Telluride's 1914 Cornet Creek flood
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Telluride area had seen floods before
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Telluride, and the region was no stranger to flood problems. The largest known flood in the Telluride region occurred on Sept. 5, 1909. It devastated the Lake Fork Valley (below Trout Lake), the Ilium Valley (South Fork Canyon) and the San Miguel Canyon from the bottom of Keystone Hill to beyond Placerville. It took out three major railroad trestles of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad and destroyed much of the railroad bed, as well as taking out every bridge between Ames and the confluence of the San Miguel River with the Dolores River between Naturita and Uravan, a distance of about 75 miles," according to a 2006 story in the WATCH of Telluride.
The massive flood damage occurred as a result of the earthen dam failure of the so-called middle reservoir, situated about a half-mile east of Trout Lake. After the flood, the dam was never repaired or rebuilt. It still sits there today, on private land, looking almost exactly as it must have right after the flood, save for a little weathering and vegetation changes. Had the Middle Reservoir dam not burst, it is debatable whether there would have been any noteworthy flood damage and perhaps no flood damage at all, downward from Trout Lake into the San Miguel River," says the WATCH article.
"That particular 1909 storm was apparently a beaut by any standard, and rather general in scope. It created enough floodwater to take out some RGS railroad bridges on the Dolores River plus one over near Mancos. A newspaper report of the day said it rained heavily in Grand Junction that day, so this was not a storm of the local thunder-cell development type. "
But unlike the Cornet Creek Flood of 1914, it didn't go right through Telluride, and it didn't drown Vera Blakeley and her dog, in front of her husband.
According to Colorado Encyclopedia and History Colorado, the following details transpired more than century ago.
Cornet Creek
Telluride, fifty miles north of Durango in southwest Colorado, is situated in San Miguel Park, one of the most picturesque alpine valleys in the West. Nearly six miles long and a half-mile wide, the park is traversed by the San Miguel River. In spring the river’s muddy brown water churns through an emerging abundance of brightly colored wildflowers, and by summer the water splashes over smooth boulders among the conifers and salt cedars that intermittently crowd its banks. The changing San Miguel Park seasons were well-observed in the town of Telluride, situated at the east end of the park.
In the early 1890s, the Telluride town council made the fateful decision to reroute Cornet Creek from its natural course by constructing a small dam. Diverting the creek opened land needed for the construction of more homes and buildings along the creek’s former course through the west side of town. Unfortunately, diverting the creek’s natural run also altered its drainage patterns in ways that would not become fully evident until tested by a severe weather event. In 1914 Cornet Creek and the Liberty Bell Mine’s enormous waste dump—thousands of tons of pulverized rock—combined to create a catastrophe that nearly decimated downtown Telluride.
The Flood
Just after noon on July 27, several cloudbursts occurred directly over the Cornet Basin behind the Liberty Bell Mine complex. At 12:50 p.m. a torrent of water swept away the enormous Liberty Bell waste dump down Cornet Creek, hurtling beyond Cornet Creek Falls to smash the small dam at the foot of the canyon. Gaining momentum, the huge mass of sludge, with its tumbling trees and boulders, surged down Oak Street to Colorado Avenue, Telluride’s main thoroughfare. Terrified residents barely had time to get out of the way.
Historian David Lavender later wrote, “Totally bewildered by the appalling noise, mothers rushed out into the deluge, screaming for their children.” The mother of year-and-a-half-old Irene Visintin and three-week-old Elvira Visintin was at home with her two girls when the flood struck. Elvira later recalled,
Mother was washing clothes when she heard this horrible sound of rushing water and debris hitting the house. She ran to the window and was very frightened, about that time Dad and some friends came—so she tossed [out the window] first one and then the other of us girls and jumped—so we were saved.
Vera Blakeley was not so lucky. Her tormented husband told the Telluride Daily Journal that “when he looked up the river of mud and debris, swirling past . . . with incredible swiftness[,] had swallowed his wife and their pet dog, which Mrs. Blakeley had by the collar.” The force of the surging mass of debris and mud knocked homes from their foundations, twisting and turning them like dollhouses. Horrified families watched as their homes buckled under the advancing wall of mud. Contorted houses littered the hardest-hit residential areas.
Lavender later wrote that the flood “filled the lower floors of both the Miners Union Hospital and the Sheridan Hotel with goo, and left five-foot mats of tangled debris in the central parts of Columbia and Colorado Avenues.” Deep, pasty mud inundated Colorado Avenue for two blocks from the San Miguel County Courthouse to the First National Bank. Instead of customers, sludge bellied up to the New Sheridan’s elaborate hardwood bar. Shocked residents began to search for personal belongings and pets through the waist-deep, gummy mud.
Recovery
In a blaring headline after the flood, the Telluride Daily Journal asserted that “Telluride Will Triumph Over Her Crushing Blow,” noting that “Carpenters and workmen will work three shifts of 8 hours each until the damage done to the town has been repaired.” On July 29, less than forty-eight hours after the flood, the paper declared that conditions were improving, reporting that workers were “busily engaged in the work of staving off the thousands of tons of pressure being exerted against many sections of the city by the sea of mud and debris.”
A force of “half a hundred carpenters and nearly a hundred assistants” worked continuously on a “giant sluiceway constructed from the San Miguel River” to a point near the center of town. These workmen, mostly miners by trade, used powerful fire hoses in combination with the hastily constructed sluice to quickly wash away the deep debris. Given the destruction wrought by the flood, it is remarkable that only one person died and that the town recovered so quickly and efficiently. Most local mines resumed normal production and shipping by the end of the following month, and most of the damaged structures had been fully repaired by July of the following year.
Adapted from Christian J. Buys, “‘Mothers Rushed Into the Deluge’: Telluride’s Great Flood of 1914,” Colorado Heritage 20, no. 3
As reported in the local newspaper, The Telluride Daily Journal, which covered the event following day's issue recounting the disaster:
At 12:50 o'clock Monday afternoon, July 27, 1914, following on the heels of one of the hardest rain storms ever experienced in the city, a river of mud, very conservatively estimated at between eight and ten feet in height, swept out of Cornet Creek Canon, just north of town and traveling a southeasterly direction through town, swept everything which was in its path.
A waterspout of unbelievable volume and resulting from a cloudburst near the top of Sawtooth range directly north of town, was the source of the flood...The water dam owned by the city just northwest from the storage reservoirs for domestic purposes was completely swept from its moorings and its supply of stored up water was added to the awe-inspiring flood.
Boulders weighing half a ton were easily carried along on the crest of the big mass of mud and debris forced on by the irresistible force of the onrushing water...Huge timbers and trees were also carried down with the rush as though they had been mere chips of wood and these with the boulders were driven through houses in the path of the flood and landed high and dry ten blocks from the mouth of the canon.
The newspaper reported in detail the loss of several residences and businesses. One of the most dramatic depictions was that of the Sheridan Hotel's Grill Room, where it was said that the mud was "within a foot of the 14-foot ceiling."
Perhaps the greatest tragedy was the loss of one of the town's residents, and the newspaper reported on Mr. and Mrs. Blakley's final moments together:
Mr. and Mrs. Blakley, hearing the tremendous roar of the flood in the mouth of the canon, ran through the rear of their home, but had barely reached the gate opening into the alley when the flood struck them. Mr. Blakley was thrown to his face and crowded to the edge of the flood. Mrs. Blakley was carried down in the main current of the river of mud, her body still being unfound though several hundred men have diligently searched since the catastrophe.
Exterior view of Jack Hawkins residence, on Oak Street, filled with mud and debris from the disastrous Cornet Creek flood on July 27, 1914, Telluride, Colorado; shows two-story wood frame Victorian with front porch and second story bay window tilting on side from flood waters, smaller destroyed structure, and the San Juans in background.
Two men stand on top of debris brought down by the Cornet Creek flood on July 27, 1914, Telluride, Colorado. Mud and debris fill street with damaged wood frame structures; Telluride Hospital is in background with building leased to San Miguel County Historical Society for use as a museum.
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Interior of Sheridan Hotel Bar with mud and high-water marks from the disastrous Cornet Creek flood on July 27, 1914, Telluride, Colorado. Calendar on back wall marks date; room includes a clock high on left wall, stuffed bird with outstretched wings on top decorative molding, bar, cash register, and electric lights.
View south down Oak Street filled with mud and debris from the disastrous Cornet Creek flood
on July 27, 1914, Telluride, Colorado. Townspeople survey damage. Jack
Hawkins' two-story wood frame Victorian with front porch and second
story bay window tilts on side from flood
waters; smaller destroyed structure is next door; residences line
street; church and back of San Miguel County Courthouse are in distance.
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