Drowned Towns: The Hidden History of Hydropower in the West

Join local professor and historian Bob Reinhardt for a discussion on the human history behind the West's hydropower landscape
About this Event

Join local professor and historian Bob Reinhardt at the WaterShed Climate and Water Education Center for a discussion on the human history behind the West's hydropower landscape.

Throughout the twentieth century, hundreds of communities across the American West vanished beneath reservoirs — displaced by massive dam projects built for irrigation, hydroelectricity, and flood control. Join Keep Boise Cool for an evening with Bob Reinhardt, whose project The Atlas of Drowned Towns (drownedtowns.com) recovers these lost histories. As part of our Energy and Buildings series, Bob will explore how displaced communities responded to their removal, what was lost, and what it means to call the West home — a place shaped as much by the rivers we've reengineered as by the people who once lived along them.