Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1990
Abstract
T he United States Supreme Court took its first notice of interstate squabbling over western water courses in the suit Kansas v. Colorado, 1907. 1 The decision failed to stem a steady onslaught of interstate water litigation, but the justices did achieve the means to adjudge water disputes between states. To understand the justices' accomplishment, or lack of it, requires what James Willard Hurst called a "social history of law," law related to society and to ideas outside the narrow confines of jurisprudence. Such a methodology proves a useful means for understanding the significance of Kansas v. Colorado. 2
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly [GPQ 10 (Winter 1990): 48-61] .Copyright 1990 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.