Fall 2014

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Open Access
The Poudre River: history of collaboration over conflict
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-09-09) Cech, Tom, author
The meeting was held on a hot, dry summer day in 1874. Two groups of irrigators, from the downstream Union Colony (Greeley) and the new agricultural community in upstream Fort Collins - came armed with guns. The neutral Eaton Schoolhouse was too small to hold everyone, so people crammed the doorway. Most were Civil War veterans, and they all had a problem. "How would the two feuding groups divide the trickle of Cache la Poudre River water the remainder of the irrigation season - would it be based on "greatest need" or by priority (who dug their ditch first)?" The Union Colony delegates didn't like the greatest need idea, and they "hurled defiance in hot and unseemly language." The debate escalated with the Union Colony irrigators threatening to dig new irrigation ditches upstream of Fort Collins to choke off their water supply. The Fort Collins contingent objected to their uncooperative reaction. Then the meeting got ugly. One man, unable to bear the tension any longer, stood up and yelled, "Every man to his tent! To your rifle and cartridges!" It was a flashpoint in Colorado's water history. Were irrigators shot at this meeting? Who tried to calm the crowd and come up with a workable compromise for water management on the Cache la Poudre River? Tom Cech will explain this and more.