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Show LARAMIE RIVER LITIGATION 687 at a cost of $15,000. Early in 1009 a statement of claim was filed covering a proposed reservoir near the tunnel site, the cost being estimated at $200,000. , . . In 1907 the Laramie-Poudre Reservoirs and Irrigation Company succeeded to whatever rights the promoters had acquired up to that time, and all subsequent surveys, investigations and filings were made by it. In April, 1909, the Greeley-Poudre Irrigation District, within which the water is intended to be used, was organized. At that time sufficient capital had not been obtained to carry the project through in any form. In September following the irrigation company and the irrigation district entered into a tentative contract, under which the company was to consummate the project in its present form, and, after doing the construction work, was to transfer the property to the district. Payment therefor was to be made in interest-bearing bonds of the district. By a vote taken the next month, the district ratified the contract and authorized the issue of the bonds. About the last of that month the work of boring the tunnel and making the diversion was begun. It is manifest from this historical outline that the question of whether, and also how, this proposed appropriation should be made remained an open one until the contract with the irrigation district was made and ratified in 1909. Up to that time the whole subject was at large. There was no fixed or definite plan. It was all in an inceptive and formative stage-investigations being almost constantly in progress to determine its feasibility and whether changes and alternatives should be adopted rather than the primary conception. It had not reached a point where there was a fixed and definite pur- pose to take it up and carry it through. An appropriation does not take priority by relation as of a time anterior to the existence of such a purpose. It no doubt is true that the original promoters intended all along to make a large appropriation from the Laramie by some means, provided the requisite capital could be obtained, but this is an alto- gether inadequate basis for applying the doctrine of relation. No separate appropriation was effected by what was done on the Upper Kawah Ditch. The purpose to use it in connection with the Skyline was not carried out, but abandoned. This, as Link testified, was its "principal" purpose. The purpose to make it an accessory of the large project was secondary and contingent. Therefore the work on it cannot be taken as affecting or tolling back the priority of that project. Actual work in making the tunnel diversion was begun as before shown, about the last of October, 1909. Thereafter it was prosecuted with much diligence and in 1911, when this suit was brought, it had been carried so nearly to a state of completion that the assumption reasonably may be indulged that, but for the suit, the appropriation soon would have been perfected. We conclude that the appropria- tion should be accorded a priority by relation as of the latter part of October, 1909, when the work was begun. Applying a like rule to the Wyoming appropriations, several of them must be treated as relating to later dates, and therefore as being junior to that appropriation. Some of the projects in that State are |
