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19th CENTU RY WATERWAY SERVES 20th CENTURY NEEDS / Only three years after Colorado was admitted to the union work~began-on the High Line Canal, an ambitious project undertaken by the Northern Colorado Irrigation Compapy to bring life-giving water to the dry plains east of Denver. - The Northern Colorado Irrigation Company was a subsidiary of the Platte Land Company, Ltd., formed by British land developers to createfarms by selling water with the land to settlers heading 'west. This required digging a gravity flow canal from a proper elevation in South Platte canyon and designing the canal so it would gradually drop in elevation along its route. For many years, the High' Line Canal was described as the "86- mile long High Line Canal", but this mileage included ditches and laterals that feed water from' the canal to reservoirs and ' irrigators not 'adjacent to the canal. The canal itself is now described as the "71-mile High Line Canal" with the 15 miles of . ditches and laterals removed from its length.. . . The Qanal begins in South Platte Canyon, nearly two miles upstre~ni from the turn-of-the-century Kassler Filter Plant Water is diverted from behi.nd',(picturesque small rock dam into a iunnel and flume and carried out of the canyon at a slightly higher, elevation that the river itself. The first reservoir served by this 1 OO-year old waterway is Denver's Platte Canyon Reservoir immediately east of the . canyon mouth. Water is stored nere fo~ use at the Kassler plant, . \', which was declared a national waterworks landmark by the' American Water Works Assn. in 19'9. _ Englewood's McClellan Reservoir east of South Santa Fe Drive at County Line Road is another major user of tlie 'High' Line Canal. Gallup Park Lake adjacent to.lhe Littleton Historical Museum draws its water from the meanaering canal. Skeel Reservoir at East Hampden and South Colorado Boulevard on the Wellshire Golf Course 'also depends upon High Line Canal water. ... / , I / Windsor Lake, which nourishes Fairmount Cemetery, diverts water from the ciinal. Fitzsimons Army Medical Center . has been another customer served as the High, Line winds , through the metropolitan area. A final reservoir served by High . Line Canal water is Derby Lake, on the gr~unds of Rocky Mountain Arsenal. The long journey for High Line Canal water 'inds on the parched plains northeast of Denver at Sec\,nd Creek where. remaining water finds its way bac;k 10 a natural watercourse. . '.. , By 1883 some 20,000 acres of formerly semi-arid land were being irrigated by the High Line Canal. During its years of peak use for irrigation the High Line had 165 headgates to divert water \ ~ / . to crops or other uses. Today some 75 headgates serving more than 100 customers remain along.the waterway. As early as 1915 a public agency attempted to purchase the canal. which had been merged with the Antero and Lost Park Reservoir Company to assure a more depeQdable water supply. The Denver Public Utilities Commission, a forerunner of the Denver Water Board, approached the Antero Company with a purchase offer. It wasn't until 1924 that an agreement was reached between the Water Board and the Antero Company for the purchase of the reservoir' and all of the stock of the Northern Colorado Irrigation Company, owner of the canal. Tne Water Board continues to operate the canal for the benefit of those who hold rights to the use of.its water for irrigation ~r other purposes.' I . The High Line Canal is considered a marvel of Victorian era engineering. Following natural contours of the land, it drops , slowly in elevation from the foothills canyon to the creek on the prairie so water can be carefully controlled. At its beginnings the. canal has a 7.foot depth and a bottom width of 40 feet.,Along its eastern extremities the canal tapers down to a 4.5-foot depth and a 20-foot wide bottom. Construction, costing $650,000, was completed in late 1883. / i' . "