Part 9, Note 9

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Colorado County Deed Records, Book T, pp. 139, 140, Book Y, p. 139; Colorado Citizen, March 21, 1878, April 13, 1882. Ficklin and Tracy acquired the part of the lake in the Patrick Reels Survey by means of two quitclaim deeds, one from Edward T. Watts for $25 and one from Gamaliel Good for $1. Six years earlier, Watts had purchased a large tract in the Reels Survey from Good and his two sons (see Colorado County Deed Records, Book O, pp. 450, 415, 453). The deeds did not specifically mention the waters of the lake, so Ficklin and Tracy got an acknowledgment from Good, whose sons were by then deceased, that neither he nor his family had any further claim to ownership of the lake. It seems clear that neither Watts nor Good before him placed any significant value on the lake. This is well in keeping with the general attitude toward property ownership which, until then, had prevailed in the county. Neither Watts nor Good would have thought it proper to keep people from using the lake for nearly any purpose, just as they would not have thought it proper to keep other people's cattle from grazing on their unfenced grass lands, or to keep people from crossing their property at will, or to keep people from hunting on their land. At the time they sold the lake, these attitudes were only beginning to change, as we shall see in the subsequent chapter of this history.