The Gila River ( /ˈhiːlə/; O'odham : Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil) is a 649-mile (1,044 km) tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of nearly 60,000 square miles (160,000 km2) that lies mainly within the U.S. but also extends into northern Sonora, Mexico. Indigenous peoples have lived along the river for at least 2,000 years, establishing complex agricultural societies before European exploration of the region began in the 1500s. However, whites did not permanently settle the Gila River watershed until the mid-19th century.
During the twentieth century, human development of the Gila River watershed necessitated the construction of large diversion and flood control structures on the river and its tributaries, and consequently the Gila now contributes only a small fraction of its historic flow to the Colorado. The natural discharge of the river is around 1900 cfs, and is now only 247 cfs. These engineering projects have transformed much of the river valley and its surrounds from arid desert to irrigated land, and supply water to over five million people that live in the watershed.
Read more about Gila River: Geography, History, Dams and Diversions, Recreation, Variant Names
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“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)