. Welcome to American history. Hit.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Thanks so much. Great to be with you.

[Don Wildman]

A vast subject matter to take on the American Southwest, but you grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so this is a personal mission for you, I suppose. What prompted this book?

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is very much having grown up in New Mexico and then lived and worked on the east coast in New York and Boston for the better part of two decades. And what happens when you're from the Southwest and you spend a lot of time, especially in the Northeast, is you're confronted with how little people in the rest of the country know about the place you're from and the sort of broad generalities that, you know, maybe someone's visited the Grand Canyon, maybe they went to Santa Fe once, they have grandparent or an uncle who retired to Phoenix. There's sort of like these touchstones that people have, but there's also this broad ignorance that stems from, I think, what you were talking about a little bit in the intro of this, this sense of the Southwest as a very kind of foreboding, unwelcoming geography that how could people live there? How can there be those cities there? And so I think part of what made me really want to kind of return home in a way, and have a deeper Engagement with the history of the region was really wanting to both explain the Southwest to the rest of the country and help people understand the process through which all that land that was incorporated into the country through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, how it was integrated into the country, as well as to kind of like help the Southwest understand itself. Because I think so many people I grew up with are pretty new to the region. I mean, my. My grandmother's family first came there in the 1910s, but plenty of people moved to Las Vegas last year and have no real sense of the. The history of this place that is, you know, some of the fastest growing part of the country still.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, right. The book is framed sort of as a journey written in the first person, which is your voice all around the different basic major regions around these major cities. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso. And you take us through this sort of both historic but also anecdotal experiential exploration of the area, which is so interesting and very, very detailed. Let's start with the ideas of the Southwest. I mean, human settlement, of course, whenever that happens, is first about finding a source of water, really. And this is especially true of the American Southwest. A region, as I mentioned in the opening, hugely desert, hugely arid. Anyway, let's first talk about the development of Phoenix, Arizona, which is sort of jumping into the middle of your book. The fifth largest metropolitan area in the country. How would there ever be enough water to supply a city of 5 million people there?

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's an excellent question. And it's. As I've talked about the book, I think Phoenix's emergence as a enormous metropolis is something that continually surprises people. And certainly when it surpassed Philadelphia as the fifth largest city in the country, I think that was like a watershed moment for a lot of Americans of like. Wait a second, like Binks is better than Philadelphia. How did that happen? Yeah, so I think this. The story really starts with the ancestral Sonoran peoples who first lived along the Salt river in what's now central Arizona. And the salt is a. Unlike the Rio Grande or the Colorado is a somewhat less stable river. There are some years where it flows, you know, very rapidly and is a quite impressive river and many years when it runs dry. So it's a much more. The Salt river is a less regular companion for civilization than maybe other rivers are. So these ancestral peoples, they dug these irrigation canals and some kind of rudimentary dams, and a lot of. Did a lot of these sort of earthworks that allowed them to support some of the most vast agricultural area in what's now the United States in the pre Columbian era. And so that was roughly 500 to 1500 CE. And so that kind of laid a foundation. And then there were some climactic changes where those peoples migrated to other rivers, primarily the Gila and the Santa Cruz. And then in after Guadalupe Hidalgo, you have Anglo settlers coming in the 1870s who discover these irrigation canals. And that becomes. That is why it is called Phoenix. It's the sense of where is a civilization reborn, where this supposedly banished people was.

[Don Wildman]

But even the name speaks to the Anglo centric view that I am guilty of being an Anglo person from the east coast, of thinking of, of the Southwest and certainly Phoenix area as being this thing that needs to be rescued, that needs to be brought life to, when that's exactly what the Spanish, the explorers who came in in the 1500s and so forth also felt that way. But in fact, of course, there had been an indigenous culture there, as you're, you're speaking to, that had a very complex irrigation driven agricultural society built sparsely. It wasn't a huge population, but there were a lot of cities built along those rivers and in those irrigation ways were creating these, these sustainable cultures. That is so much a part of this story that you're educating us through this book about undoing this preconception of the idea that every certain white person who's ever come into that area thinks of it as being something that needs to be brought back to life.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Absolutely, yeah. And you know, in addition to those peoples in what's now Arizona, there were of course, the Pueblo people, primarily in New Mexico and along the Rio Grande and some of its tributaries, where there were dozens of villages. When the Spanish first got there, when Coronado, you know, led his expedition out of Mexico into what's now the Southwest, and that those people also had a very long history. And there's evidence of trade between the Pueblos, the people of the rivers in Arizona and Central Mexico, with what became the Aztec civilization and so on. So there was very much a thriving culture. And you can today visit, you know, the ruins of Mesa Verde or Chaco Canyon and see these really incredible cliff dwellings that those peoples developed around, you know, 1000 1100. And see that for them, living in the desert was about making do with very scant resources. And many lived very communally. I mean, many Pueblos are effectively huge apartment complexes.

[Don Wildman]

Right.

[Kyle Pauletta]

And so what happened with Anglo settlement is very much in importation of a lifestyle from not just the Midwest and the Northeast, but from Europe. And this sense of we can take this place and turn it into something that's more familiar east of the Mississippi as where you get this dictum of the rainfall follows the plow, which was very popular in the Manifest Destiny era, that simply by cultivating land, you would turn it temperate and you would turn it into good agricultural land. And even the Bureau of Reclamation, which is responsible for the Hoover Dam and much of the water infrastructure in the West. The name reclamation comes from the idea that there is some past version of the land that was facilitated mass agriculture. We simply have to reclaim it. We're not changing the environment. We're returning it to some idea of what it used to be.

[Don Wildman]

Well, we're turning it to Eden, which is so much a part of the American mythology. You know, we will come and bring this back to the. To the original form it was. Let's talk about some events that happened to create that. From 1950, Phoenix expands from 100,000 people to what we now have, as was 5 million people, it's 265 times the original footprint. I mean, there are some really amazing, I have to say, engineering feats that go into creating this. A lot of this happens around the time of Theodore Roosevelt, but really it starts right after the Civil War. Guy named Jack Swilling arrives and creates a canal company, the Swilling Irrigation Canal Company, taking water from, as you say, the Salt River. Can you step us through this process? This really. It goes almost 50 years to create the basics of this whole water system.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah, I mean, I think the history of Phoenix is a history of using up all of the water available and then reaching further to another water source. So it starts with the Salt river and irrigating the Salt River. And very rapidly, Phoenix becomes a kind of premier agricultural center, certainly the region, but throughout the West. And what happens, as I mentioned at the beginning, the Salt river is a very irregular river. And so they have sort of the first decade in the 1870s is a boom time. There's regular rain, good snowpack. They're able to really expand what's under cultivation very rapidly. The next decade is a drought. And it's probably the only time in Phoenix's history where it lost population, where people said, like, oh, this isn't work. I'm going to go to California. And so you have this sort of like, immediate challenge. And then the boom times recumb, so much so that there's a massive flood that destroys the first railroad bridge in Phoenix. So all of that becomes part of why Theodore Roosevelt founds the Bureau of Reclamation. Is this Idea of we need to even out the water. We need to make it possible so that when there's boom years, we can hold onto that to use in the years when there isn't as much rain or snow. And so the first dam that the Bureau of Reclamation builds is now called the Roosevelt Dam in the mountains kind of northeast of Phoenix. And that reservoir becomes what allows Phoenix to really begin growing because it gives it a very sustainable water source. Within a couple decades, the residential population has grown to the point where they can no longer pump groundwater because, you know, they're using the dam water for irrigation. People are drinking pumped water very quickly. It becomes silty and undrinkable. So they build a pipeline to the Verde river, which is sort of the next tributary north. And that allows them to expand again, which works until the 1950s, when they suddenly need much more water than the Verde can provide. And you actually have a situation where the newspaper, the Arizona Republic, has a headline that is basically, Phoenix is going to run out of water A week from now. There is a genuine crisis that I believe it's actually on the 4th of July when this headline runs, that we are imminently going to run out of water. And very luckily, there is a massive rainstorm that follows. And they just kind of luck out of the crisis. But that experience leads them to say, okay, we need to like, we need a more sustainable source. And so then you get a. A deal is brokered with the Bureau of Reclamation that allows what were formerly farms that get changed into houses to use the same water source.

[Don Wildman]

Right.

[Kyle Pauletta]

And this is why today almost all of residential Phoenix used to be farms and all of that. The water that supplies the subdivisions is water from the Roosevelt Reservoir that was primarily irrigating citrus and cotton. So that allows the next growth spurt. And then we get into the 70s and they recognize again, we're growing so fast we don't have enough water. And that's how you get the Central Arizona project, which is the 300 mile aqueduct to the Colorado river, allows Arizona to take advantage of its share of that river that it broke up with the other states. And that's completed and I believe 1993. And it connects both Phoenix and Tucson to the Colorado. And we are now, for 30 years later, have reached the point at which it's like, oh, still not really enough water.

[Don Wildman]

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[Don Wildman]

It really breaks down to all these different eras as you say 1920ish. You've got this redwood pipeline being laid by this New York. So much of this is really the story of any American metropolitan area being eventually built. It all starts with water. And they. They create these things based on each other's models. And New York really started it. What is today 27 reservoirs in the Catskills started as the Croton Reservoir, where I live, just north of New York. And these engineers were dispatched across the country to create this stuff. How much was this related to John Wesley Powell's initial, you know, journey down the Colorado and his view of how water would be distributed?

[Kyle Pauletta]

Well, I think Powell is such a fascinating figure because he's the one who first charged the Colorado for the United States and helps facilitate the Arab settlement by saying, here's where the canyons are, here's where Lee's Ferry is the premier place to cross the river. But after that experience, he gives a very famous speech where he basically says, like, there is not enough water to sustain a, you know, east coast style population here. That this is a very rugged environment with very limited resources. And I believe he gives that speech in the 1880s or the 1890s. It's on. It's before the Bureau of Reclamation is founded. And it is very quickly dismissed by the kind of interest of boosters who, you know, definitely part of this story is the land grab that was basically made possible. All of the settlement of the west, which we can talk a little bit about the history of Albuquerque, where I'm from, which was very much a lot of Anglo entrepreneurs buying up land very cheaply. And then there, having done that, they were able to get the railroad to come to Albuquerque and then see a huge profit because they owned all this land that suddenly was very valuable because it was next to a railroad depot.

[Don Wildman]

Right. You just have to bring in the water and you've got a whole new product to sell. But that's an important factor that you state there. The fact that land was so cheap because it was viewed as unusable. People who were moving there knew that if they brought the water, it would be made green and magical and terrific, which is golf courses and all the rest eventually. But it goes through the agricultural phase, into the tourism phase eventually.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah. And just to make that point even more, the Homestead act is rightly very famous for allowing the colonization of Kansas, Nebraska, the Midwest, the Great Plains. But in order to get people to even want the land in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, they have to pass another act that's called the Arid Lands act, which doubles the amount of land that a homesteader is able to claim if it's arid because it was this idea of like, this is how much, you know, the federal government wanted this colonization project to succeed, that they literally were giving away as much land as they possibly could. And. And hence why you then have this big federal investment in things like Hoover Dam, because suddenly you have all these people who sort of are expecting that the government is going to make good of, you know, you wanted us to live here. We need some water now.

[Don Wildman]

You know, early in my career on television, I did a show about a dude ranch. You know, it was just me out there lassoing things, but it was. It happened on a ranch in, I believe it was New Mexico, where I really liked the guy that I was working with, this Anglo man who was, you know, multigenerational farmer, rancher there was. And I asked him in a sort of idle moment, how big is this ranch? How long, you know, where. Where's it reached to thinking I was pointing out to it, he says, oh, it goes 27 miles down that way. I said, 27 miles? And he. I said, how often do you even see it? He says, oh, very rarely. But that was how land was distributed out there, you know, and. And those families that took. Took control of so much, you know, certainly around those. Those urban areas had these vast swaths of land. It was not unlike the way the Dutch did it with. With New York. You know, you just gave these rich people this whole thing, and off you went.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Well, and speaking of New Mexico, part of the story there is Spanish colonialism, where, you know, you have the Spanish first coming and coming in 1598 to create the permanent colony. And then Santa Fe is established in 1610. You know, this is 20 years before Boston is settled. This is before Jamestown. And you have this system where the Spanish crown is making vast land grants to Spanish settlers. And to this day, many of those land grants are still legally valid. And there are families who can trace back to the 17th century that there's this chain, but you have in New Mexico, you have these. It's possible to have these vast ranches. And I would bet good money that that rancher who you met, the origin of his ranch, was probably as a Spanish land grant.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, yeah, but we're talking like two Anglos here.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yes.

[Don Wildman]

The truth is, and much of your book is concerned with it, to your credit, the indigenous history that went before you know, which was intruded upon by the Spanish at first. Let's talk about those cultures and start around where you grew up, which is where the book begins, with Albuquerque and the Pueblo Indians that existed there. Let's talk about how they survived in this arid culture.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah, so I mentioned the cliff dwellings before that are in kind of the highlands of the Colorado Plateau. It's believed that many of the pueblos today are descended from those cliff dwellings, which were initially very defensible kind of positions, that they're in canyons and have very limited entry, but they also have pretty limited water. If you visit Chaco Canyon today, you will very swiftly realize how dry it is. And so there were some, you know, periods of especial aridity that drove a lot of those people to the rivers. And so you have these dozens of villages along the Rio Grande and some of its tributaries, and they practice a style of agriculture that's somewhat similar to what's happening in the Sonoran Desert. But I think the most important thing is that it's very flexible, that they'll have a pueblo which, if, you know, people are unfamiliar, is usually made out of adobe blocks, which is made of mud and straw. It's very much building with the materials of the place that you live in. And those are often quite far from the river or at a real remove from the river. And then there are sort of, you know, irrigation canals and somewhat more temporary farms that acknowledge that there's going to be a flood eventually there's. All of this land will be submerged. There's no point in building a house here because it's going to get destroyed because it's made of mud. So many of the pueblos are actually a decent distance from the river. And so when Coronado's party arrives on this exploration, they find, I think it's believed to be about a dozen villages in the area that's now Albuquerque, which is a province known as Tihue. And they go there and they spend a winter there. And it's sort of a classic American story of first contact, where initially there is a period of, you know, kind of bartering and friendly relations, trading things. But as the winter sets in, the Spanish army begins just kind of like taking more and more. And there's. There's various sources about exactly what happens if there's a story about a Spanish soldier visiting a pueblo and literally grabbing the blankets off of people to use. There's one about sexually assaulting a woman, but there is some kind of. Kind of violent interaction that leads to the pueblos to basically close ranks and shut the Spanish out of the actual structures in the Tihue area. And that leads to a siege. And this sort of inaugurates this real era of warfare between the Spanish and the pueblos, which continues from when Coronados there in the 1540s through when Don Juan de Onate settles the first permanent colony in 1598, where there's a very famous confrontation between his army and the pueblo of Acoma, which leads to Onate ordering that every man from the pueblo have his. His foot cut off, which is this kind of touchstone example of the Spanish brutality towards the indigenous people. And so there's. That lasts all the way through 1680, of Spanish kind of bringing the pueblos to heel. And then in 1680, you actually have a revolt that's led by this figure known as Pope, who is a religious leader from the pueblo of, okay, Owingay, which is quite close to Santa Fe. And it's a really a fascinating story of indigenous resistance, where they are able to basically across this vast landscape that stretches all the way from, you know, the area around Santa Fe in New Mexico all the way to what's now western Arizona and the Hopi tribes. And all on the same day, they, like, rise up. There's. The priests are many of them killed very brutally. All these churches are burned down. They drive this Spanish back to Santa Fe, lay siege on Santa Fe, and actually force the Spanish to retreat back to Mexico. And so there's a period of 12 years in which the Spanish are completely ejected from New Mexico. And then they come back, and there's the reconquista of Pedro de Peralta reclaiming Santa Fe in 1692. But I say all that just to illuminate this Often. I think there is a. If you visit Santa Fe today, you'll probably hear about the three cultures of New Mexico, that there's this sort of balance between Anglo culture, Spanish culture, and indigenous culture that goes back to that era, but in fact, is a very violent history.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, it was never as easy as they say.

[Kyle Pauletta]

No. And even today, there are very emotional battles about New Mexican history, where Don Juan de Onante is still kind of memorialized as a hero by many descendants of the Spanish settlers and as the greatest villain by indigenous people. And you have, you know, in 2020, there's a massive protest in Albuquerque that leads to a statue of Onyante being removed. I talk about just in two years ago, there's a similar statue in a city called Espanola, where there's a violent confrontation, where someone gets shot, where this is a very real kind of matter of debate about how we. How we remember this era of Spanish colonialism.

[Don Wildman]

I'll be back with more American history. After this short break.

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[Don Wildman]

I want to take this opportunity to remind people we're talking about the American Oasis book that is written by this man, Kyle Pauletta, and it is such an effective way to introduce yourself to all of this history because you're doing it through his voice and it's a really interesting, complex journey you're on. But as you're listening to this conversation, understand that this history is absolutely essential to understanding the identity of this vast amount of our world, which now we boil down to, you know, border war. You know, we just hear about it through very, very sensationalistic terms, politicized terms, when in fact the history is very, very layered and very, very organic to that area, based on, you know, the struggle that it takes to live in that area, as demonstrated by everybody who's ever arrived there. It's a really fascinating story all told through your book. And that's. I just really want to plug it because it really is helpful to start with that kind of thing. If you're not familiar with the complexities of all the native tribes and so forth that go on there. Why were the Spanish. I've always wondered this, why were the Spanish so determined to make this incursion? What were they heading towards? What was the objective?

[Kyle Pauletta]

So I think the story is that there were. They were chasing wealth, that there were these seven golden cities of Cibola, which comes from a. Basically there's some earlier voyages where you have the famous journey of Cabeza de Vaca, who is shipwrecked with a bunch of other Spanish and ends up surviving this. I believe it's eight or nine year trek from Texas through what's now the southwest to the west coast of Mexico, where it's him and three other survivors who come back kind of, you know, talking about we encountered all of these tribes. And then that leads to one of the survivors who is a enslaved man named Estavanico or Esteban, who allowed the Spanish to survive because he actually was kind of a polyglot. He was able to communicate with all these tribes. And because of that skill, he actually, Estafenico ends up leading the next journey north out of Mexico, where he accompanies a friar whose name is Marcos Deniza, who they encounter the, the pueblo of Zuni, which is in today's western New Mexico, which is a somewhat, basically they, they kind of expect a certain amount of tribute. The people of Zuni are not impressed with them, they chase them away. But he comes back telling a story of this city made entirely of gold, that the walls are made of gold. And so there's, there's some thought of like, oh, did he see the pueblo architecture in the sun? And like, it looked kind of golden, but. But that sort of sets off this rapacious conquest, which.

[Don Wildman]

Interesting.

[Kyle Pauletta]

You see throughout the history of Spain's colonization of Mexico, I mean, it's a.

[Don Wildman]

Metaphor you can carry. Right. Arizona highways, which always had those sort of Kodachrome kind of glowy pictures of Arizona. I mean, it's a beautiful place and so they weren't lying, but it really has been. What has been traded on is this mythical land of enchantment in case of New Mexico. But further on, you've just continued light happens all over the place there and people come home telling these stories about that that probably happened with those Spanish.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that sense of, you know, people visiting and kind of becoming enraptured with it and then wanting to kind of bring more people, that continues. And after Guadalupe Hidalgo, you have sort of the first wave of Americans coming to the region and realizing, you know, there's, it's very ripe for colonization. You mentioned Jack Swilling. You have the first kind of entrepreneurs who come to Albuquerque and El Paso and yeah, it follows right through to the 21st century.

[Don Wildman]

Exactly.

[Kyle Pauletta]

And certainly once you get into Las Vegas, which we can talk about as kind of the ultimate example of this chasing a dream in the desert.

[Don Wildman]

Exactly. All these chapters of yours, parts of the book all kind of overlap, which is what's so fascinating. It's such a huge area that we're talking about. And yet the struggles to create those societies by indigenous peoples and then those who have incurred upon them right up into modern times are very related, certainly because the water sources are related. Most famously now for the Colorado river. There's only so much water available and it's going away fast. And this is certainly the case with Las Vegas and Lake Mead, which that lowering level of Lake Mead has now become the metaphor for or the success or failure of this reclamation, the so called reclamation in the American Southwest.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think when you get into the last part of the book is when I sort of turn from a very historical eye towards thinking about the world as it is now and how it is changing because of the climate. And I think the Southwest has always had these problems with water scarcity, but has, because of the extremity of the environment, there has come up with some solutions and some strategies and ways to cope with it. And certainly the construction of massive reservoirs is the primary way that they have been able to build these enormous cities. But now we've sort of seen the limit of that. And so we're beginning to have to think about, okay, how do we live more sustainably, how do we live within our means and in many ways returning to more of that indigenous perspective of using what is available rather than reaching further and further for another resource.

[Don Wildman]

Yes.

[Kyle Pauletta]

So Las Vegas, you know, has this reputation as being this sort of profligate water user and the Bellagio's fountains or all the golf courses, but it is, in fact, the most efficient water user in the country. 40% of the water that is pumped from Lake Mead is returned to Lake Mead. And so because of how extreme the environment is, they actually have become kind of a pioneer in making do with less in a way that now you have Los Angeles spending about $8 billion on water recycling, San Diego spending $3 billion. Phoenix has its own water recycling program. This idea of we actually do have the technology now to reuse our water rather than just consuming it.

[Don Wildman]

Las Vegas, I mean, the famous tunnels underneath of Las Vegas are actually part of an incredible system. I mean, that entire city is ringed by mountains. And so the whole thing is one big basin. And so the entire city has the largest, I believe, underground tunnel system for capturing the water that comes, you know, once a year in that rainy season. And it all gets returned, as you say, or sent to Lake Mead, which is major source of the water there. But still, it's a struggle. It is a modern journey. Through your book married with the historical account of how These places came to pass. And that's why you need to get this book. I've never plugged a book so aggressively as this. I really like it.

[Kyle Pauletta]

I appreciate it. Thank you.

[Don Wildman]

American Oasis. I think it's really important because we are entering into a period and a new presidency where the Southwest is going to get renewed attention, largely negative, because they use this immigrant problem as a huge political tool when in fact the history is a much, much more layered and importantly cultivated subject. So you can't really address what's happening in the American Southwest without understanding the history behind it. And this is a great way of doing it. Kyle Pauletta is a journalist reporting in the New York Times, Harper's, New York Magazine, the Nation, the Columbia Journalism Review. Kyle previously worked at GQ and New York Magazine. He grew up, as we've covered, here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is consistently surprised. And how little people know of the American Southwest. Well, that will change as they all read your book. Kyle, thank you so much for joining us.

[Kyle Pauletta]

Yeah, thank you, Tom. This has been really fun.

[Don Wildman]

Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.

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