78: Canal Retorto - Head gate

This series contains over 400 lantern slides compiled from a variety of sources and used as a teaching collection for students of irrigation engineering. Beyond irrigation, engineering, and agricultural subjects, images also relate to prominent world cultural sites, such as churches and bridges. Local sites depicted are the Colorado Agricultural College campus and nearby ditches and reservoirs. Two local dam breaks are included--Chambers Lake dam and Castlewood Canyon Dam--as are a number of before and after images of Pennsylvania's Johnstown Dam break. Other countries represented include Egypt, Algeria, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Mexico. The majority of the slides were created by commercial studios, including T. H. McAlister (New York), McIntosh Battery and Optical Co. (Chicago), E. L. Wilson's "Views of the Orient", J. Levy (Paris), and W. H. Jackson and Co. (Denver). The remainder were locally made or unmarked. Slides are arranged in numerical order. The index cards (in Box 1) identifying each image are transcribed below, corrected to standardize spelling and punctuation. Few of the images are dated, but events depicted help define the date range.