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Dall DeWeese: Cañon City Pioneer, Naturalist and Entrepreneur

William Dallas “Dall” DeWeese was a businessman, horticulturist, irrigation developer, explorer, hunter-naturalist and amateur paleontologist who played an important role in the development of Cañon City and the surrounding region.

He is remembered today through Lake DeWeese, the DeWeese-Dye irrigation system, the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center, and a significant dinosaur discovery in the Garden Park Fossil Area.

Early life

William Dallas DeWeese was born near Troy, Ohio, on October 1, 1857. As a young man, he demonstrated the entrepreneurial spirit that would characterize the rest of his life.

He established a construction business in 1878. In 1881, he entered the nursery and horticulture business with his friend Charles Robert Culbertson Dye, commonly known as C.R.C. Dye.

DeWeese first came to Cañon City in 1884 as an agent representing their Ohio nursery operation. Recognizing the agricultural potential of the Arkansas River Valley, he eventually sold his Ohio interests and established the Iron Clad Nurseries in the Lincoln Park area. His family joined him in Colorado in 1886. Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center

Agricultural development and irrigation

DeWeese quickly understood that commercial orchards and farms around Cañon City could not prosper without a dependable irrigation system.

Working with C.R.C. Dye and financial backing connected to the Dye family, DeWeese organized the DeWeese-Dye Ditch and Reservoir Company. The company began diverting water into the Cañon City area in 1896.

The men planned to develop land in Lincoln Park under the name “Fruitland.” When they discovered that Grape Creek did not carry enough late-season water to support the project, they turned to reservoir storage.

Construction of a dam northeast of Westcliffe began in 1902 and was completed in 1903. The resulting body of water became known as Lake DeWeese or DeWeese Reservoir. Its water was transported through the ditch system to irrigate land around Lincoln Park, Brookside and Cañon City.

The system eventually helped irrigate more than 10,000 acres. Remarkably, the DeWeese-Dye system continues to supply irrigation water to hundreds of shareholders more than a century later. DeWeese-Dye Ditch and Reservoir Company

Businessman and community promoter

DeWeese was involved in numerous business ventures. In addition to his nursery and land-development operations, he invested in real estate, oil exploration, mining and gold prospects.

He was one of Cañon City’s energetic early “boosters”—businessmen who actively promoted their communities to prospective residents, investors and tourists. DeWeese promoted the region’s climate, fruit-growing potential, scenery and recreational opportunities.

His contribution was therefore larger than any one business. Water development supported orchards, farms, residential growth and increased land values throughout the area.

Hunter and naturalist

Although widely known as a big-game hunter, DeWeese considered himself a hunter-naturalist. During that period, hunters frequently collected wildlife specimens for museums and scientific study.

He traveled extensively across the western United States, Mexico and Alaska. He also undertook a world tour in 1903.

His most famous hunting expedition occurred in Alaska in 1897. DeWeese was pursuing reports of exceptionally large Alaska-Yukon moose on the Kenai Peninsula. During the expedition he collected moose, bears, Dall sheep and other specimens.

One enormous moose became nationally known. It had an antler spread reported by DeWeese at approximately 69 inches and was later entered in Boone and Crockett records with a score of 224⅝ points. His written account of the hunt appeared in the first issue of Outdoor Life magazine in January 1898. Boone and Crockett Club

Scientific expedition to Alaska

DeWeese’s accomplishments attracted the attention of the federal government. In 1898, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Division of Biological Survey asked him to return to Alaska.

His assignment included:

• Mapping rivers, lakes, glaciers and other geographic features of the Kenai Peninsula
• Observing wildlife populations
• Collecting large-mammal specimens
• Supplying scientific information about the region

Specimens collected by DeWeese were deposited in what is now the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.

Two of his specimens became scientific “type specimens”—the original reference specimens used to define a species:

• Alces gigas, an Alaska moose described in 1899
• Vulpes kenaiensis, a Kenai fox described in 1900

Although some of the classifications have since been revised, the specimens remain historically important to zoological research. City of Cañon City history

Wildlife conservation

DeWeese’s record must be understood in the context of his time. He killed and collected many animals, including large trophy specimens, but he also became alarmed by uncontrolled commercial hunting and the rapid disappearance of wildlife.

After his Alaska expeditions, he communicated his concerns to political leaders, including President Theodore Roosevelt. DeWeese supported restrictions on market hunting and the shipment of game out of Alaska.

He was among the sportsmen and naturalists who helped build support for the Alaska Game Act of 1902. That law established hunting seasons, bag limits and protections for certain animals and birds. For this reason, DeWeese occupies the complicated historical position of being both a prolific hunter and an early wildlife-conservation advocate.

The Garden Park dinosaur discovery

DeWeese’s most important paleontological achievement came in the Garden Park Fossil Area north of Cañon City.

After searching the surrounding gulches and hillsides for approximately 18 months, he discovered the exposed remains of a dinosaur in late 1915. He initially contacted the American Museum of Natural History in New York but received little interest.

On December 15, 1915, he wrote to the Colorado Museum of Natural History—now the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Museum director Jesse Figgins recognized the importance of the discovery and arranged to cover excavation supplies, labor and transportation.

When weather permitted in 1916, DeWeese voluntarily supervised the excavation. The fossil proved to be a partial skeleton of Diplodocus longus. No skull was recovered, and the skeleton was not complete enough for mounting.

Nevertheless, the specimen was historically important: it became the first dinosaur acquired by the Denver museum and helped launch that institution’s paleontology collection. Denver Museum of Nature & Science

His museum collection

Throughout his life, DeWeese accumulated an extensive collection that included:

• Mounted wildlife
• Fossils
• Minerals and geological specimens
• Archaeological objects
• Ethnographic materials
• Historical artifacts
• Firearms and hunting-related objects

He offered this collection to the City of Cañon City on the condition that space be permanently provided for a museum.

The municipal building on Royal Gorge Boulevard, completed around the end of DeWeese’s life, was designed to house city offices downstairs and a museum on the upper floor. DeWeese supervised portions of the work and designed an unusual stone fireplace incorporating fossils, minerals and artifacts from his collection.

That building is now the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center, where his legacy remains an important part of the institution.

Death

Dall DeWeese died in Pueblo on August 22, 1928, at approximately 70 years old. Contemporary newspapers remembered him as a prominent sportsman, naturalist and Cañon City citizen. Historic Colorado newspaper report

Historical significance

Dall DeWeese’s legacy falls into four principal areas:

1. Water and agriculture: His ditch and reservoir system helped make commercial farming, orchards and land development possible around Cañon City.
2. Natural history: His Alaska specimens contributed to early scientific knowledge of North American mammals.
3. Paleontology: His Garden Park Diplodocus became the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s first dinosaur acquisition.
4. Local preservation: His artifact collection helped establish what became the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center.

Dall DeWeese was very much a product of the late-19th-century West—ambitious, adventurous, commercially minded and sometimes controversial by modern standards. Yet few individuals left a more visible mark on the landscape and historical institutions of the Cañon City region. More than a century later, people still use the water system he helped create, fish and camp at the reservoir bearing his name, study the dinosaur he discovered, and visit the museum built around his collection.