History Colorado

You are a homestead farmer in the 1930’s and you need water for your family and cows. Add up how much water you need in a day.

5. How Much Water Did You Use During the Dust Bowl?

Which place and time used the most water?

8. Who Used The Most Water?

The top 10 largest wildfires in Colorado's history burned in the last 20 years. Explore the hotspot map to find out more about what caused these fires and what needs to change to prevent them. 

11. Wildfires in Colorado's History

How much water do you think you’ve used today? Add up all the things you did this morning that need water!


9. Your Water Footprint Today

You are a manager of a ski resort in the Rocky Mountains today and you need water to make snow for ski jumps. Add up how much water you need in a day.

7. How Much Water Did You Use In the Rocky Mountains?

Imagine that you are an Ancestral Pueblo person living over 800 years ago and you need water for your village. Add up how much water you need in a day for yourself, the people, and turkeys that live in your village. 

3. How Much Water Did You Use in Mesa Verde?

In this resource kit, we’ll explore water in Colorado history, and how important water has been to people in the past and today. People need water for all kinds of purposes including drinking, cleaning, growing food, energy, recreation, and making things. Think about all of the ways that you used water today. Where does water in Colorado come from? Explore this map to discover common water sources in our state like snow, rain, and major rivers.

1. Where’s the Water? 

Ancestral Pueblo people thrived for thousands of years in a dry environment by respecting water. In the Mesa Verde region, water filters through the sandstone and emerges from seep springs. Ancestral Pueblo people often settled near these natural seep springs across the plateau and in canyon alcoves. They farmed in places that got the most rain and built check dams and terraces to keep water from running off. As the population grew, they built reservoirs to collect spring snowmelt and summer rain. At the end of the 1200s, a twenty-four year-long drought is one factor that may have led the ancestral Pueblo people to migrate out of the Mesa Verde region. 


2. The Mesa Verde Region in the 1200s

This timeline explores major droughts throughout Colorado's past. 

10. Droughts in Colorado's History

Homestead farmers needed water for their families and cows. In Baca County, farmers got water from wells and from irrigation projects that used small canals and ditches to move water to fields from reservoirs. 

4. The Dust Bowl in the 1930s

Mountain towns like Breckenridge were once camps for Ute people who hunted here. Then miners and ranchers settled in and changed the landscape. Now, a growing ski industry and the flood of people visiting and living in our high country have transformed the mountains again. More people and a changing climate have led to a crucial moment in Colorado history: it’s up to us to determine our future.

6. The Rocky Mountains Today

This is a live test page for the Apples to Oranges game for the Water Quest resource kit. 

12. Water Quest - Apples to Oranges

From Mesa Verde to the Dust Bowl, and to the changing contemporary landscape of the Rocky Mountains, discover the important role water has played in Colorado history — and the environmental challenges people faced in the past and present.

Students explore the relationships three different communities had with this precious resource through STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and geography activities, and consider implications for water usage in times of drought today. This resource kit is designed for upper elementary and middle school earth science and geography classes and can be adapted for lower elementary and high school students.

Guiding Questions for the Water Quest resource kit:

Where does water in Colorado come from? 

How have people in Colorado used water in the past and today? 

How much water have people used for themselves and different activities over time? 

Visit the Living West Exhibit at History Colorado Center in Denver

https://www.historycolorado.org/exhibit/living-west 

Drought and newcomers threaten Southern Colorado's traditional water systems

Ancestral Pueblo Indians of Southwestern Colorado

New Deal Resources on Colorado’s Eastern Plains

Burning Truth: The Beginning of the End for Colorado’s Forests

Colorado River Water Conservation District

Water Quest

Earth and Space Science

Science

Geography

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U.S. History

Ancestral Pueblo people throughout the southwestern United States had faced droughts before: a fifty-year drought in the mid-1100s led to the decline of the great houses in Chaco Canyon (in present-day New Mexico). In the Mesa Verde region, the twenty-four year long drought was likely another reason to leave, along with decreases in other natural resources like deer and trees for construction and firewood. The last tree ring dates in ancestral Pueblo villages indicate that they stopped cutting down new trees to build in the 1280s, and by the 1300s, the entire population had migrated south in search of new homes. 


Copy print depicting Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park in 1908. Image was photographed by an unidentified photographer during a packhorse trip made by James S. James and honeymooners Mr. and Mrs. Townsend.

Photograph, Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park

Drought in the Mesa Verde region

A 7-year drought in southwestern Colorado began, the worst on record for the Durango area.  


Exterior of a residence at Fort Lewis, Durango, Colorado

Photograph, Fort Lewis house

Drought in southwestern Colorado

The most widespread, longest-lasting, and famous drought in Colorado began. The drought, which contributed to the Dust Bowl, lasted the entire following decade. 


Farmer with children during the Dust Bowl.

Photograph, Farmer with children

Drought in the Eastern Plains

A 6-year long drought began, affecting most of the state. For parts of the Front Range, this drought was worse than during the Dust Bowl years. 


Panoramic view of farms and fenced fields west of Denver in probably Jefferson County, Colorado. Shows farm houses, telegraph poles, cultivated fields, sparse trees, and a square building beside a flag pole. Mesas are near foothills and snow is on mountains in the Front Range.

Negative, Rocky Mtns. from Denver

Drought in the whole state

Colorado’s driest winter, despite a March blizzard that piled snowdrifts up to 12 feet high. Dust storms across the Eastern Plains damaged hundreds of thousands of acres from November of the previous year to February. 

Driest winter in Colorado

An extremely dry year led to the creation of the Colorado Drought Response Plan and the Water Availability Task Force. The Water Availability Task Force monitors water conditions around the state, including snowpack, precipitation, reservoir storage, streamflow and weather forecasts.


Colorado Drought Response Plan and the Water Availability Task Force

A warm and dry spring with few storms led to very low reservoirs and water restrictions in the cities. What made 2002 unusual was that so much of the state was dry at the same time. Every season was dry, and despite the huge differences in geography across the state, every region experienced significant drought. 


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Water Quest

10. Droughts in Colorado's History

Guiding Question

1276 CE

1898 CE

1930 CE

1950 CE

1977 CE

1981 CE

2002 CE