Local legend: How a farmer’s mistake made Sloans Lake
DENVER (KDVR) — Sloans Lake used to be a farm. While no one truly knows how the lake turned from grass to water in the late 1800s, a local legend has been adopted.
When Denver was founded, the area that is Sloans Lake had originally been a grassy basin, the Denver Public Library told FOX31.
It wasn’t until one farmer’s mistake created the body of water.
The tragic history and closure of the Sloan’s Lake amusement park in 1914
While the Denver Public Library told FOX31 that there’s no concrete evidence of this story being true, other than the lake originally being a grassy basin, the legend of how Sloans Lake came to be has been adopted into the standard story by the library, Sloan’s Lake Park and even the city.
The creation of Sloans Lake, as legend has it
As the age-old story goes, Thomas M. Sloan wanted to build a well for farmland in 1861, as told by Sloan’s Lake Park, the library and the City of Denver.
When digging a well, he accidentally tapped into an underground aquifer. By the time he woke up the next morning, 200 acres of his farmland were covered in water.
The lake went from grassy farmland to a popular attraction where people would swim, boat and ice skate. There was even an amusement park on the shore of the lake that has since closed down.
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While many sources, including the library, use the story of Sloan building a well that created the lake, the library also offers a different possible explanation.
The library told FOX31 that while an aquifer that led to a lake is entirely possible, the lake now appears to be largely fed by runoff. The lake is also a combination of two lakes after an early 20th-century project combined Sloans Lake and a separate body of water into one.
While Sloan’s Lake Park admits that no one may even know the truth, this is the story that’s told along with the creation of Sloan’s Lake Park.
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