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underlying land. When there was not enough water for everyone (as was often the case in <br />the crowded goldfields), rights were fulfilled according to their dates of priority: the <br />earliest right received its full allotment firs t, then the second right, and so on until all <br />rights were satisfied, or until no water rema ined. Thus, shortages were borne unequally <br />by those with later rights, but the investment s of early claimants we re protected. This <br />system, called the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation, was hotly contested in some <br />21 <br />California camps, marked by violen ce and contradictory court rulings. But prior <br />appropriation found a true champion in Colo rado. Whereas California adopted a mixture <br />of riparian principles and prior appropriation, Colorado proc laimed the purest priority <br />system in the country: a strict code know n as the Colorado Doctrine. Groundwater would <br />become this system’s greatest challenge. <br />The presence of underground water was recognized almost immediately by <br />American farmers and settlers in the South Platte valley, even if it was not fully <br />understood. As early as 1860s, freighters and ca ttle drivers carried s hovels and scrapers <br />to dig for water along the river during hot summer months, when the river would <br />disappear into its deep gravel bed. Travel ers sometimes sunk bottomless kegs or boxes <br />22 <br />into the dry riverbed to use as makeshift wells. Although summer flows were generally <br />more reliable near the mountai ns, farther onto the plains th e South Platte often became <br />intermittent in the summer. “It just soaked away,” one traveler remembered, turning into <br />a series of shallow pools “alive but standing,” connected by no discernable surface <br />23 <br />flow. Charles Lent, a farmer and ditch-ri der who came to the valley in 1896, <br />21 <br /> Donald J. Pisani, “Enterprise and Equity: A Critique of Wester n Water Law in the Nineteenth Century,” <br />The Western Historical Quarterly 18, no. 1 (January 1987): 15-37. <br />22 <br /> Statement of George A. Hodgson, 3. Box 26, DEC. <br />23 <br /> Statement of David Camp, 3. Box 26, DEC. <br />10 <br />