Cucharas River is a 75-mile-long (121 km)[2] tributary of the Huerfano River that flows from a source in Huerfano County, Colorado, southwest of the Spanish Peaks in San Isabel National Forest.

[3] Much of the land in and adjacent to the canyon was purchased by the Bureau of Land Management in 1998 and is open to the public for recreational activities such as hiking, horseback riding, and hunting.

Built in 1910, it experienced structural problems throughout its life, including a partial failure in 1987 which resulted in the emergency dynamiting of a spillway.

Following years of litigation, the State Engineer took emergency control of the dam in 2017 for safety reasons.

The state removed it in 2019, recovering the cost in court from the dam's owners.