Gregory Street's - Floods and Flumes

Gregory Street's - Floods and Flumes. . , Gregory Street’s , Floods and Flumes , Although Black Hawk was spared the devastating fires that afflicted some of Colorado’s early mining communities, the City was unfortunately plagued by yearly floods, some quite destructive. , A flume was constructed to combat this force of nature. The original installation was built with heavy timbers covered with stout planking and ran the entire length of Gregory Street. , While regular maintenance of the flume was required to remove debris, this wooden flume adequately carried most of the seasonal rains. However, some calamitous exceptions occurred when sections of the flume were washed out entirely, allowing the raging water to flow down Gregory and Main Streets until the floodwaters cut a passageway into North Clear Creek. After such events, the wooden timber flume was required reconstruction. , Once Gregory Street became part of the State Highway system in 1920, the recurring likelihood of a flooded and washed out roadway became unacceptable. Therefore, in 1921, the Colorado Highway Commission commenced building a stone and cement flume from North Clear Creek up Greggory Street to the west end of High Street. , Because of budget constraints, the project took four years to complete. This new flume saved Gregory Street from the disruption and costly damage of future floods. , Beginning in 2016, as part of the Gregory Street redevelopment project, the stone and cement flume was replaced with a reinforced concrete box culvert to accommodate the new Gregory Street Plaza. , Black Hawk, as is always the case when a heavy rain storm hits this section, suffered badly from this visitation. The main flume down Gregory Street is wrecked from a point opposite the Bobcat tunnel down to where the new concrete flume was constructed last year by the state highway commission. This new piece of construction was not damaged in the least and could carry twice the amount of water that came down, but the timbers from the wrecked flumes above clogged up the upper end and the full force of water was turned into the street, washing it out in places from three to five feet deep. , -Weekly Register Call, August 17, 1922