BOULDER’S WATERWORKS

NEED FOR NEW RESERVOIRS
• 1891, Opening of the City/Sunshine #2 Reservoir
• 1898, Construction began on Chautauqua Reservoir #1
• 1922, Construction began on Chautauqua Reservoir #2
City/Sunshine Reservoir #2, 1891
In March 1890, a committee was formed to recommend ways to improve the quality and
reliability of the City’s water. The committee recommended moving the intake that would
feed the City’s new reservoir further upstream. 33 The new reservoir to replace the Town of
Boulder/Red Rocks/Sunshine Reservoir #1 became known as the City/Sunshine Reservoir
#2 and was projected to hold five-million gallons of water. Flagstone was used to pave
the reservoir sides. A small stone tower, containing a control valve, was constructed near
the center of the reservoir and was connected to land by a wooden pier. A new 20-inch
pipe was laid into Boulder in March 1891. One merchant was so thrilled with the prospect
of clean water that he offered a sale on “the greatest bargains in Pure Toilet Soap ever
known.” 34
Plans for the new reservoir were somewhat deficient, however, because no one thought,
at first, to line the bottom with cement. The Daily Camera, during its first year, in 1891,
described a trip by City Council members to what its editor called the “much-maligned
reservoir.” 35 Finally, in 1893, after extensive discussion in the City Council chambers, the
City/Sunshine Reservoir #2 was lined, but the City had to ask its residents for an additional
$50,000 in a bond issue, even though it had not yet spent all of the original $150,000 in
what a newspaper writer called a “gaudy show of economy.” 36
Heeding the advice of the editor of a competing newspaper, the Boulder County Herald,
the intake for the City/Sunshine Reservoir #2 was moved to a natural settling basin above
the community of Orodell (originally named Orodelfan), in Boulder Canyon, just beyond
the intersection of Four Mile and Boulder creeks. 37 The City hired laborers to build a crude
dam of cement sacks and constructed a wooden flume of yellow pine which measured 200
feet long, four feet wide, and three feet deep. A flume was required to measure the flow of
water and make sure that diversions didn’t exceed the amounts in the City’s water rights.
This intake was sometimes called the Blanchard Intake, since the owner of Blanchard’s
Lodge (later the Red Lion Inn) homesteaded 160 acres, including the future Betasso Ranch.
(This intake would later be called the Lower Intake when the City began diverting even
further upstream.) New piping from the intake to the reservoir was laid on higher ground,
which required another land purchase. However, water problems continued.
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