Great Pueblo Flood of 1921

Description

A flood that occurred when levees on the Arkansas River were breached after heavy rainfall. The flood began on June 3rd, and flood waters reached a height of 27.36 feet. Somewhere between 150 to 250 people died in the flooding, and much of the city was destroyed. 300 square miles were flooded, with hundreds of houses, business and cars demolished (“Anniversary of the Great Pueblo Flood of 1921” by James Rogers, Denver Public Library blog). Cordelia (Hamilton) Files, a Western Colorado resident who was a patient in Clark’s Mineral Wells Sanitorium in Pueblo at the time, recalls that all of the staff of the sanitorium and many of the patients evacuated, leaving those who couldn’t do so to fend for themselves. From their vantage point on the third floor, they could see people fleeing to escape the floodwaters, with not all of them succeeding. They saw all manner of things float by and could hear them run into the building during the night. The waters, according to Files, reached the level of the third-floor windows before finally starting to recede. She saw the flood waters reach the cupula of the Catholic Church across the street. The police and Red Cross placed her with a family in town. She stayed with them for three weeks before being able to go home. *Public domain photograph of the Great Pueblo Flood