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Show 209 JOHN BELL. For Complainant R. Vol. 3. pp. 512- 514. He is seventy- four years old, resides about seventeen miles above Durango on the Rio Grande River, and is a contractor for the American Smelting and Refining Company. He has been in the San Juan river county around Bowen's Ferry, Fruitland and Pegosa Springs, and at what he calls Aztec Crossing and different points innumerable times. R. 511- 512. He recalls the flood of 1884. He had built a bridge across the Aztec in 1883; in the spring of 1884 the flood came and he was called on to rebuild the bridge and try to save it but was unable to do so, the water at that time rising about two to three feet above the known high water mark. The Animus River, a tributary to the San Juan, is a perennial stream entering the San Juan below Farmington sixteen or eighteen miles he believes. R. 512- 513. He has forded the San Juan River at Fruitland, but the water in not very deep, possibly to the horse's knees. The ford crossing usually is in channels from two inches to eighteen inches deep. R. 514. |
