History of Forest Hill.

The first recorded owner of the land under Forest Hill was the Kansas City Pacific Railway Company (1869) and passed through several owners until Mary E. McClair purchased a portion of the land in 1907 and recording it as a homestead in 1913.

Mary received permission to plat 20 acres with all water and ditch rights and in June of 1924 she laid out, subdivided and platted McClairs Forest Hill Addition.  Although married she arranged for and completed all transactions on her own and in the recordings is referred to as a "sole fern."

Mary's original plat map was bounded by Yale on the north, Clarkson on west, Ogden on the east and Bates on the south - the majority of our designated Forest Hill neighborhood.

Running through the heart of Forest Hill is the City Ditch, started in 1860 by Capital Hydraulics and completed by John W. Smith, a farmer and businessman, and Richard S. Little, for whom Littleton is named.  

The City Ditch starts in Waterton Canyon, which is 300 feet higher in elevation than Denver and creates a 27 mile downhill run for water to travel.  This engineering marvel was dug by Little's steam driven excavator pulled by 12 oxen with teams of men working alongside and ran from Waterton through Englewood, Forest Hill, Washington Park, Denver Country Club, Capital Hill to City Park.  Smith used the water from the City Ditch to create the water features at Washington Park, Smith Lake and both Feril Lake and Duck Lake at City Park.

If you are doing the math you will realize that City Ditch began before Colorado was even a territory and helped to create two of Denver's finest parks!

One of your wonderful neighbors in Forest Hill owns and carefully maintains the 1863 water rights to the City Ditch to this day!