THE GUNNISON TUNNEL 



OX THE 23d of September the crops, there was a man who still had 



state of Colorado celebrated, in faith in the feasibility of the under- 



the presence of the President, taking. So well did farming pay him 



the opening of the Gunnison Tunnel, that he finally found time to represent 



one of the greatest projects ever under- his district in the state legislature, and 



taken by any government in the world, there he so imbued his colleagues with 



In a little valley in western Colorado his spirit of optimism that they voted 

 an engineering miracle has been per- $25,000 toward building a tunnel 

 formed. The Uncompahgre River flows through the mountains. This sum, how- 

 through lands whose marvelous fertility ever, was not sufficient for even the 

 has been concealed by the sage-brush preliminary w r ork, and when the Rec- 

 desert. Beyond a formidable mountain larriation Act became a law the resi- 

 range, the waters which might deliver dents petitioned the Government to 

 it flow r ed between frowning canyon come out and help them, 

 walls, but Uncle Sam's magician, the So one day there came to the resi- 

 civil engineer, smote the rock, and lo ! dent engineer of the Reclamation Serv- 

 the desert is changing under our very ice at Denver an order which read : 

 eyes to a land flowing with milk and "Advise me if it is feasible to construct 

 honey. a tunnel under Vernal Mesa to carry 



The story of the construction of Gun- the waters of Gunnison River to Un- 



nison Tunnel is one of unequaled dar- compahgre Valley." The order was 



ing and devotion to duty. It is the ful- signed by the chief engineer, 

 fillment of a long-cherished dream to No man had ever lived to pass through 



the residents of Colorado, for upon its the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, but 



completion depended the reclamation of without hesitation the engineer, A. L. 



one of the richest valleys in the whole Fellows, and assistant engineer, W. W. 



West. Torrence, prepared to make a recon- 



Years ago, when the Ute Indian res- naissance. Straight down 2,500 feet 



ervation was thrown open to white set- over the jagged rock walls to where the 



tlement, thousands of homeseekers river raced between the perpendicular 



rushed in and took up farms, for the cliffs they were lowered, carrying only 



fame of the wonderful yields, even un- a rubber mattress, a few surveying in- 



der the imperfect farming methods of struments, and a scant food supply, 



the Indians, had gone abroad. It was The story of the twelve days those men 



only a short time, however, before they spent down in that inferno, whirling 



discovered that the Uncompahgre River through rapids, clinging to slippery 



did not carry water sufficient to irri- rockSj and ma ki n g notes, shivering, 



gate more than a small portion of the drenc hed, and hungry, found no place 



ands he only hope of relief lay m in the hi h back ^ h _ 



the Gunnison River, flowing uselessly in , ,, r ,, 



a canyon more than 2,00? feet below m &>"> f nd hen ' at th f en ? of th , e 



the surface of the earth. A wall of twelfth da y- the y emerged at the mouth 



rock six miles thick intervened, and en- of Devil ' s Slide, exhausted and nearly 



gineers who viewed it shook their heads naked, but with their surveying notes 



and departed for more promising fields, safely encased in water-tight oilskin 



But among the fanners who had se- sacks, the first thing they did was to 



cured one of the first water-rights and wire to the chief engineer : "The Gun- 



whose land was yielding bountiful nison Tunnel is feasible." 



595 



