Reclamation History

Michael W. Straus, Commissioner,
Bureau of Reclamation, 1945 1953

Straus was born in Chicago in 1897. He attended University of Wisconsin in pursuit of a chemical engineering degree. Instead of engineering, Straus began his career as a newspaper reporter, eventually working his way to the managing editor's job of two of the nation's largest newspapers, and Washington bureau chief of the International News Service. He entered government as an Assistant to Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. Ickes appointed Straus First Assistant Secretary of the Interior in 1943. As Commissioner, the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact signed, and Grand Coulee Dam, Shasta Dam, and Reclamation's Engineering Research Center at Denver all dedicated. Straus died August 9, 1970.