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<br />6 Fort Collins Coloradoan <br /> <br />- - <br /> <br />August 1976 <br /> <br />- <br /> <br />Big Thompson Canyon more <br />than passageway to Estes Park <br /> <br />Big 1llOmpson Canyon - untll the night <br />Of July 31, 1976 - was a scenic, often rock. <br />walled route which thousands of <br />Cbloradans and toortsts traveled each <br />summer to the mountain re~rt of Estes <br />Park. <br />The canyon, of course, has been much <br />more than a spectacular passageway to <br />Estes Park. It has been dotted with homes <br />some of them sturdy, winterized bulldlnp <br />and some merely cabtns for weekend use. <br />Many people have fished In the sparkling <br />waters of the Big Thompson River. Places <br />of business aJong the canyon have offered <br />food, lodglng and souvenirs. <br /> <br />II some buildings were too close to the <br />river, 'owners probably thought seeing and <br />hearing the rushing water was worth the <br />risk of flooding. <br />No story of the river is complete without <br />a mention of the Colorado-Blg Thompson <br />Project, which brings water for power and <br />irrigation from the Western to the Eastern <br />Slope. (Another article in this ectitlon gives <br />detailed facts about the project.) Bob <br />Berling, project manager for the Bureau of <br />Reclamation at Loveland, said plans began <br />in the late 1930s and construction started in <br />the 1940s. The first water diversion came at <br />about the end of World War II. <br /> <br />nm LAST minor parts of the project <br />were flnished about 1967 or 1958 Berling <br />said. Even with the building of Olympus <br />Dam at Estes Park and a diversion dam at <br />the Narrows, the course of the Big <br />Thompson River was not reaJly changed, <br />he said. The total cost of the Colorado-Big <br />Thompson Project was $162 million. <br />The road aJong the Big Thompson River <br />- U.S. Highway 34 - was an excellent two- <br />Jane paved highway with a number of <br />three-lane passing sections. <br />But the road was not aJways an excellent <br />two or three-lane highway. <br /> <br />Ruth Stauffer says in her book, This Was <br />Estes Park, "a hundrro years ago there <br />was no road up the Big 'Thompson Canyon. <br />Not unW 1903 was a track blasted through <br />the Narrows. There was, however, a trail <br />which later became a road for the early' <br />homesteaders from Loveland to Estes Park <br />by way of Rattlesnake Park. ThIs rough <br />and rugged route lay about four mlles SOllth <br />of the Big Thompson. It skirted Bald <br />Mountain and Pole Hill and then descended <br />to the Park by the vaJley now knoYm as the <br />Crocker Ranch." <br />Ruth Stauffer, a native of this state, 15 a <br />retired college and university EngUsh <br />teacher. Her 1976 paperback book is <br />available from the Estes Park Area <br />Historical Museum (and probably <br />elsewhere ). <br />A toll road to Estes Park from Lyons had <br />been opened in 18715 and 15 described by Ms. <br />Stauffer as the first road to the park. <br /> <br />A FORT COLLINS resident who <br />remembers traveling up the Big Thompson <br />Canyon road the year after It was opened Is <br />Gertrude Randleman of 1090 Elizabeth <br />Street. It isn't strange that the outing <br />stands out in her mind. The trip was made <br />with a horse and buggy a.'ld took two days. <br />Mrs. Randlemansald, "When we went up <br />In 1904 we stayed overnight at the Forks <br />Hotel at the present Drake. I remember <br />there were mostly corduroy bridges with <br />poles that rattled and the horses hated <br />them. From the hotel, we went up the North <br />Fork (Devil's Gulch Road) to the Lester <br />Hotel, which was on a plateau above what <br />beeame Glen Haven. The Lester Hotel <br />. bumed after a few years." <br />From the hotel, Mrs. Randleman <br />recalled, travelers went over a hl11 and <br />were in Estes Park. However, the hill <br />didn't have the switchbacks that the later <br />[)evil's Gulch Road has had. After two <br />nlghts at the Lester, the party made the <br />trip home entirely by the Big Thompson <br />road and again broke the journey with a <br />night at tile Forks. <br />She added that the Forks, or Drake, Hotel <br />was located against a hill with Ole road <br />between It and the river. The hotel included <br />a store, as a place of lodglng in a mountain <br />canyon often does. <br />Mrs. Randleman remembers the Hal!. <br />way House, a dance hall in the canyon <br />below the Forks Hotel. She had meals there ' <br />sometimes. <br /> <br />AN01HER PERSON who mentioned tile <br />Halfway House was Martha Trimble of 1909 <br />Stover Street. a professor of English at <br />Q:llorado State University. As a girl at Fort <br />Q:llllns High School, she looked forward to <br />attencting dances at the hall after she en. <br />tered college, because fraternities and <br />sororities held some of their parties at the <br />popular Haftway House. However, she said <br />it burned in the early 1930s and she never <br />got there. <br />Mrs. Randleman spoke about Grandpa's <br />and Grandma's Retreat (a cottage and <br />outhouse) in the canyon. The property <br />belonged to the late Olive Ludlow and <br />earlier to her parents. <br />Mrs. Randleman said, "\\'hen the fancy, <br />paved road was bullt, that bend in the high- <br />way was cut off, but they left an access <br />road to the cottage. It was there before the <br />recent flood; I don't know if It Is there <br />now." <br />She added, "There weren't very many <br />cottages in the earUer days when I went UP <br /> <br />Sidelights <br /> <br />By Betty <br />Woodworth <br /> <br /> <br />ONE PERSON who recaJls the Big <br />Thompson Road as It was before It was <br />paved or widened 15 Catherine Kob of 201 <br />South Meldrum Street. She saId, "I cer- <br />tainly can remember when you had to turn <br />out to let a car going the other direction go <br />past. In those days - probably 1918 or 1920 <br />- It was a one.car road with turnouts and <br />you had to toot the horn at blind corners. <br />You needed someone to watch lor on. <br />coming cars." <br />She added, "Rock slides used to come <br />down after heavy rains. I remember the <br />late Willard M. Bermett saying, 'I don't <br />know just what you'd do If you saw a big <br />rock coming.' " <br /> <br />Another woman who has memories of <br />travel over the Big 1llompson Road in the <br />early part of th1s century is Mrs. Howard <br />G. Colwell of Loveland. She has a cabin on <br />the North Fork near Drake wtrlch was bullt <br />in 1909 by her parents, D. T. and Lillian B. <br />Pulliam. They had bought two acres in 1908 <br />overlooking the North Fork where It joins <br />the Big 'Thompson. Because the Pulllams <br />had found a big log washed onto the flat <br />land where they originally planned to build <br />their cottage, North Pines, they picked a <br />hill for the site of the cabin. The hillside <br />cabin w~ not damaged in the recent flood. <br />THE FAMILY'S first car was a Reo and <br />when they drove it up the canyon from <br />Loveland, there were turnouts to allow cars <br />going in opposite directions to pass. Mrs. <br />Colwell said horses always had the inside <br />right of way, with cars relegated to the <br />outside of the road. <br />Mrs. Colwell said, "When we were <br />children, we had to waJk ahead to warn <br />people with horse-drawn vetrlcles that a car <br />was coming." <br />Another Loveland woman. Mrs. J. R. <br />Miner, said the Big Thompson road had <br />only a gravel surface until a paved road <br />was built in the 1930s. Her Blg Thompson <br />memories go back many years because her <br />father, Frend Neville, bought Sylvandale <br />Ranch in 1916 from a Denver lawyer, who, <br />had nam~ the property. Neville turned It <br />into a dude ranch. <br /> <br />A story told by Kathryn Shipley of 1500 <br />West Oak Street about a 1921 or '22 visit by <br />Nebraska relatives gives some Idea ot the <br />impression out-of.state people had of Big <br />Thompson Canyon. When one of the visitors <br />didn't return promptly from a hike, his <br />family stopped someone coming do'W1l the <br />canyon and asked the driver to find out <br />whether bears had gotten thehlker. <br />ActuaJly, Mrs. Shipley said, there were <br />quite a few bears in the canyon area until <br />dynamJting was started to w1{\en tile road. <br />Then the bears took off for safer - or <br />anyway quieter - country. <br /> <br />MOST ESTIMA1ES of canyon residents <br />In the past are not spec1flc. Warren <br />Wolaver, a natlve of Loveland who has <br />been a lArlmerCounty commtssloner since <br />1961, said the Big Thompson Canyon was <br />pretty well developed in the'l920s with IIttie <br />development during the depression years <br />of the '308. <br />A Big Thompson Canyon residents' <br />association wtrlch met In 1971i to protest <br />trash at plcrtlc sites along U.S. 34 and in the <br />river represented about 60 families, a May <br />12, 19715, O:lloradoan article said. The <br />association members said then that there <br />were over 1M families in the canyon. <br />Raymon Hayden of Johnstown, whose <br />Big 1bUmpson property, the Flying Y, was <br />largely destroyed in the July 31 flood. had <br />additional information about the canyon in <br />thel93Oll. <br />He said, "The Big ThompllOn Canyon <br />Association was organized about 1936, the <br />same year the present highway went <br />through. TIle association met first by <br />candlelight or lampl1ght in the old Forks <br />Hotel (the Drake in recent years). 'The <br />association Is now more a social <br />organization, wtrlch includes people outside <br />the canyon who want to join, but at first It <br />was a group of business people of the <br />canyon. The canyon got electricity a few <br />years after the .11ght plant went In in <br />Loveland, probably in the late 19308. Two <br />l1ght plants at the Ha~en property had <br />been nm by gasoline and had storage <br />batteries. <br /> <br />~~' <br />" <br />1;.\.... <br />.,,}. <br />\ \. ~t' <br />.,t'i~~', <br />~"~',~r\ll. <br />"" . " l..' <br />:. .. ,,;" \; <br />..'\;..... '," <br />, ''I. <br />- +'a "\ <br />:/' :.., , <br />.", <br /> <br /> <br />Unpaved Big Thompson Canvpn Road at start of Narrows, late 19205 <br /> <br />Reminder of the past <br /> <br />The road being conslnicted <br />In Big Thompson Canyon to <br />temporarily replace the one <br />washed out In the July 31 <br />flood may remind old. timers <br />of the dirt road that ran <br />through the canyon In the <br />first two decades of this <br />century. <br /> <br />Bert Nelson of 1~ North <br />Taft HIll Road has loaned the <br />Coloradoan the ac. <br />companying picture of the <br /> <br />. <br />"There was a wreck once in <br />awhile when someone forgot <br />tohonk,"beadded. <br /> <br />the canyon, but several were pretty close to <br />the road (and the river). You could rent <br />cabins in the Estes area, at course, and I <br />think maybe there were a few aJong the <br />canyon that you could rent. Stanley <br />Steamers, owned by the Stanley Hotel <br />people, took any passengers who wanted to <br />ride up the canyon, as I remember. I rode <br />lnthesteamers." . <br />For a short time there was talk of electric <br />railroad service in Big Thompson Canyon. <br /> <br />AN ARTICLE in the Jan. 13, 1904, Weekly <br />O>urIer said, "Denver capltaUsts will <br />spend about $300,000 In the construction of <br />an electric railway between Loveland and <br />Estes Park, says the Denver Times." <br />However, the horse and automobile road <br />left lIttle room for raiJroad tracks and the <br />project was dropped. <br /> <br />Ansel Watrous, whose H1swlYof Larimer <br />Cbunty was published in 1911, refers to the <br />steam-powered automobiles in his book. He <br />wrote, "the populatlon of Estes Park <br />gradually increased until 1903, when the <br />Big Thompson Canyon Road from <br />Loveland to the Park was completed. . .A <br />daily line of automobile steamers, carrying <br />the U.S. mall, now COMect Loveland, the <br />nearest point on the Colorado and Southern <br />(Railroad) with Estes Park and make the <br />roo in 2~ hours." <br /> <br />Watrous said that 173 votes were cast in <br />the Park in the presidential election of 1908 <br />and more than 4,(0) visitors spent from a <br />few weeks to a few months there during the <br />summer of 1909. <br />A stage route had been establ1shed <br />between the Park and Longmont in 1874, <br />according to Watrous. Fourteen years <br />earlier, Joel Estes and his family had <br />become the first white settlers in what was <br />to become Estes Park. As more people <br />began settling in the Park, it was only a <br />question of time before a road would be <br />bunt up Big Thompson Canyon. <br />Isabella A. Bird. an Englishwoman who <br />recorded her impressions of the Estes <br />Park area In A Lady's We in the Rocky <br />Mountams. commented on the beauties of <br />the Big 'Thompson in 1873. A new edition of <br />the adventurous Miss 8lrd's book was <br />copyrighted In 1960 and in 1973 a second <br />printing of that edltion was made. <br />There are plenty of narrow backroads In <br />the mountains today, but It's hard for those <br />who travel only the broad superhighways to <br />realize the challenge of driving on the early <br />mountain roads. <br /> <br />Big 1lIompson Road in the <br />late 19205 at the start of the <br />Narrows. <br />Nelson, who then lived on a <br />farm south of Hygiene, <br />remembers travellnj" the <br />early canyon road. He said <br />the single-car road with <br />tumouts was \l.1dened In the <br />late 1930s. In the 19208, he <br />said, travelers had to honk <br />car horns to navtgate turns <br />safely. <br /> <br />AccordIng to his <br />recollections, paving was <br />started wh~n the road waa <br />widened. He remembers the <br />old. road as being at the <br />river's edge. When the road <br />was widened, many of the <br />sharp curves were <br />elbninated. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> '" <br /> , <br />~.; ~' , <br /> " <br /> , . <br />. " <br />, <br /> t <br /> <br />'lmt <br />~ ,I" <br />....~, <br />. . <br /> <br />.... <br /> <br />- <br /> <br />. <br />'.: <br /> <br />The same area, a half.century later <br /> <br />Early floods were minor compared to Big Thompson <br /> <br />Flood! That haa been a dreaded word for northern <br />Colorado mountain resldenll Itnce they began aettllng <br />in the area in the laat century. <br />The word lounded even more OminOUI to travelers on <br />mountaln roada, where a rampaging Iltream could waah <br />away a horae and buggy or II. car. Even "dry" creekl <br />could become II. danger after a cloudburst. <br /> <br />However, unW 1976 floods along the Btg ThomplOn <br />River had done only comparatively minor damage. The <br />damage dIdn't seem minor, of course, to thoae whose <br />property was destroyed. <br /> <br />County CommIsllloner Warren Wolaver, a natlve of <br />Loveland, gave dates of three floods he remember.. He <br />also 88.1d, "There 18 some floodIng periodIcally &long <br />the rooUUlJs area; It ~ IOm",l:l'lln€ fill! .IN*.tw: " <br />He recalled a 1938 flood in Big Thompson Canyon <br />which took out a small aecUon of the road below Cedar <br />Cove, but caused no big damage. According to hi. <br />recoUectlonB, the road W8IJ sun pauable after the flood <br />and there was no losl of life. <br /> <br />lost in the area of the present Sunny Jlm's candy store. <br />He recalled that some local reUef funda were put <br />together by neighbors. but he didn't remember any <br />acUon by the state government. <br />The next flood date he remembered waa 1961i (he had <br />become a commla8loner In 1961) when "there was high <br />water all over the cwntry here." One flaah flood that <br />came out of Indlan Creek dId some damage to roada. He <br />thought that the flood that ruined the U.S. G)'plIum <br />plaster mill al80 occurred in 1961i. <br />Bob Berling, project manager for the U.S. Bureau of <br />Reclamation at Loveland recalled 1~ all the year of <br />the worst flooding prior to 1976. There was a flow ot <br />7,600cublc feet of water per second then at the mouth d <br />the canyon, or about a f1lth of the July 31 flow. <br />Mrs. Howard G. Colwell of Loveland, a summer <br />resident of the Drake area stnce 1900, recalled pall <br />cloudbursbl on the North Fork, but remembered lJ) <br />other noods wtth 10811 of Ufe in Big ThompllOn CanyO.D. <br /> <br />cloudburst!. She added that 1I0me bridges were waahed <br />out in the Blg Thompson Canyon, probably in the 1920s. <br />The wooden bridges of the put went out more eaaUy, <br />she pointed out. <br /> <br />Raymon Hayden of John.etown, whose Flytng Y <br />property in BIg Thompson Canyon Wall virtually <br />destroyed in the recent flood, rememben only one past <br />flood when. water got into a cabin on the Hayden <br />property. That flood wu caulled by a c10udbunt on <br />CroeIer Mountain. <br /> <br />Hayden fonnerly Wall princlpal of Dunn, Washington <br />and Rocky Ridge IIchools In the Fort Collinll area. Hi8 <br />parenll, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Hayden, operated the <br />Flying Y before he and h1a wi1e JOined them in the <br />business. HIs hopes for the canyon now are that "things <br />wW go back the way they were." <br /> <br />Mra. Randleman aatd there wa.s no road going up <br />Poudre Canyon as far as the Narrows then, althOllgh <br />there wall a wagon road about aa far u the present <br />waterworkll. <br />A Coloradoan article of Aug. Ii, 1976, baaed Oil an <br />interview with Catherine (Mn. J. Evan) RobeN of <br />L1vennore, included a reference to the floodl of 1~. <br />The high water then waahed away the Llvennore Hall <br />and bridgee all the way to Greeley, accordtng to <br />memories of old.Umers. <br /> <br />A."'iD .JUST last year, the July 10, 197t5, laaue c:t the <br />Coloradoan reported, "Flooding near Welllllgton <br />caulled extenBlve crop damage and It look8 llke It's <br />going to cut lOOlle agaln," WeU1ngton Pollce ChIef <br />Gordon Lowe aatd. <br />Boxelder and Rawhide creeks had flooded follDwing <br />heavy ra1nll and about 20 homell north and IIOJth of <br />WelUngton were evacuated. The WeU1ngton lIewer plant <br />had been nooded and wall being repa1red. County roalJ <br />and bridge crews were allsesaing damage to leveral <br />county roads caused by the flooding. Water 'MLI ,till <br />standing on some of the roads and there waa dirt and <br />debris from the flood on all of them. <br />Helen Day of 2024 Northeast Frontage Road, Ii retired <br />Larimer County Department of Sodal Servlrell staft <br />member, had a comment to add on WeWngbn area <br />floods. She &ald, "I recall fluh floods on Boxelder <br />Creek near Wellington - 1I0me real good onts." <br /> <br />WOLAVER SAID that in 1901 Buckhorn Reservoir on <br />Buckhorn Creek, a tributary of the Big Thompeon, gave <br />way caulling high water in the creek and the Big <br />Thompson. The old dam had become fUled with aUt. He <br />remembered thata famUy waa caught at the JuncUon of <br />U.S. HIghway 34 and Glade Road and about three lives <br />were lost. <br />He thought there wu no officIal total eaUrnate on the <br />fairly limited 1901 property damage. Some houies were <br /> <br />"mERE HAVE been many floods In the canyon aJKI <br />the Big Thompson Road haa been clo.eed, maybe for 24 <br />hours," Catherine Kob of 201 South Meldrom Street <br />recalled. A ret1red member of the Colorado State <br />Unlvenlty chemistry faculty, IIhe has been making <br />trips on the canyon road for about six dee&dell. <br />"Even during big anowlI," she old, "the canyon road <br />has been closed only a few houn." <br />Mn. Joe R. Miner of Loveland, whOlle father bought <br />Sylvandale Ranch on the Big Thompson River In 1916, <br />recalled theIrhavlng a bridge go out once or twice from <br /> <br />HE SAID at a recent meeting of canyon tellldent.ll, <br />"We're not jUllt interuted in organizing tor our own <br />seUlah interests. We should Ulle thL8 d1sa.IIter to rebuUd <br />for the best lntereBtII of all." <br />Th'ere have been northern Colorado floods In other <br />areaa bealde. the Big Thompllon, of coune. <br />Gertrude Randleman of 1090 Eaat Elh.abeth Street <br />aatd of one of them, "I remember when Chamben Lake <br />went over Its banks In 1004. I looked from the top of a hill <br />across the area from Hannony Road near Fort Collins. <br />The Cache la Poudre River Walll a mile wide. George R. <br />StraUSI died from exposure atter cllng1ng to a fence in <br />the flood water all nlght near Ttmna.th." <br /> <br />- <br /> <br />- <br /> <br />- RETrY WOODWORTH <br /> <br />. <br />