If the Hohokam beheld Lake Pleasant today, spreading across the desert northwest of Phoenix, their eyes would scarcely recognize their home. Nearly a century ago, early pioneers in central Arizona were inspired by the Hohokam's hand-dug irrigation to divert the Agua Fria River from the Bradshaw Mountains, creating colossal agricultural potential in the Sonoran Desert. Lake Pleasant stands alone among the great reclamation efforts of the West, largely due to the tenacity of one man--William H. Beardsley, who died before it was completed. Beardsley, along with other visionaries like Carl...