That night, Boulder, Four Mile, Left Hand, and James Creeks all rose out of their banks carrying huge boulders as the flood gained momentum in the canyons above town. Water tore through the canyons decimating mines, railroad bridges, and settlements along the way. By daybreak water poured out of the narrow canyons and spread out onto the flats, crashing with such force that “the earth seemed to tremble.”
Early that morning, Harvey Poole and a friend stood on the 6th Street bridge as Boulder Creek surged rapidly under their feet. A sudden loud crash and tearing sound caused both men to leap for the north bank of the creek as the bridge broke in half behind them. The current pulled the twisted wreckage about a hundred feet downstream where it lodged against the bank. A short time later a man named J.B. Andrews had a similar narrow escape downstream on the 12th Street Bridge. Nailing up a sign to warn teamsters not to cross the structure, the bridge broke apart under Andrews forcing him to make a desperate jump to the creek bank.
High school student Harriet Harmon came upon the shattered 6th Street bridge while walking her usual route to class that morning. Stranded, she walked back and forth on the north side of the stream as crowds of people gathered looking on in disbelief. Boulder Creek, normally thirty feet wide, had widened to an angry river several hundred feet across. The rubble-strewn waters battered the city all morning, tearing down telegraph and telephone poles, crashing into creek-side buildings, and ripping up the railroad tracks.
Beasley Ditch, a small irrigation channel for local farmers (later known as Boulder and Whiterock Ditch), now “unreasonably assumed the function of Boulder Creek.” The current obliterated the headgate and tore apart the farmland and homes adjacent to the ditch. The effect was devastating in "Poverty Flats," or Culver's Flats, a subdivision housing many of Boulder’s poorer families and immigrants. Bordered on the north and south by Water (Canyon) Street and Valley (Arapahoe) Road, respectively, and on the west by 17th Street, this low-lying area accumulated approximately six feet of standing water by the end of the day.
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