Boyd Lake State Park

Boyd Lake State Park has a single gate on North County Road 11-C, on the west side of the park outside Loveland. The Visitor Center stands just before the entrance station. When the gate is unattended, a self-service kiosk on the right past the entrance sells day passes. Beyond the gate is a reservoir of 1,700 surface acres inside a park of 2,082. Colorado Parks and Wildlife places it “at the westernmost edge of the plains, by the foot of snow-capped Long’s Peak and the mountains of the Continental Divide.”

Low water in 2026

The lake opened normally on March 6, 2026. The courtesy dock could not be used, because the water was too low and the dock could not be moved. Later the lake was closed to boating for the rest of 2026. Swimming is still allowed, and so are kayaks, paddleboards and other hand-launched craft. The Heron Cove boat ramp is closed for low water.

The marina and its store, north of the entrance station, are shut for the 2026 season. CPW did not renew the concessionaire’s contract. It cited failure to meet contract requirements, “dilapidated and unsafe infrastructure,” and a lapse in customer service. Because a low water year was forecast, no new operator was chosen. The marina infrastructure belongs to the departing concessionaire, and the agency says it needs major repairs and a full inspection before anyone runs it again. Park management has said it is hopeful the marina will reopen in 2027.

On land there are 140 paved campsites for tents, pickup trailers and motorhomes up to 40 feet long. Each has a picnic table and grill, and sites have 20-, 30- or 50-amp hookups. The trails are the 4.9-mile City Trail, the mile-long Swim Beach Point, the 0.4-mile Grassland Trail, and a 0.1-mile accessible fishing pier. Leashed dogs and horses are permitted. The agency says the park is best known for its birds, more than 200 species, and points visitors to iNaturalist for bird and plant guides. John Williams, the park’s Park Professional and a former public school teacher in Northern Colorado, works with teachers on programs and curriculum.

The Larimer County Sheriff approved Stage 1 fire restrictions on September 10, 2026, and they run until 11:59 p.m. on November 3, 2026. Fires in rings of rock are banned, along with exploding targets and tracer ammunition. Grills and built fireplaces are allowed. There was a gap between the old restrictions and the new ones, and the park asked visitors driving through to pull the leftover caution tape off the fire pits.

A root cellar among the boats

The Visitor Center sits on the old Heinricy homestead. Kenneth Jessen, writing in the Loveland Reporter-Herald in 2016, says Carl Heinricy came to the Loveland area in 1875 with his wife and five children and settled west of what is now the lake. A Colorado State Publications Library post gives 1879 as the year the family filed under the Homestead Act.

By Jessen’s account, Heinricy finished a log home the following year and later replaced it with a frame house. He added a stable, a granary, a root cellar and a stone pump house. The house and most of the other buildings were razed long ago. The root cellar remains inside a fenced yard used for boat storage. The pump house stands along North County Road 11C near the entrance to park headquarters.

Henry Heinricy’s ditch over the Divide

In 1887 Carl sold the homestead to his son, Henry J. Heinricy. Jessen says Henry was more interested in irrigation projects than in farming. His place in history came from a modest ditch northwest of Flattop Mountain, in what is now Rocky Mountain National Park.

The ditch was called the Eureka Ditch. It gathered runoff from Big Horn Flats, well above timberline, water that would otherwise have flowed to the Colorado River. The ditch carried it across the Continental Divide into Spruce Canyon, and from there it ran into the Big Thompson River. Twenty men put in $100 each, and the ditch was completed in 1902. Jessen calls it the first trans-mountain ditch in Northern Colorado and says it set the stage for larger diversion projects.

Other ditches later carried Big Thompson water to what is now Boyd Lake. One of the oldest is the Chubbuck Ditch, also called the English Ditch and later the Loveland & Greeley Ditch, decreed in November 1865. It runs along First Street in Loveland, bends north up to Boyd Lake, and leans east toward Greeley.

The Great Depression bankrupted Henry Heinricy, and he lost the land. He died in 1951.

Sanborn’s dam and its buyers

Before the lake there were two basins, North and South. In 1905 and 1906 the irrigation engineer Burton D. Sanborn joined them with a dam into a single reservoir, filled by ditches. The Greeley & Loveland Irrigation Company considered buying it from him in 1909, the first of several attempts. In 1913 the Colorado Power Company, a subsidiary of the Public Service Company, bought it for $125,000. In 1926 the Greeley & Loveland Irrigation Company bought it for $285,000, and the company has controlled the lake since.

The public came in by lease. The Division of Wildlife leased the area from the irrigation company in 1958 for a wildlife area. In 1965 it became a state recreation area under Colorado Game, Fish and Parks. In 1972 the newly created Colorado Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation took it over.

The sources differ on what happened in 1978. By CPW’s account, Colorado State Parks bought the recreation surface rights and access to the water that year. The State Publications Library post, citing a history prepared by the division, says the division purchased the property. Jessen, and a 2025 piece on the radio station Retro 102.5, both describe the state as leasing part of the lake for the park.

Which Boyd

The lake carries the name of David Boyd. CPW says the namesake was most likely the first Commissioner to represent Greeley, a man active in local politics in the late 1800s. Jessen calls him the first water commissioner for this part of the state. Dave Jensen, writing for Retro 102.5, says that before any water was put into Boyd, the legislature divided the state into water districts, and David Boyd was chosen as the first commissioner of the Greeley Water District. Jensen adds, “while there probably wouldn’t even be a Boyd Lake State Park without a Loveland man named Heinricy, it’s named after a Greeley water commissioner.”