Tygart Dam one year before its completion in a photo dated Jan. 15, 1937.
Plugging away
Tygart Dam turns 75, showing no signs of slowing down For the past 75 1,700 people worked on years, Tygart Dam has the structure. Jobs at the stood proudly, providdam were in high demand ing vital services and with wages of $.45 an hour protecting those who for unskilled labor and live downstream. $1.10 an hour for skilled Tygart Dam was labor. The going rate for initially authorized in work at the time in the 1934, and adopted by area was $.10 an hour. the River and Harbor Tygart Dam is deAct Aug. 30, 1935, to signed to provide flood provide reliable water control, navigation walevels to the locks and ter supply, public water dams on the Mononsupply, recreation, land gahela and upper Ohio conservation, and fish and Rivers. wildlife preservation. It also Tygart Dam as it appears today. Since it’s construction, the dam has preTygart Dam was part vented more than $1.1 billion in flood damages. was the first of the 16 reserof the second wave of voir projects in the Pittsburgh President Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was designed to District to be constructed. help revitalize struggling communities during the Great One of the most memorable events during the dam’s Depression. Construction of the dam began in 1935 under history was the flood of 1985. Tygart Dam came as close as the Public Works Administration. it ever has to cresting its spillway, with flood waters rising The dam was one of the first PWA projects initiated to 100 feet in three days, stopping just nine feet below the reduce unemployment through the construction of massive, spillway. labor intensive projects. Since its completion, Tygart Dam has prevented flood In May 1936, at the peak of construction, more than damages in excess of $1.1 billion.
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