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<br />9 . <br />00242 Lieutenant Beck-with traveling with Gunnison's exploration party showed that six <br /> <br />Mexican families were diverting water out of Greenhorn Creek. The earliest <br /> <br />appropriation date in the basin is March 31, 1859. in the name of Hicklin Ditch on <br /> <br />Greenhorn Creek. <br /> <br />The first water right on the main-stem of the Arkansas was decreed in 1861; the last <br /> <br />decreed in 1933. By the middle 1880's the main-stem and tributaries of the Arkansas <br /> <br />were fully appropriated. Water right decrees later than 1887 are little more than flood <br /> <br />rights providing water only during snow melt and after summer rainstorm events. <br /> <br />Major irrigation development required large scale financing to enlarge the very early <br /> <br />diversions. Most of the systems were constructed between 1874 and 1890. <br /> <br />A tour of the Highline Breaks area, by the NRCS Archaeologist, produced no visible <br /> <br />cultural resources for concern other than possible historic farmsteads. When a <br /> <br />definite undertaking and a more defined area are selected, staff will survey those <br /> <br />areas more intensively. This more intensive survev will oroduce a more reliable <br /> <br />picture of the studv area. <br /> <br />The computer survey undertaken by the State Historic Preservation Office indicates <br /> <br />the following: One canal in the area, the Catlin Consolidate Canal, is eligible for the <br /> <br /> <br />National Register of Historic Places. Several other canals in the area are ineligible. <br /> <br /> <br />They are the Rocky Ford Highline Canal - Northern Crossing, the Rocky Ford Highline <br /> <br /> <br />Canal - Southern Crossing, and the Otero Canal. Other eligible cultural resources are <br /> <br />a prehistoric burial, the Swink Bridge, and the Santa Fe Trail - Mountain Branch. <br /> <br />Many Cultural Resources are eligible in the towns of the watershed, but these <br /> <br />probably will not be in the area of potential effect. <br />all <br />all <br />