Hydrohistorian
Taken from the top of the Cuchara Dam, looking upstream. Huerfano County, Colorado. 1915.
U.S. Geological Survey · 1915 · U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Library Photographic Collection U.S. government work; public domain. Archive record ↗ · Rights
Source Archival record · verify at U.S. Geological Survey ↗
A reservoir with the water taken out of it, two weeks drained. What is left is the silt -- the part of storage nobody buys and every reservoir accumulates.
Shows: The floor of a Colorado storage reservoir, and how much of its capacity had become sediment by 1915.
What this does not let you conclude: Its capacity then or now. The storage figures beside this are DWR's, measured live; this is the basin with the water removed. The album caption notes the reservoir had been emptied two weeks before the exposure.
Placed on
- Topic storage · plate
- County huerfano · gallery
The archive’s record page
The archive’s record did not answer our check on 2026-10-12 (refused automated check, HTTP 403). Our copy above is unaffected; the credit stands. A person will look.