The Fort Lyon Canal: The First 100 Years 1897 to 1997

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many speculative water rights had been issued, and that the capacity of the canal had been oversold, instituted a proceeding to cancel all the water rights issued in excess of the decreed priority of its canal. To wit: 761.8 second -feet, excepting such water rights as had been actually applied in the irrigation of lands. This suit was, of course, bitterly contested, but it resulted finally in a Supreme Court decision in the year 1900 affirming the District Court in the cancellation of the fraudulent rights to about 100 cubic feet of water per second of time. This decision reduced the number of outstanding water rights to the amount of 950 cubic feet per second, rep- resented by stock. CONTRACT WITH THE GREAT PLAINS COMPANY. On October 291h, 1897, a contract was entered into be- tween the Fort Lyon Canal Company and the Great Plains Water Storage Company, by the terms of which the latter was given the privilege of enlarging the Fort Lyon Canal to a capacity of 1,800 second feet from its headgate by Gageby Arroyo, a distance of 42 miles, in order that they might take all water taken in from the river in excess of 933 cubic feet per second (which was the sum of the established priorities of the Fort Lyon Canal to that date) and convey it in a canal called the Kicking Bird, from Gageby Arroyo to a series of natural basin reservoirs on the plains north of Lamar, which belonged to the storage company. Under this contact the storage company repaired the dam and made new aprons, constructed new and substantial headgates and waste gates, widened the canal, strengthened its banks, IV