![]() Both Grand and Gilpin Counties have made numerous written requests to the Secretary for the repair of Rollins Pass Road but to date there has been no repair of the road or the barricaded Needles Eye Tunnel. Boulder County officials and the USFS-Boulder Ranger District have resisted the wording of the law and have closed the BWR. The Bill specifically created a narrow road corridor between the Indian Peaks and James Peaks Wilderness areas and states that if any of the affected counties (Grand, Gilpin or Boulder) request, the Secretary of the USDA will cooperate and assist with the repair of the Rollins Pass Road and until that time the attendant road (the BWR) will remain open to motorized use. In 2002 the James Peak Wilderness and Protection Area Bill (aka Public Law 107-216) was signed into legislation by President George W. The original Boulder Wagon Road (BWR) also goes over Rollins Pass and bypasses the Needles Eye Tunnel.Īlthough open prior to 2008 and in good condition, this road remains to this day a subject of much controversy between its users and some officials who want it closed. Since then, the tunnel was sealed by Boulder County and the USFS. The majority of the route of the Moffat Road is open, except for a long, deteriorated trestle just east of the pass, and sections leading to the Needle's Eye Tunnel, a short high altitude railroad tunnel which was closed in 1990 after a rock fell from the ceiling. The Boulder Wagon Road, which predates the rail route, also uses much of Rollins Pass to cross the Continental Divide. This high altitude railroad was known as the Moffat Road. ![]() The pass is traversed by two unpaved roads, mostly the former roadbed of the Denver and Salt Lake Railway which abandoned the route in 1928 when the Moffat Tunnel opened to replace it. Corona Pass) sits approximately 5 miles east and above the popular ski areas around Winter Park, between Winter Park and Rollinsville. *Information for this article came from Patricia Nelson Limerick’s book A Ditch in Time – The City the West and Water.Rollins Pass (a.k.a. The Moffat Tunnel and its parallel bore are engineering marvels - a credit to the foresight of Denver Water’s founding fathers.* The 6.2-mile tunnel can deliver up to 100,000 acre-feet of water a year, providing an important source of water for Denver Water customers. After 30 years, the tunnel became Denver Water’s property.ĭenver Water still relies on the Moffat water tunnel today. Initially, the federal government owned the tunnel and leased it back to Denver Water. Following the severe drought of 1950, the tunnel was enlarged again, and lining was completed in 1958. Workers completed the parallel tunnel and partially lined it by June of 1936, and the first waves of water flowed through. In 1922, that dream became reality when the Colorado Legislature created the Moffat Tunnel Improvement District and Commission to oversee the project. Workers pose for a photo in the Moffat water tunnel in this 1930 photo. Denver Water Board members saw potential in that access tunnel, envisioning that it could be reconfigured to bring water from the Fraser River on the West Slope to Denver Water’s South Platte River system on the Front Range. Necessity would soon meet innovation.Īs David Moffat’s railroad company started construction of a tunnel to provide fast train service through the Rocky Mountains, it also bored a parallel tunnel to be used by their workers to access the main tunnel each day. The water provider had already secured additional water rights from Colorado’s West Slope, but getting that water over the Continental Divide and into existing infrastructure was problematic. In the early 1920s, the Denver Water Board (as Denver Water was called then) was a fledgling utility searching for additional water to serve a growing city. But the Moffat Tunnel would provide groundbreaking implications when it came to water delivery as well. Eighty-seven years ago, that tunnel changed the way railroad travelers traversed the Continental Divide. This week, 9News and History Colorado provided a historical perspective on the Moffat Tunnel. The Moffat Tunnel changed the way Denver Water provided a reliable water supply to its earliest customers. ![]() The water tunnel runs parallel to the famous railroad tunnel, pictured here in 1956.Ī tale of two tunnels: How the Moffat Tunnel conquered the divide
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