NEW MEXICO MAGAZINE contributor and Pueblo, Colorado, native Jim O’Donnell traces the flow of his hometown watershed in Fountain Creek: Big Lessons from a Little River (Torrey House Press). “The world is built on what came before,” he writes in reference to the Fountain, which includes almost a million people in its watershed boundaries. From Zebulon Pike’s brief 1806 journal description of Fountain Creek to the many people who are settled along the floodplain today, O’Donnell fastidiously maps the waterway’s enigmatic history. What emerges is a deeply felt and fascinating document of the Southwest’s unique reliance on essential bodies of water, as well as a call to action to protect our most precious resource.
Read more: Meet five species of animals and plants threatened by our shifting water issues.