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<br />FLOOD HISTORY AT ERIE, COLORADO <br /> <br />Introduction <br /> <br />The history of floods on Coal Creek at Erie has not been <br /> <br />well recorded. Only one gaging station is located on Coal Creek <br /> <br />in the upper end of the basin near Plainview in Jefferson County. <br /> <br />This station has been operating since August 1959 and the drainage <br /> <br />area is 15.1 square miles. Our knowledge of past flooding is <br /> <br />primarily based on accounts published in previous floodplain <br /> <br />reports, old newspaper articles, local histories, and the personal <br /> <br />memories of a few longo-time residents, <br /> <br />Town History <br /> <br />From a note found in the cornerstone of the Erie Methodist <br /> <br />Church in 1972, it appears the town was first laid out on the west <br />bank of Coal Creek during the year 1871.1 By the time the town was- <br /> <br />more formally organized in 1874, Erie was the third ranking town in <br />population in all of Weld County, exceeded only by Greeley and Evans.2 <br /> <br />A petition to incorporate the town was officially presented to <br /> <br />Weld County on November 16,1874,3 The first of six local news- <br /> <br />papers to be published for brief periods durinq the early history of <br />the town was the Erie Canfield ~ndependent, which appeared in 1884 <br /> <br />and ran until 1894. The last was the Erie Herald, published from <br />1907 to 1915 and from 1933 to 1949,4 The first planning commission <br />was organized at a town meeting held February 8, 1967.5 <br /> <br />lsociology and History classes of Erie High Senool, ~rs. <br />Karen Adelfang, Advi~or, Erie: Ye~terday and Today, (Erie, <br />Colorado), Edition 2, February 1974, page 4. <br /> <br />2'b'd <br />!....!- ' <br /> <br />page 25. <br /> <br />3ibid, page 49. <br /> <br />4The other early newspapers published at Erie were as <br />follows: the Erie Independent, 1894-1896: the Erie Review, <br />1900-1902, the Er,e News, June 1903-1906 and 1930~,~the <br />Western Mirror, June 1904-1907. No copies of any of Erie's <br />early newpapers published during a major flood event could be <br />found. A more recent ~~blication, the Erie Echo, was published <br />as a separate paper from December 1977 to January 1979. <br /> <br />SSociology and History classes of Erie High School, Ed~tio~ <br />1, April 1967, page 15. <br /> <br />-1- <br />