Page 45 - AreaNewsletters "Sep 2021" issue

The purpose of those businesses was to erect a massive masonry dam on Cherry Creek, about 35 miles from Denver that would hold 250,000,000 cubic feet of water at a construction cost of $100,000. Those companies owned 1180 acres
and planned to build a ditch 40 miles long and of su cient capacity to water 40,000 acres of land from the reservoir to Denver. Another component of the plan was to plat and place on the market forty- acre farms on another 20,000 acres that had been recently purchased.
The Journal reported on January 22, 1890, that the reservoir would be a
mile wide, a mile and a half long and 70 feet deep at the deepest point, and would hold 1,875,000,000 gallons of water! The masonry dam itself would be 610 feet long, 80 feet thick in the middle at the bottom, thinner on the sides and 70 feet high. Rock from the immediate vicinity would be used, along with 2,500,000 pounds of cement. The report mentions that there was a feeling among some people that it was not safe
to hold back so much water by arti cial means, but the contractor and overseer
of the work, Captain Ballard, said they “aren’t preparing for a repetition of the Johnstown (Pennsylvania) disaster.” The dam was being built at “ten times the strength necessary to resist the pressure
of this amount of water, but the company feels it’s better to be entirely safe than sorry.” Seventy men were on the project but 100 more would be added once the weather improved.
Ownership stock in the ditch was available for public purchase in order to be entitled to perpetual use of the water at the actual cost of delivery.
A small Journal article dated May 14, 1897, reported that there was a break in the Castlewood Dam that caused great anxiety for residents below it. The state engineer inspected the dam to determine if it should be removed or made safe.
Another article in the Journal dated August 6, 1897, reported that water raised 25 feet on the face of the dam
in one hour, and that the condition of the dam was in “bad shape” because two hundred feet of the dam was cracked. The article ended with, “The commissioners will probably take action at once in regard to the matter and the owners will proceed to put it in shape.” Mr. A.G. Gorham, general manager of the Denver Land and Water Company said on August 13, 1892, that the lake
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Castle Rock “AreaNewsletters” • September 2021