James Wesley,
Here is a link to an interesting map showing what the US might look like if John Wesley Powell’s ideas of settlement districts based on watersheds were applied to all state boundaries.
Powell recognized that water issues would be an ongoing problem for westward expansion and published his strategy in the 1879 paper, “A Report on the Arid Regions of the United States, with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah”. He was greatly influenced by Mormon settlers’ management of water resources. – C.J.