Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
The Riverwalk in downtown Pueblo, on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The Riverwalk grew out an area of the city destroyed the Arkansas River when it flooded in 1921. In the aftermath, the city redirected the Arkansas around the city to the south.
A century ago the Arkansas River flowed through Pueblo in the channel that is now the HARP, or the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo. In 1921, swollen by rain and snowmelt, the river overtopped its levees and roared through the low-lying areas of downtown Pueblo, taking the lives of hundreds of people, leaving a 300 square mile swath of destruction and changing the course of the city’s history.