How the Colorado River took a wrong turn and filled a California desert with a sea

In 1906, California's desert started filling with a sea, and the railroad disappeared under it. Rain had almost nothing to do with it: the Colorado River had taken a wrong turn through a gateless irrigation cut, and every attempt to squeeze the gap shut only made the water faster and the breach wider. So they flipped it. Southern Pacific built a timber trestle straight across the breach and dumped rock across the whole width until the riverbed rose faster than the current could carry it away. It took two tries, 145 carloads by one sunrise and quarries up to 400 miles away. The river went back. The sea stayed. Sources: • H. T. Cory, The Imperial Valley and the Salton Sink (1915) · https://archive.org/details/imperialvalleya00corygoog • Imperial Valley or Salton Sink region — U.S. Senate document with 1905–06 break photographs (1907) · https://archive.org/details/imperialvalleyor00unse