The Reclamation Act of 1902 creates the United States Reclamation Service, later renamed the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The bureau is given the authority to build hydropower plants at dams, beginning a massive program of water resource development in the arid Western states. This move was crucial for the settlement and economic development of the West, providing both water for irrigation and electricity for homes and industries.

The creation of the Bureau of Reclamation is a key moment in the narrative of the American West, a region that has been a central subject and setting for American poetry and literature. The massive dams and irrigation projects that followed are celebrated in the works of poets who saw them as triumphs of human will, but also criticized by those who lamented the loss of wilderness. The bureau's work is a recurring theme in the poetry of the American West, from the works of William Stafford to Gary Snyder.