Fort Morgan, Colorado: August 2011

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Irrigating the Desert

Starting in 1872, the land around Fort Morgan began a dramatic change. Canals were constructed to bring the water from the South Platte River and the creeks feeding the river to the land. By 1889, about 150 miles of irrigating canals were complete and many of the canals are still in use today. A history of irrigation in Morgan County can be found in Lyman Baker's book Morgan County Colorado: What Ten Years of Irrigation has Done for a Part of the Colorado Desert and a later book by J. M. Dille Irrigation in Morgan County.

Historic Overview

From my youth I brought with me only a vague impression of the history of the small town in which I was raised. Fort Morgan, Colorado, built on the site of a short-lived military fort in the heart of the great American desert; a fort that had never been attacked, never seen a battle. On little more than a whim I went in search of the fort’s operational dates (1864-1868), expecting this information would come readily to hand and that would end my curiosity - the fort once again fading into the midst of vague memory. To my surprise, I instead found a door opening to the history of the west.

The history of Fort Morgan will never rival that of Denver or glisten with the same gold dust of the mountain mining towns, but this little town on the plains of Colorado was central to the story of the Romantic west; it's story connecting with the major events of the age. Everyone has a history and every place is central to a story. What follows is the story from the land - of the land - on which Fort Morgan would rise.