Many elements had to come together to create the Colorado-Big Thompson (C-BT) Project, and one of the biggest of those was the effort to get approval and appropriations through Congress.

Leading the charge was Sen. Alva Blanchard Adams, a Pueblo Democrat and son of Alva A. Adams, a former Colorado governor.

Alva B. Adams, born in Del Norte in 1875, was first appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1923 and served for 18 months. In 1933, he was elected, serving eight years until his death on Dec. 1, 1941.

During his time in office, he sponsored Senate Document 80, which outlined the work needed to create the C-BT Project. Shepherding that bill to passage and then its subsequent funding required work to unify support from the state’s elected leaders and then his colleagues in Congress, who by 1937 were losing their appetite for major public works projects in the West.

Eighty years ago this month, President Franklin Roosevelt renamed one component of the C-BT Project, the Continental Divide Tunnel, after Adams to recognize his importance to the project.