Writing in a new tradition of environmental history, Robert Kelley Schneiders takes a long historical view to reconstruct the Missouri Valley environment before Euro-American settlement and then trace the environmental transformations resulting from the development projects of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He tells how the mighty Missouri has been transformed from a shallow, meandering stream to an engineered waterway with over a dozen dams, thousands of stone pile dikes, and seemingly endless miles of rock bank line - and how the river has reacted to the disruption of its original hydrologic and ecological processes.

Introduction -- The modern Missouri -- The Missouri River yesterday -- The Missouri Valley and American settlement, 1803-1880 -- The river abandoned -- The river rediscovered -- The dry years, 1927-1942 -- South Dakota attempts to develop the river -- The wet years, 1943-1951 -- The mighty Missouri and the final quest for control -- The untamable Missouri -- Conclusion.