In the 1930s, comprehensive development of the Connecticut River basin – coordinated dam-building and operations from tributaries to tidewater – was advanced by multiple people and agencies. However, they fought for twenty years over the specifics. President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal supporters and heirs envisioned a federal valley authority that could provide regional economic development, resource conservation, pollution abatement, and, most important, cheap, widely available public electric power. The New England business establishment touted Yankee independence, but most of all, wanted hydropower allotted to states and private power companies. Upriver rural and farming advocates, led by Vermont’s George Aiken, fought for a different kind of Yankee independence, endeavoring to prevent almost all flooding of upriver valleys. Thee Army Corps of Engineers and new interstate institutions tried with difficulty to develop compromise plans they could carry out themselves. In the end, the only compromise possible was non-comprehensive development. ere would be only thirteen federal dams in the Connecticut River basin, they would be single-purpose flood control dams, and they would be built only in the tributaries. Hydroelectric power development and the mainstem river would be left to private companies. Connecticut River management would be divided spatially, functionally and institutionally. Ironically, in recent years, this has allowed some flexibility in terms of providing natural flows for &sh and ecosystems, at least from the tributaries and federal storage dams. is article builds from secondary and primary historical documentary sources, plus interviews.