Legend has it that when President Teddy Roosevelt first saw the picturesque Dolores River Canyon just outside the town of Dolores while on a hunting trip in 1906, he proclaimed it a perfect spot for a reservoir.
That was 105 years ago.
But it wasn’t until 50 years ago, on Nov. 20, 1961, that the dream of a dam and a reservoir begin to take shape.
That was the day when the Dolores Water Conservancy District formed and a reservoir became closer to a reality.
Hundreds of people are expected to gather today in Dolores to celebrate the one thing that makes life in this arid section of the Southwest possible — water.
The Dolores Water Conservancy District will host a 50th anniversary of the formation of the district and the 25th anniversary of water deliveries to farms and towns from McPhee Reservoir at the Dolores Community Center.
“The Dolores Water Conservancy District was formed to try to get the dam built,” Preston said.
The project was authorized in 1968 and the project began in 1977, after voters in Montezuma and Dolores counties within the Dolores Water Conservancy District approved a repayment contract by a unheard of 95 percent favorable vote.
The McPhee Dam and related projects, known as the Dolores Project cost an estimated $500 million, brought thousands of people into the small town of Dolores and changed the landscape forever.
When the dam was finished in 1984, it took two years before the reservoir was full and water could be delivered to farms and towns, that was 25 years ago.
“The fact that the Dolores Water Conservancy’s 50th and the 25th anniversary of water delivery fall on the same year is just poetic,” Preston said.
The project doubled the amount of irrigated acreage in the area and gives the towns a 100-year supply of water.
“This water project is something most communities would die for,” Preston said.
Since the water started to be delivered 25 years ago, the number of irrigated acres in Montezuma and Dolores counties has gone up from 35,000 irrigated acres to 70,000, some of those as far away as south of Towaoc.
The project also saw the construction of the $11.6 million Dolores tunnel that was dug underneath the landscape for more than one mile, starting near the Big Bend area and tunneling under the Nielson’s place. It also saw the construction of pumping plants, numerous canals and two major recreation areas named McPhee and House Creek. It also saw the flooding of the old lumber town, McPhee, and countless archaeology sites, bringing in archaeologists from around the world who excavated the areas. Those artifacts are housed in the Anasazi Heritage Center, also built as part of this project.
It also changed the landscape of people in Montezuma County as contractors moved in with different specialties, such as dynamite, rock hauling, tunnel boring and the building of the pumping plants. Many of them decided to stay in the picturesque area of the world. The project also brought in hundreds of archaeologists, many of which decided to stay in this area as well.
“A lot of our employees started off working on the project,” Preston said.