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The Pueblo Chieftain Online <br />Published: Monday August 08, 2005 <br />CHIEFTAIN PHOTOS /CHRIS <br />MCLEAN <br />The Bessemer Ditch snakes <br />its way toward the city as <br />Pueblo Dam stands sentry. <br />DITCH of destiny <br />The Bessemer helped Pueblo develop, grow <br />By MARGIE WOOD <br />THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN <br />Page 1 of 5 <br />The Bessemer Ditch winds through Pueblo's South Side and onto the farms and <br />ranches east of the city, carrying life - giving water to the fields. It also carries <br />fascinating links to Pueblo's earliest days, when a strapping steel town, and the <br />farms to feed it, came to life alongside the Arkansas River. <br />Most of the early records of the ditch were swept away in the devastating flood of <br />1921, but it is known the ditch was incorporated in May 1888 with Gen. William <br />Palmer's Colorado Coal and Iron Co. holding 10,000 of 16,000 shares. <br />Palmer was developing both a steel mill to build rails for his Denver & Rio Grande <br />Railroad and the town of South Pueblo, and the ditch apparently was envisioned to <br />supply water to both enterprises. Colorado Coal & Iron may have started the ditch <br />before the formal incorporation; the water rights of the ditch carry appropriation <br />dates stretching back to 1861 and its largest right for 322 cubic per second has a <br />May 1887 date. <br />The board issued $200,000 in bonds, and contracts were let for engineering <br />http : / /www.chieftain.com/print.php ?article= /metro /1123480800/4 8/9/2005 <br />