Page 46 - AreaNewsletters "Sep 2021" issue

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would be drained at the end of the irrigation season to thoroughly repair and rebuild the dam so there would be no further occasion for fear.
The Journal reported on August 31, 1900, that there was no water at all in Castlewood Reservoir, and residents feared that the dam was going to be abandoned and not repaired.
On May 17, 1901, the Denver Land and Water Company was in debt $185,000, and the Castlewood Reservoir was sold at auction for the paltry sum of $8000 to a buyer from Connecticut!
The State Engineer approved plans by W.C. Johnson on May 9, 1902, to rebuild Castlewood Dam. Johnson also planned to build a large sugar beet factory below the dam.
The next available information on Castlewood Dam is dated August 4, 1933, in the Record Journal which reported “Castlewood Dam is washed out by Cloudburst.” An unlimited amount of water owed into the lake, causing the dam to burst and release a wall of water fteen to twenty feet high into the Cherry Creek Valley. A 24-year- old ranch woman near Parker whose horse reared when she was trying to cross the creek, and an 80-year-old Denver man who fell in a hole in his backyard
as he was seeking higher ground, are known to have lost their lives. Several
September 2021 • Castle Rock “AreaNewsletters”
gold prospectors from just below the
dam were listed as missing. Many farms were ooded, cattle and horses drowned, and in Denver bridges on Colorado Boulevard, Champa and Stout Streets were swept away and piled up against the Curtis Street Bridge.
Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Paine, who had been caretakers of the dam for 20 years, were awake when the dam broke late
in the evening, and immediately started to sound the alarm. Mr. Paine made it to Castle Rock by 4AM and called the Denver Police, but they had already been warned at 2:30AM by a gentleman in Parker.
It is fortunate that the entire dam did not fail all at once. The east side sustained the rst break, and then, piece by piece, the entire dam started to crumble. If the center of the dam had failed rst, the
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CASTLE ROCK HISTORY