FLOOD00051 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

. PREVIOUS FLOODS. 35 Ellimuzted diac1l.arge ot. CAico Creek, ,June 3~, 1021. +---~- Tim.. Stat.. Approx!. matedfs. charg.. ,- ]uM3......................................... Creekdry........ S<<.f/. 0 June \::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ~tl:t~~~~~:::::::::::::::::::::::: ......~:~ MJdnight. .......... ........ .... ....... 75 per cent olcrcst now::........ .... ....:.. 21' 000 JuneS,S a. m........... ........ .... ........... 3leet deep. ............:.:... ....... '" ..... 2' 500 Jun. e,~~.~::::::::::::::::: :::: :::::::::: :.: . ~~:~::::: :::::::::: :~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~; ~ ~ ~i ~ ~ ~~ ~I. 1;~ Thelotal discharge was about 38,000 ac:re-laat. PREVIOUS FLOODS." FLOOD OF INDIAN LEGEND. As the permanent settlement of Pueblo and the upper Arkansas Valley began about 1859, records of floods prior to that time are not available. Reports were common among the early settlers of an In- . . dian legend regarding a flood occurring before the whites call1-e, in which, it was stated, the water reached from bluff to bluff. The truth or falsity of this legend can be determined only by circumstantial evidence. One of the early settlers of Pueblo, a Mr. Proffitt, who passed through the Arkan..<:as Valley on his way to the Mexican tVar in 1846, stated that he saw eyidence of a former flood along the river below the site-of the present city ,of Pueblo. The cottonwood trees along - the river were tipped downstream and still bore drift in their branches. The flood causing this must have occurred prior to 1846, as Oliver (" Old Scout") Wiggins, an early settler of Colorado, who testified to the early flow of Arkansas River in the Kansas-Colorado water suit, stated that in that year there was a great drought, during which all the buffalo perished or left the country. This statement is substantiated by Ruxton, an English Army officer, who visited the region in 1847 and recorded ("Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains") that there were no buffalo but many skeletons. In writing of Fremont County, Rockafellow 11 states that the first ,'white settler was a French trader named Maurice, who lived near the mouth of Adobe Creek. Maurice told the pioneers that' 4 feet of snow fell all over the valley in 1844 and lay there three" moons." He fixed the year as that of the great flood at St. Louis, which was 1844. Maurice did not mention a later flood, but authentic history records 10 Based chiefly on dab turnlshetl b~' ~Ir: .\. d. \\E;>ston. ot the Deovl'r &:: RIo Grande Western Railroad Co. 1J HIstory ot Arkansas Valley. Chicago, O. L. Baskin &: Co., 1881.