Beneath Blue Mesa: The Gunnison River Valley Before the Reservoir

In the late 1950s, the United States Bureau of Reclamation was authorized to construct the Curecanti Project, consisting of three dams on the Gunnison River. The largest, Blue Mesa Reservoir, was created by the construction of a 390-foot dam at the start of the Black Canyon, inundating 23 miles of the Gunnison River Valley in the 1960s.

This is the story of the loss of three towns, sixteen fishing resorts, and fifteen ranches along the scenic Gunnison River west of Gunnison, Colorado. Local historian David M. Primus has spent over twenty years researching what was once beneath Blue Mesa Reservoir. He has interviewed dozens of people who grew up in the valley and have generously shared their photographs and stories. It is to the many people who were displaced by the reservoir this book is dedicated.

The book includes over 200 photographs and many stories of life in the valley before the reservoir. It can be used as a tour, allowing the reader to stop at various points and imagine what was there before.