Gub Club Green History

The Gun Club Green community is built on the original site of the Sullivan Reservoir, the highest point in southeast Denver. It has a colorful history dating back to 1890 when the Sullivan reservoir was a gigantic project conceived by Dennis Sullivan, then vice-president of the Denver Water Company. Its plan was to service the Denver area's 500,000 inhabitants with 50 million gallons of water capacity. The proposed reservoir would take advantage of the 400 foot elevation above the South Platte River and Cherry Creek to flow water by gravity. Construction began in May 1890, with an estimated budget of $500,000 to complete the project.

In the fast growing city of Denver, competition to provide the population with water was very heated. As rival Citizens Water Company initiated a project to bring water from the mountains, the Sullivan Water Company bought a half-mile strip of land to try to block their water distribution. The right of way ultimately got resolved in court after crews of gunmen were hired to stop construction work.

Competition between the two companies drove the price of water down and in summer 1892 the Citizens Water Company was giving water away free of charge. Financial troubles led the Sullivan Water Company to sell its entire plant and franchise. The reservoir was completed by then, but had never served or sold a single drop of water to its potential customers. By 1936, the completion of the Moffat Tunnel which to this day supplies water from the Western Slope through the Continental Divide to Denver, rendered Sullivan's reservoir obsolete and the Sullivan Reservoir site was sold to private parties for agricultural purposes.

In 1955 the property was resold and transformed into a shooting range, with its deep stone walls providing ideal containment for powered rifle and pistol bullets. The 300 members club built a large clubhouse and operated the range until October 1977, when it was sold for $275,000 to Edwin Baker Jr. to develop Gun Club Green.