July 15, 2002: 

20th Anniversary of the Lawn Lake Flood!

Introduction: In the following pages, you will have an opportunity to relive the flood that killed three campers, and devastated property along Fall River, and the downtown business district of Estes Park, Colorado, a favorite family vacation destination located at the eastern entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. These pages have been developed with the assistance of a US Geological Survey Open Report on the dam failure; "Sadness in Sunshine The Flood of Estes Park" a narrative by Hank Pederson, Jr.; a historical summary of the development of EPURA 1982 - 1994 by past Commissioner Polly Gunn; plus the personal recollections of many of us who were here at the time.                    

Commemorative Ceremonies: Historic Fall River Hydroplant to reopen as an Interpretive Center by the Estes Park Area Historical Museum, July 15, 2002 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Performance Park, a new EPURA project on the riverwalk is also expected to open on July 15th. Exhibits can be viewed in the new Town Hall north lobby as well as in the display cases in the Estes Park Conference Center starting around mid-May.

Images: The images depicting pre-flood, flood, and post flood conditions were all taken during the summer and fall of 1982, and summer of 1983. The photography was taken by several individuals including some dramatic black and white images taken by Tim Asbury who was the editor of the Estes Park Trail-Gazette at the time. In 1982, black and white images were still the norm for most newspapers in the US. These images were originally collected by Mel Busch (then, Director of the Estes Park Area Historical Museum), and Ted Schmidt, (then, Director of the Estes Park Public Library) as a double tray slide show about the flood. Just as they are shown below, all images are loaded as thumbnails to allow these pages to load in a reasonable time. To see the full shot, just click the image. 

An overhead view of downtown prior to the flood. To compare with the image to the right, we have placed color dots on Elkhorn Avenue: blue at the Water Wheel (West end of downtown), red at the intersection of Elkhorn and Moraine/Bighorn, and green in front of the Bond Park Library Building. Click to enlarge.

This is a similar overhead view of downtown during the flood. The dog-leg in Elkhorn Avenue east of Moraine is obvious in this image. Color dots matching the pre-flood overhead view to the left have been placed on this image as well. Click for a larger view.

Options: the site has been divided into three sections (four if you consider the summary section separate from the detail section): 1) the story of the failure of the Lawn Lake Dam (both summary and detail format), 2) an interactive locator map with images of key points along the path of the water; and 3) the birth, formation and continuing accomplishments of the Estes Park Urban Renewal Authority which is responsible for re-building and improving much of downtown Estes Park.

Media: If you plan to do a story on the anniversary of the Lawn Lake Flood, media kits are available. Also, if you need high resolution versions of the images contained in these web pages, we can make them available on request. Simply move and hold your mouse over the image, and note the image description that will appear. You can contact us using this form. Please identify the media with which you are or will be working. To get back to the page you were viewing, click the "back" button on your browser.
 
Summary Version        Full Version         Interactive Proximity Map*           The Story of Urban Renewal

*Please allow at least one minute at 28.8 kbps to download the map