The Colorado River, running through Austin, Texas, and the area now referred to as Lake Travis, has always been a beautiful place to live. The early settlers found it suitable for farming and ranching--until it rained. The rain soaked up soil, and water upstream often engorged the land and washed out everything in its path. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal created agencies that constructed hydroelectric dams for the Tennessee Valley Authority, and those were used as blueprints for th...