Monday, October 19, 2026

Blue Mesa Dam is declared complete and Colorado's largest lake starts filling

1966 · Gunnison County

On October 19, 1966, the Bureau of Reclamation declared Blue Mesa Dam complete. The 390-foot earthfill dam on the Gunnison River created Blue Mesa Reservoir, still the largest body of water entirely within Colorado.

Construction began in 1962 as part of the Colorado River Storage Project's Curecanti Unit (later the Wayne N. Aspinall Unit). They relocated towns, a cemetery, and stretches of highway. The diversion tunnel closed earlier in 1966 and the reservoir began to fill. The powerplant came online in 1968.

Blue Mesa Reservoir stretches about 20 miles with roughly 96 miles of shoreline when full. It is the centerpiece of Curecanti National Recreation Area: kokanee salmon, lake trout, camping, and a highway that crosses the crest of the dam. The water still does the unglamorous jobs of power generation, irrigation storage, and helping maintain flows through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Sixty years on, the dam is still the biggest lake Colorado made for itself. The towns it covered have basins named after them. The fish do not appear to mind.

Sources: Wikipedia · Bureau of Reclamation · National Park Service

Trey Parker is born in Conifer, not far from a future cartoon town

1969 · Conifer

Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III was born October 19, 1969, in Conifer, Colorado. He later met Matt Stone at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-created South Park, the animated satire set in a fictional Colorado mountain town.

Parker grew up in the foothills west of Denver, attended Evergreen High School, and studied film and Japanese at CU Boulder. While still a student he wrote, directed, and starred in Cannibal! The Musical, a cheerfully inaccurate take on the Alferd Packer story. After graduation he and Stone made the Christmas short that eventually became the pilot for South Park.

The show premiered on Comedy Central in 1997 and has been running ever since, regularly roasting Colorado weather, politics, sports, and the particular flavor of small-town mountain life that both of them knew firsthand. Parker has also co-written The Book of Mormon and directed Team America: World Police.

Born in Conifer. Educated in Boulder. Famous for inventing a Colorado that is somehow both more ridiculous and more accurate than the real one. The birthday is his. The accent is ours.

Sources: Wikipedia · Britannica · IMDb

Denver hits 86 degrees on October 19 and sets a date record that still stands

2003 · Denver

On October 19, 2003, Denver's high temperature reached 86 °F, the warmest reading ever recorded on the date. It was part of an extended late-October warm spell that set or tied several temperature records.

The warm stretch ran from roughly the 18th through the 23rd. Highs in the mid-80s, lows mostly in the 40s and lower 50s. The 86 on the 19th remains the date record. For contrast, the record low for October 19 is 19 °F, set in 1976. Average highs this time of year sit closer to the mid-60s.

In 1982 the date brought the first measurable snow of the season to parts of the metro area. In 1990 an early winter storm dropped several inches. Colorado in late October keeps both options open. On this particular day in 2003 it chose the version where people leave the jackets in the car and argue about whether it is still fall.

Sources: Extreme Weather Watch · Thornton Weather · National Weather Service