When Pueblo leaders speak about the effects of the Great Flood of 1921, they tend to repeat one word: resilience.
“Pueblo has a proud history. It was built by people who came all over the world to make the steel that built the American West,” Mayor Nick Gradisar said during an event commemorating the anniversary along the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk on June 2.
“They were frugal, hardworking people and just as they were beginning to accumulate many of the new things that they’d left behind when they came to Pueblo to build a new life for themselves, they were wiped out by the 1921 flood.