PART 1: RATTLESNAKES TO SAILBOATS
We begin with what we know about the area called Rattlesnake Park, or Meadow Hollow, before the Carter Lake Reservoir was built.
Rattlesnake Park: One Hundred Years Ago in the Carter Lake Area
Rattlesnakes appear to be a theme in descriptions of the area in the years before the development of the Carter Lake Reservoir. According to the Larimer County Historical Map, the area west of Berthoud was historically called “Rattlesnake Park”. Don Waldburger, Past-Commodore and long time member of the CLSC, recalls camping in the cove area of the lake as a child and remembers the area was called “Rattlesnake Reservoir”. On the Historical map below, Berthoud is in the lower left corner. Rattlesnake Park is just to the west.
But the most detailed account of the area comes from Alma Berryhill, who grew up in Berthoud and spent many hours roaming the valley then called Meadow Hollow, as her father owned the quarry to the west. She recalled playing in the valley and coming upon rattlesnakes. After visiting Carter Lake in 1964 and marveling at the size of the lake, Alma Berryhill wrote her memories of growing up in the area in Boating where rattlers lurked, A huge water-storage project allows thousands to share a childhood playground (1964, Denver Post). She writes:
Many years ago, the Carter Lake area was . . . “a long low valley just inside the front range of foothills.” Alma remembers hiking to a small lake at the north end of the valley called Carter Lake or Blowers Lake by most of the homesteaders and ranchers in the area. Its size varied with the rainfall and snow of the year. In drouth years, it dried up or consisted of three or four small ponds or mud holes. In years of plentiful rainfall and snow storage, it was a fair-sized lake, and if the water level lasted into the fall, it was a good duck-hunting spot.
She remembers the cattleman and his white-faced Herefords grazing in the valley and her father nosing the old Model T slowly through the grazing herds as they watched them drift along the valley to the tiny lake at the north end.
As she explored and played cowboys with imaginary horses in meadow with her brother, they often found “arrowheads, sand lilies, horned toads and the occasional rattlesnake.” She and her brother found their first rattlesnake on a day when Carter Lake was only a small blue pool. “I couldn’t make my knees hold still, and my brother said his knees were shaking, too.”
She goes on: Near the old lake shore were two ancient lime kilns, unused for years before we discovered them. About two miles south in the valley was a little one-room, one-teacher schoolhouse and two homestead ranches.
On the far west side at the edge of the second ridge of hills was a stone quarry which belonged to my father. It can still be seen when the water level is low, almost due west of the south dam. A rich pink building stone was quarried from here. It was known commercially as “Berthoud Pink.” Large pieces of this stone may be seen in the floor of the sundial base in Mountain View Park in Denver. (See note below.) Large slabs of it are built into the floor of the approach and entrance in the main building of Fitzsimmons General Hospital, and it was used in some of the early stone buildings on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder. The road to the quarry disappeared when the water rose.
About half a mile up the hill from the old Carter Lake was our special place—our hidden cave. A small natural canyon, it contained layers of stone which resembled a corner chimney with almost perfect brick walls. It had a smooth, stone floor.
Alma provided two old pictures of the area that became Carter Lake. While the quality is poor, it is still possible to identify the profiles of the hills around the lake. So much of what Alma describes is long gone or now under the water, but the ridgelines and hills remain recognizable.
Carter Lake Reservoir
As part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the Carter Lake Reservoir was begun in 1950 and finished in 1952. The Northern Colorado Water Conservatory District and Larimer County Natural Resources published a picture on February 26, 2019. Shown below, this “on this day” picture shows February 26, 1954, when the first water was released into the new Carter Lake Reservoir from Flatiron Reservoir.
Alma Berryhill also remembered the day the Carter Lake Reservoir began to fill the valley:
The task of changing Meadow Hollow into Carter Reservoir had been completed in November 1952. . . . There was little fanfare. A crowd of perhaps 300 gathered to watch the first surge of water from the Carter Lake pressure tunnel into the lake.
The water came from Granby /Reservoir on the Western Slope, was tunneled under the Continental Divide, passed through the great complex of reservoirs and storage areas of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project and would up in Carter Reservoir.
In her article, Alma provides us with pictures of Carter Lake in 1952, before water was turned into the valley and five years later.
The First Regatta
How does this history intersect with the Carter Lake Sailing Club? In the fall of 1953, Denver Sailing Club sailors racing on Sloan’s Lake had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the increasing number of power boats and regulations on sailboat racing. They began to look elsewhere, and by early 1954, Club founder Otto Koehler learned about a new reservoir to the north that would be half-filled by summertime. He stimulated interest in lake by emphasizing the Club’s chances of leasing a lot from the government on which they could build a club house. The water level at Sloan’s reached the zero level for sailing in July, and the slogan became, “Let’s give Carter a try!” (Koehler, E. 1960)
In August, club members received notice they could use the lake, and without delay the first race on Carter took place Labor Day, 1954. Intrepid Denver sailors coped with no paved roads, plenty of mud, no docks, and no outhouses to race on a partially filled lake with water level of only 35 feet. Nine boats raced, and the first Carter Lake sailors felt like pioneers, and “in spite of, or maybe because of the hardships” had a wonderful time. By December 1954, the Club had received confirmation they would receive a site for a clubhouse and immediately began making plans.
And, as they say, the rest is history!
Sources:
Berryhill, Alma. (1964, May 4). Boating where rattlers lurked, A huge water-storage project allows thousands to share a childhood playground, The Denver Post Empire Magazine (pages 24-27).
Cranmer Park (formerly Mountain View Park) is in the Hilltop neighborhood Denver. The Berthoud Pink stone still serves as the basis of a huge sundial.
Koehler, Emmy, (1960). The First Seven-Year Cycle of the Denver Sailing Club.
Larimer County Historical Information, Historical Map (2019). Retrieved from: https://www.larimer.org/about-larimer-county/historical-information
Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, 2019. All rights reserved.