The old Town of Dillon was originally where Lake Dillon is now. In the 1960s the lake was built for water storage for the City of Denver. The Denver Water Board owns all the water in it and it is fed through the Roberts Tunnel into the South Platte river, near Highway 285, not far from the town of Shawnee.
When the Dam was built, the old town had to be moved, and even today, the Town of Dillon is known as the "New Town of Dillon". Many of the buildings were moved to new locations in other parts of the county; some to the New Town, but others went to other locations too. The Giberson family ranch owned a lot of land in the area, and they lost a lot of it to both the lake and I-70. Today, Giberson bay in Frisco lies where their land used to be, and The Villas at Prospect Point, a condo complex, is on land that used to be theirs. The rest of the Giberson land has an easement on it, held by the Continental Divide Land Trust to protect it from future development.
Lake Dillon is a popular place both summer and winter. The Tiki Bar is the local hangout on the shoreline in the summer and the marina has a waiting list for people wanting to dock their boats there. I am not a sailor, but I understand that Lake Dillon has some tricky sailing as the winds swirl and make it a challenging lake. It may be small as lakes go, but it is fun, despite that fact that you cannot swim or water ski in it! In the spring we have a contest to see who can get closest to the time that the lake thaws. The Summit County Rotary sponsors it and they sell tickets for guesses. They take a hovercraft out on the lake in the spring after it warms up a bit, and place a special clock out on the ice. When the clock falls through the ice, it stops, and the person who came closest to guessing the time it went in gets a cash prize.
Dillon has many events in the summer, from the Soap Box Derby to the Barbeque Challenge. They are listed on one of our Summit County real estate websites, along with many other events all over Summimt County.
To find out more about Dillon, watch for future articles, and visit the town's website at www.townofdillon.com.
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