Acequia, Colorado

An acequia is a community operated waterway used in the American Southwest for irrigation. Acequias are usually historically engineered canals that carry snow runoff or river water to distant fields.

There is a location along the nearby railroad joint line that is called Acequia. It is just southwest of Highlands Ranch, Colorado. At one time on both railroad lines, there were sidings at this location. I have heard railroad personnel refer to this location occasionally as Acequia. Here is the location on a topographic map. Acequia is clarly marked and you can see both railroad lines on the map. If you zoom in enough, you can see that both railroads had sidings. The western track, currently owned by Union Pacific, was originally built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western. The eastern track, currently owned by Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, was originally built by a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

Also on the map, you can see that near Acequia, the Highline Canal runs between the two tracks and then turns to the west and the one track goes over the canal. Railroads often named places after some geographical feature. In this case the canal. The canal was built through here about 1880. The Rio Grande track was built in 1871. The other track, built by a subsidiary of the Santa Fe Railway was built in 1887.

I rode my bike to near this location this evening. It's a ride of about 5 miles from home if I go the long way. I followed the Highline Canal trail all the way to a place where the canal trail is no longer rideable because of the presence of evil weeds that contain a plethora of "goat heads" (which I will write about in another posting). About 1/4 mile south of where I stopped is the actual location of Acequia. Then a little ways farther south, the canal turns under the track as stated above and then it heads through a tunnel under a ridge and under Plum Creek. That’s why the trail is really broken at this point. See this satellite photo.

One of the cool things about the ride tonight was the presence of three large full-racked elk that were hanging around. They were quite wary of me being there and moved off into the nearby woods as I rode by. I was never closer than about 150 yards.