Those Dammed Wisconsin Rivers

Of the 2.5 million damsin the United States, 3,800are located right here in the state of Wisconsin.Most of the dams are small, privately owned structures. When early settlersarrived in our region, they quickly grasped the advantages of putting theaquatic landscape to work for them. In an epic tale of man versus nature, theseindustrious newcomers began to divert and restrain the state’s mighty riversand tributaries, and impound massive artificial lakes. By harnessing the waterin this way, they were able to transport raw materials and people moreefficiently, and provide a reliable source of hydropower for sawmills and,later, paper mills, flour mills, machine shops, foundries and factories. Thesedams encouraged and provided for early settlement in Wisconsin.

According to theWisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the state’s first dam was built in1809 to provide power for a sawmill on the Fox Rivernear De Pere. Christine Macy’s book Damsfeatures a number of notable Wisconsin dams in its collection of 800 historicaland contemporary photographs of dams built in America between the 1930s and the1970s. One unique work of engineering featured in the book is the Cedar FallsDam on the Red Cedar River in northern Dunn County.

During the 19th century,the Red Cedar River served as a logging run for the largest lumber producer inthe country, the Menomonie-based Knapp, Stout & Co. According to Macy, theriver was dammed in Menomonie as early as 1848, and a similar wood-cribstructure upstream at Cedar Falls powered a sawmill.

In the 1890s, growingindustrial demand for electrical power inspired investors to buildhydroelectric dams that hold back and divert a river’s flow through apowerhouse. In basic terms, the falling water runs through propeller-liketurbines, causing them to rotate. The rotation of these turbines spinsgenerators to produce electricity. The volume of water flow and the height fromthe water surface at the dam reservoir to the water surface downstream largelydetermine the amount of electricity generated from each unit.

In 1910, the originaldam in Cedar Fallswas replaced with a concrete structure 510 feet long and 65 feet high. With theexception of new generators installed in 1912 and 1915, it has remained largelyunchanged. Xcel Energy, a public utility company based in Minneapolis,currently owns the Cedar Falls Dam, and operates a modified run-of-the-riverhydroelectricity project, which impounds Tainter Lakeand generates 6.8 megawatts of hydroelectric power.