FLOOD11751

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Floods in Colorado
• Date: 1/1/1948
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Educational/Technical/Reference Information

The evidence of a flood in .the South Platte River_in the same
year rests on the diaries of Clyman,6 who left Independence Mo.,
on ~1ay 14, 1844, on his way to Oregon. He records almost daily
rains and floods from that time until July 10, when the party crossed
the Divide from the Kansas River to the Platte River near the present
site of Grand Island, Nebr.' The latter stream was "as high or higher
than the Kansas," which he had previously described as being very
high. The Kansas River had its highest flood of record during the
spring of 1844, the stage at Topeka being about 2 feet higher than that
reached in ] 903.6 More specific data regarding the flood in the South
Platte River Basin is contained in a letter written by Antoine Janis,
a French trapper on the Cache la Poudre River near the present site
of Laporte. Ansel' 'Vatrous? an early historian of Larimer County,
quotes from this letter as follows

.

in the valley.

character, refer to a great flood in
Sanford, curator of the State
in the Colorado Magazine,
1864 by the editor of the

:i\1r. Byers told the writer of an old Indian who * * * solemnly warned of
"heap big water" sueh as he had seen coyer the whole bottom lands "so," and he
held his hands above his head.

The 'high-,e slopes on both banks through the reach of ri ver
selected are measured, and the average of the two is taken as the slope
during the flood peak. Cross sections of the channel to the high-
water line are run at each end of the reach, and if the reach is long, a
cross section between the two end sections is also run; the average of
the cross sections is used to compute the discharge by the Chezy
formula, V =C-VRS. The coefficients of rouglmess used in the com-
putations are based both on judgment and on experiments made to
determine them. If there is considerable difference in the areas of the
upstream and downstream cross sections, it is necessary to consider
the velocity head and to correct the slope of the water surface to the
energy gradient.

claim

On the first day of June 1844, I stuck my stake on a
* * * At that time the streams were all yery high.

Further data, also indirect in
the vicinity of Denver. Albert B
Historical Society Museum, in an article
1\1ay 1927, quotes a statement made in
Rocky Mountain News

Meteorologic conditions preceding the floods of the late spring of
1844, and of June 1864, ::\Jay 1876, June 1884, ::\lay 30, 1894, and
June 1921, the last named of which was the most widespread on record,
are set forth in this report) as are also those of frequent occurrence that
produced the floods of September 1909 and October 1911, which
affected more than one large drainage area. Precipitation records
of floods in anyone basin are presented in connection with the descrip-
tion of those floods.

METEOROLOGIC CONDITIONS CAUSING MAJOR FLOODS

legend, an unsigned
1864, reads in part:

In further confirmation of the flood of Indian
article in the Denver Commonwealth, June 22

In the summer of 1861 we were one of Lieut. Berthoud's exploring party to and
from Salt Lake City. ~Iajor James Bridger, one of the most thorough practical
explorers in the West, was guide on that trip. * * * He proceeded to tell
us that many years ago while on a journey from Fort Laramie to some other
point, he found the entire bottoms of Cherry Creek and [South] Platte River
covered between the extreme bluffs of the two, which compelled him to remain on
the opposite bank from [the present site of] this city 9 days before he was able to
effect a crossing.

As the article quoted described Bridger as an old man in
would have been active in 1844, and as no other reference
concerning a great flood in the South Platte River Basin prior to 1844
it is believed Bridger's reference was to the flood of that year.
The references to cleep snow in the Arkansas River V alley and to
cOl)tinuous rain in the Platte River Basin lead to the cOlic1usion that

1861, he
is known

Cal

Colo.

The belief that floods were widespread during the spring of 1844
as a result of heavy rains falling on a deep snow cover rests chiefly
on circumstantial evidence. Settlers came to Pueblo and the upper
Arkansas Valley in 1859, and reports were common among them
concerning an Indian legend of a flood in which the water "reached
from bluff to bluff"-an expression commonly used in connection
with legends about floods on western rivers. This circumstantial
evidence was reinforced by the statement of Rockafellow,2 in his
history of Fremont County" that a French trader named, I\Iau'rice,
who lived' near the mouth of Adobe Cree~, told the pioneers that 4
feet of snow fell all over the vallefin 1844 and la.y there three "moons,"
from all of which it is surmised that the flood of Indian'legend wa.s
in 1844, the year of the great flood at St. Louis. Tn thatYl;ar the
lower Arkansas River at Little Rock reached a stage of 32.6 feet, as
compared with 34.6 feet, in 1833, and 33.0 feet in 1927.3 Furthermore,
a high~water markoi this flood at Pueblo was reputedly 12 feet higher
than'the high-water mark of the flood, of '1921, the greatest flood, of
record there.' ' , ,

1844

I,

James Clyman's diaries and memoranda of a Journey through the 1844 to 1846, Book
fornia Rist. Soc." 1928. "
'.Kansas River, Colo., Nebr., and Kam.: 73d Cong.. 2d sess., II. Doc, 195, pp. 38-39, 1934. ,
,"Vatrous, Ansel, History of Larimer County, Conner Printing & Publishing Co.. Fort Collins
1911. '

far West

"

· Rockafellow, 13,. F., History of Arkansas Valley, O. L. ;Baskin & Co., Chicago, 1881.
· Arkansas River and tributaries: 74th Cong., '1st sess., H. Doc. 308, vol. I, p. 56, 1936.
.. Follansb,ee, Robert, and lones, Eo E., 'l'he Arkansas River 1Iood of June 3-5, 1im: U. S. Geological Survey
Water-Supply Paper 487, PP. 35--35. 1922. . , ' . ' ,