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

~18..

hold him liable under this law for furnishing everybody at all.times an
adequate supply of water. I apprehend that this is one office for which.
there would be not many candidates.

..

Of course, the next major step in the development of our irrigation
laws, was the adoption of the constitutional provision in 1876, making
a part of our organic law the doctrine of priority of appropriation.
It has been said by our Supreme Court that this provision of the
constitution was merely a recognition of the previous existing custom
dictated by the "imperious necessity" of bringing the life giving waters
to the thirsty land.

Following the adoption of the Constitution, and in the year 1879,
the Legislature passed an act providing a procedure for defining, fixing
and establishing the relative rights of appropriators in accordance with
the date of each appropriation. This act was very shortly after its
passage declared by the Supreme Court unconstitutional in part. In the
next se~sion of the Legislature, in 1881, the defects in the act of '79
were remedied. From that date to the present, with modifications and
amendments not specially far reaching or drastic, we are capturing,
utilizing and developing the water supplies of our State, demanded by
expanding agricultural needs.

It will be seen that the inhabitants of Colorado, from the very
earli~st date of its occupancy, have followed the cycle of the history of
civilization. Originally, the prosperity and very existence of those who
were living in this arid region, were based upon the production of food
by irrigation. Without this foundation the State would have been peopled
only by the wandering tribes of nomad savages.

There then followed the great boom of 1858 and .'59, created by the
discovery of precious minerals. This in time faded into comparative
unimportance. This era was followed by the wiee-flung range-cattle industry,
which in turn gave way to the settlement of homesteads and similar farm
uses. We then had a period of growth, based largely upon the develop-
ment of the great bituminous coal fields, and related industry. Those
are no longer of prime importance in the economy of the State. Now, as in
the beginning, the creation of taxable wealth, the prosperity and grcwth
of towns and cities, the development of far-flung transportation systems,
are all dependent upon the continued spread of agriculture; and that in
turn ~pon the utilization of our water supplies through irrigation systems.

So, these hardy, far-sighted and courageous pioneers who 100 years
ago made it their first task to construct the San Luis Peoples' Ditch,
buildsd better than they knew. No shaft of purest marble, no lofty edifice
of stone and steel, no tablet of bronze or gold, can constitute a
monument to forever commemorate their achievement, comparable with the
acequia dug through the desert of sand and sage by the toil and vision of
those people whose memory we today honor.

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