Cheesman Dam is a 211-foot-tall (64 m) masonry curved gravity dam on the South Platte River located in Colorado. It was the tallest of its type in the world when completed in 1905.[1] The primary purpose of the dam is water supply and it was named for Colorado businessman, Walter Cheesman. In 1973 it was designated a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.[2] Denver Water purchased the reservoir and related facilities in 1918.[3]
History
The location for the new dam was explored by chief engineer C.P. Allen on during a fishing trip on September 23, 1893.[4] The first stage was to build a diversion tunnel in 1898, which after the completion of the dam would become the outlet.[5] The plans called for an embankment dam faced with concrete and metal some 200 feet tall, which began to rise in 1899.[4] This was not to be as after one year of work, on the morning of May 3, 1900, the river began to rise after a heavy rainstorm added to the already high spring river flow. The water filled the outlet pipe and then overtopped the diversion heading for the construction site.[5] The company sent out men to warn those downstream that the still incomplete structure could not last for long. Residents of Littleton, Colorado were warned at 10:00 AM that the flood would arrive in three hours. The dam was overtopped and swept away leaving only a remnant of the masonry wall.[4]
After this disaster the Denver Union Water Company planned a new structure in the same location. The new design would be a hybrid arch-gravity dam constructed of masonry.[5] Construction was renewed and lasted until 1905. At completion the dam was the tallest in the world, a title it would hold for seven years, until 1912.[4] Water flowed over the new dam's spillway for the first time on May 9, 1905.[5]
External links
- Cheesman Dam at Denver Water
Bibliography
- ^ "Cheesman Dam". American Society of Civil Engineers. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
- ^ "Cheesman Reservoir History". Denver Water. Archived from the original on 14 September 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
- ^ "Cheesman Reservoir | Denver Water". www.denverwater.org. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
- ^ a b c d Limerick, Patricia Nelson; Hanson, Jason L. (2012). A Ditch in Time : The City, the West, and Water (1st ed.). Golden, Cololorado: Fulcrum Publishing. pp. 58–65. ISBN 978-1-55591-366-3. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
- ^ a b c d Franklin, Karmen Lee (2011). Digging the Old West : How Dams and Ditches Sculpted an American landscape. Arvada, Colorado: Franklin Design Bureau. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-615-53148-9. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
- Dams of the United States - Pictorial display of Landmark Dams. Denver, Colorado: US Society on Dams. 2013.
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