Tracing Denver's water history
In 1918, Denver residents voted to buy the Denver Union Water Company for $14 million, and Denver Water was born. A lot has changed in that time, except for one thing, providing high-quality and reliable drinking water to our customers.
The last 101 years have provided some impressive stories: A whole town built solely to clean Denver’s water, a monumental project to bring water over the Continental Divide, even a massive dam that required a community’s relocation.
Follow the timeline below to learn more about Denver Water’s remarkable history, from its first hand-dug ditches to a complex, revolutionary system that delivers safe, clean water to a quarter of all Coloradans.
If you're not into fancy technology and interactive timelines, you can still catch some of our favorite Denver Water 100th Anniversary stories below:
- Find out how times have changed in "1918 versus 2018."
- Take a look at diving equipment from more than 100 years ago in, "Diving into the past."
- Watch the trailer of a 46-minute documentary about the Mile High City’s historic relationship with water in, "'Written in Water' - Coming to a TV near you."
- Travel back in time to see our first water lab in, "Now that's what we call quality!"
Visit www.denverwater.org for more information on our history.