PUB00068

• Year: 1952
• Title: A Hundred Years of Irrigatioin in Colorado, 100 Years of Organized and Continuous Irrigation
• Author: CWCB
• Description: Irrigation history of Colorado
• Publications - Doc Type: Historical

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zones, more or less arbitrarily, and of course overlapping and subject to
some deviations of climatic conditions. They.hl;lvedivided the regions i.n
which agriculture is the basis of the occupancy of the land, into the arid,
semi-arid, sub-humid and humid regions. The arid region is, roughly,
that area where the average annual precipitation is less than 10 inches;
in that region nothing of food value can be grown without the artificial
application of water by irrigation. The semi-arid region consists of
those areas in which the average annual preoipitation'is from 10 to 15
inches; in those areas some food products, such as pasturage for domestic
animals, are grown without irrigation, but no substantial or dependable
agriculture can be carried on without irrigation. The sub-humid region
is that area where the average annual precipitation is from 15 to 20
inches. In those areas many crops can be successfully grown in most
years, without irrigation. The humid region consists of that area where
the average annual precipitation is above 20 inches. In those areas, in
the temperate zone, practically all food crops can be successfully
produced with only the natupal rain and ~now fall. The state of Colo-
rado, insofar as agriculture is a factor:, lies within the semi-arid zone.

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The history of irrigation in Colorado consists in part of recorded
documentary evidence; in part, of the diaries, letters and articles
written by early explorers and other contemporary, and usually, temporary,
sojourners in this region; also, in part, we have the tales and traditions
passed on from generation to generation orally. Depending upon all of
these sources of information, we can be reasonably sure that we may draw
a fairly accurate picture of the history; of irrigation in.this state,
from which it will be noted that the his~ory of the develdpment and
progress of settlement and civilization ~n Colorado, follqws quite
closely the world-wide pattern fixed by the first civiliz~d inhabitants
of the Orient. . ,

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Coming more directly to the subject of this discussion, the first
attempt at irrigation within the present confines of Color;ado, by
civilized peoples, as distinguished from the prehistoric. etforts of the
original natives thereof, is an effort undertaken in the s!ummer of 1787.
In that summer when the founding fathers of constitutional government
were struggling in the City of Philadelphia to draft the Constitution
of the United states of America, one:Juan Bautista de Anzi (or Anza),
then Governor of the Spanish Province of 'jew Mexico, known as the '!Great
colonizer," entered into a treaty with th Jupe tribe of Comanche
Indians. As a part of that program he se t a group' of some 20 Spanish
farmers and artisans to initiate with thiIndian tribe a colony, known
as "San Carlos de Jupes," on the banks of the San Carlos or st. Charles
River near its confluence with the Arkansas River, then known as Nepesta,
about 8 miles east of the present city of Fueblo. These men, with the
help of their Indian collaborators, constructed some twenty houses,
broke up and put into cultivation a fairly large tract of land adjacent
thereto, and built a ditch taking its water from the river for the
irrigation of this tract. Documentary evidence of this colonization
project is extant in the archives of early New Mexico. The project,
however, was not too successful. The Indians did not take kindly to
living in the houses built for them, nor were they enthusiastic over the
manual labor involved in the cultivation and irrigation of crops. After

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