Page 44 - AreaNewsletters "Sep 2021" issue

Did You Know This About the...?
Castlewood Dam
C o apse
by Lora Thomas
Douglas County Commissioner and former State Patrol O cer assigned to Castle Rock in the 1980’s
But first, another “Castle Rock” Trivia Question:
Who is the Chief of the Castle Rock Police Department?
(Answer at the end of this article)
LAST MONTH: My column focused on The INTERNATIONAL Golf Tournament and the incredible business mind of Mr. Jack A. Vickers that not only made Vickers Petroleum a success but conceived and developed Castle Pines Village and its world- class Castle Pines Golf Course. Click to read it.
The Castle Rock Journal reported that on Friday, February 15, 1889, Senate Bill No. 146, a bill for an act to check the damage from oods by constructing a reservoir at Cherry Creek Canyon
in Douglas County was referred to
the Finance Committee. But the same newspaper on April 3, 1889, reported that the Cherry Creek Reservoir Bill
had been defeated after a hard ght.
In the meantime, a private contractor contemplated building the reservoir and reaping the bene t. By April 24, 1889, a surveying party was outlining the work for the Cherry Creek Reservoir which was calculated to cover 640 acres with a dam that was 75 to 100 feet high. The November 20, 1889, issue of the Journal reported that documents to create three new companies, the Denver Water Storage Company, the Denver-Colorado Irrigation Company, and the Denver- Arapahoe Land Company were led.
THIS ISSUE:
A
fter my son and I
moved into our home in
Founder’s Village in 1985,
we explored the area on
our days o . What a treat
it was when we hiked the
Dam Trail in Castlewood Canyon from the western side o Highway 86, west
of Franktown. We took the trail from
the Falls Spur Trailhead and stumbled upon the remains of the Castlewood Canyon Dam that failed in 1933, sending a wall of water through Cherry Creek to Denver. Of course, this was the impetus for building Cherry Creek Reservoir in 1948.
I was able to learn so much more about the Dam and the 1933 ood after a trip to my favorite Archives and Local History section at the Philip S. Miller Library in Castle Rock...
September 2021 • Castle Rock “AreaNewsletters”
44
CASTLE ROCK HISTORY