About

Cole Bedford is a civil servant, writer, and professional engineer. He is the author of Engineering the Modern American West: The Life of Frederick Haynes Newell, available June 2026.

Cole’s interest in the history of the American West and how its people have grappled with scarcity dates to his youth in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where―just miles from the town of Newell―he first saw the impact of irrigation on the arid landscape. Cole and his family live in Denver, Colorado.