Forest Conservation

Pingree Park During the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s, the timber fell almost continuously in Pingree Park. Named for the legendary tie-hack George Pingree (who supposedly could cut a hundred ties a day), the tree-covered valley about seventeen miles east of here supplied the Union Pacific with much of its building material. Overcutting decimated the forests, and the site lay abandoned from the 1870s until 1912, when the Agricultural College of Colorado (later Colorado State University) acquired the land. The college, ironically, transformed this overused resource into a model of wise environmental management. Pingree Park became an outdoor classroom, anchoring one of the nation's leading natural resource programs. Colorado State produced so many U.S. Forest Service and National Park employees that it was named “the Ranger Factory” — a training ground for latter-day George Pingrees who build forests up rather than chopping them down.

The legendary George Pingree in 1859 — two years before enlisting in the U. S. Army at Central City. After the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, Pingree served a ten-day sentence at Fort Lyon for scalping thirteen Indians. He resented his sentence and never regretted his part in the massacre.

In October 1986, Congress passed the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to protect the few unpolluted, undeveloped rivers in the United States. Since then, over 10,000 river miles have been protected, including seventy-five miles of the Cache la Poudre — the only Colorado river pristine enough to allow designation.

Right: Grand Ditch construction camp, Hitchen's Gulch, 1942. Begun in the early 1900s, the Grand Ditch was among the first transmountain diversion structures built in the state. There are eight such structures carrying water from other river basins to the Poudre River to supplement it during warm summer months.

Tie-hacks were paid to cents per tie, and could usually cut thirty to forty a day. Legend has it that George Pingree, standing over six feet tall and weighing 225 pounds, could cut one hundred a day.

Irrigation

Farmers have been tapping the Cache la Poudre for irrigation since the early 1870s — and Colorado's government has been regulating the river almost as long. Because water is so scarce in Colorado, state legislators created a network of water districts in 1876 to ensure fair distribution among the various claimants. Since then, the system — based on the doctrine of prior appropriation, which gives top priority to the oldest claims — has governed water use throughout Colorado. By the mid-twentieth century, however, the nature of water regulation changed, with irrigation needs balanced against environmental, aesthetic, and recreational concerns. In October 1986, the federal government set aside seventy-five miles of the Cache la Poudre as a Wild and Scenic River, the only Colorado river so designated.

Location records that use this photograph:

Cameron Pass, Larimer County, Colorado Pingree Park, Larimer County, Colorado

Article records that use this photograph:

• Colorado State Highway 14: at Cameron Pass.
• Field Notes: at Cameron Pass.

Other photos about Geography - Colorado or Cameron Pass.

[Home Page]

Date and time this page was prepared: 11/3/2024 5:37:43 PM