8 SEPTEMBER 19-25, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | of cultivated land, mostly in Douglas and Arapahoe counties. Water wouldn’t even travel out of Arapahoe County except during heavy rainfall, and that was rare. Farmers were angry that their crops along the High Line Canal were failing. In 1892, farmer David Richards successfully sued Duff’s Northern Colorado Irrigation Company, a CM&I subsidiary created to manage the canal, for damages for crops he lost between 1884 and 1889. The lawsuit set the stage for other farmers to sue, and the company became entangled in constant costly litigation. “The English Ditch was a blunder,” read a 1902 Denver Times article, using one of the canal’s nicknames to distinguish it from the Farmers’ High Line Canal that began near Golden and the Rocky Ford High Line Canal that starts near Manzanola. “The ditch has been a losing investment to the owners. It cannot get enough water legally and there is reason to believe that it cannot succeed in stealing enough.” A new group of investors, including some from CM&I, formed the Antero and Lost Park Reservoir Company with the goal of building a new water district west of Pikes Peak with storage dams that could deliver more water to the High Line Canal through another major waterway project. But then the company decided instead to just buy the High Line Canal for $600,000, believing its engineers could improve the water fl ow. In 1913, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the City of Denver had the right to build or buy its own water plant, and the city responded by asking the Denver Public Utilities Commission to fi nd a reliable long- term water source. After studying options near Clear Creek and the Blue River, among others, a consulting engineer from Los An- geles recommended in 1914 that Denver buy the High Line Canal. Denver City Council refused to give the Public Utilities Commission additional funds for more studies of the High Line Canal, how- ever, and the resulting feud led to city leaders putting a question on the May 1915 municipal ballot asking whether the commission should be dissolved. Voters rejected the idea. By August 1915, the commission saw that city leaders weren’t interested in putting a single penny into buying the High Line Canal, so it went ahead and bought the canal secretly for $1.1 million from the Antero and Lost Park Reservoir Company. In 1920, after 165 days of trial, the Colo- rado Supreme Court decided that the com- mission had the power to buy the canal. The Antero and Lost Park Reservoir Company retained control of the canal until May 24, 1924; after that, the High Line Canal became property of Denver Water, an agency formed in 1918 that replaced the city’s public utilities commission. This wasn’t the last time the city would fi nd itself all wet where the High Line was concerned. After it took over ownership of the High Line in 1924, Denver Water continued trying to deliver water along all 71 miles, but it esti- mated that it lost between 60 to 80 percent of the water to evaporation and other chal- lenges. As the cottonwoods that sprang up along the canal grew, they began sucking up 20,000 gallons a year. The High Line Canal rarely fl owed the full 71 miles. The City of Aurora, which changed its name from Fletcher in 1928, has rarely seen any South Platte River water, notes Harriet Crittenden LaMair, who eventually became involved in stewarding the canal as head of the High Line Canal Conservancy. When water did come down the canal, residents used it recreationally. They tied ropes to branches and made swings to fl y into the canal. They swam in it or fl oated down it. Kids looked for salamanders and toads left in the muddy ditch of the canal after rainy days, LaMair recalls. In the 1960s, Denver Water began to consider turning the service road that ran alongside the canal into an offi cial trail. Like the canal itself, the accompanying service road crosses Jefferson, Douglas, Arapahoe, Denver and Adams counties. The road was originally for “ditch drivers” to travel between the 165 headgates and direct water at different parts of the canal. But now the thought was to use it for recreation. In March 1970, the South Suburban Parks and Recreation District, which had formed in 1959 to create parks for multiple cities south of the City and County of Denver, came to an agreement with Denver Water to use eighteen miles of the service road as a trail dedicated to hiking and horseback riding, according to Denver Water. Later that same year, Denver Water agreed to let Aurora use twelve miles of the service road for recreation. Four years later, Denver Water began planning to develop thirteen miles of the service road into a trail. It then fi nalized an agreement with the State of Colorado to do the same for the remaining portions of the road. Today that road is a trail whose compo- sition changes from county to county. The fi rst few miles, south of Chatfi eld State Park, are bare and rough, uncrowded by the trees that stick close to the canal; at some points, the trail is just a bumpy dirt road with small, muddy pools of water in tire tracks and balls of horse manure nearby. As the trail approaches newer housing developments in Douglas County, it’s paved smooth with concrete like a sidewalk and travels past freshly erected park canopies and gazebos where you can rest in the shade. In Arapahoe County, portions that are still dirt give way to gravel for miles before the trail winds farther into Cherry Hills Village, where it’s paved with blacktop. In Cherry Hills Village, the trees and the houses close in on the trail and shade it for miles, pushing fl ies and mosquitoes that hang around the damp bed of the canal closer to the trail. The ranches turn to mansions, and suddenly the High Line is in south Denver, winding past churches and under busy roads. It begins to hit more traffi c lights and cross- walks where cars have to yield. This is the only trail in the metropolitan area that crosses Interstates 25, 225 and 70, and it does so quietly, with mural- and graffi ti-painted tunnels taking it through underpasses hidden from motorists. In east Denver, the trail hits a rise, offering a look at how far it’s traveled from the foothills of the Front Range and how far it has to go through backyards with short fences behind drab apartment complexes. The High Line Canal tangles with the Cherry Creek Trail for a few miles near the Denver and Aurora border, around Havana Street, before it abandons Hampden Avenue and C-470 to head due north. In north- ern Aurora, before it reaches Green Valley Ranch, the land looks as high and dry as it did in Douglas County, but the trail is freshly paved and feels smooth under bike tires and hard under feet. An overpass opened in June that crosses over Peña Boulevard. The trail ends in Green Valley Ranch, a few miles south of Denver International Airport. This high point on the plains offers a panoramic view of development projects currently encroaching on the area. In a recreation-crazed city, the High Line Canal was a hit. But maintaining it proved a big job. So in 2014, fans formed the High Line Canal Conservancy, a High on the High Line continued from page 7 continued on page 10 Early work on the High Line Canal; today, the fi rst marker of the High Line trail appears south of Chatfi eld State Park in Littleton, near the end of Waterton Canyon. DENVER WATER BENNITO L. KELT Y
