Historic wooden wheel still spinning a lot of curiosity after 90 years

MCCOY — The drive through McCoy, Colorado, takes about 26 seconds from one end of town to the other but in that short time, you can see a strange structure rising above the rest.

Some might think the giant wheel on the banks of the Colorado River is a Ferris wheel left over from some past carnival, but McCoy resident John Comer knows better.

“You would think the carnival was passing through," Comer said.

The wooden wheel stands 46 feet high and has a massive circumference of 144 feet and is eight feet wide. It was built in 1923 by a rancher named Earl Brooks to get water from the river to his ranch.

“The water goes down this channel from the Colorado River and hits these paddles,” Comer said. “There are wooden buckets with openings that collect the water which goes around to the top.”

From there the water travels into troughs and into underground pipes that lead up to the ranch. It’s a process that’s still happening. The water wheel is still functioning after three restorations.

Comer first rebuilt his water wheel in 1976. High water sent trees, railroad ties and other large items smashing against it and he had to rebuild it in 1999. He spent $20,000 to fix it up again in 2015.

“It operates, and we have used water out of it,” Comer said.

The work has preserved a big piece of Colorado’s ranching history but after four decades of fixing it Comer says if it ever needs to be worked on again the next time around he’s letting someone else have a spin.

“My children will have to restore it next time,” Comer said.

9 Facts about the water wheel

• It was built in 1923
• A Rancher named Earl Brooks built it to push water from the Colorado River up to his ranch.
• Earl had several daughters, one was dating a young teenage boy who helped build the water wheel in 1923. That same man helped rebuild the water wheel in 1999 after high water damaged it in 1999
• The dimensions of the water wheel are 46 feet high, 144feet in circumference and eight feet wide.
• The current owner of the water wheel, John Comer spent $20,000 to rebuild it in 2015 after high water once again damaged the wheel.
• The wheel still works by collecting water in wooden buckets, dumping that water in troughs at the top which spill the water down pipes and into an irrigation ditch to water crops 100 yards away.
• It takes one minute for the wheel to make one revolution moving at 1.3 miles an hour but can raise 600 gallons of water.
• The wheel contains around 3,570 board feet of lumber and weighs around 5,962 pounds.
• The wheel is known as Brooks Water Wheel, it’s located in McCoy a small town about three hours northwest of Denver with a population of around 24 people.