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LOOK AT THE PAST
Tappan Dam
By Susan Adams
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The Army Corps of Engineers workers started in January 1935. Through the rock in the left abutment, workers constructed a cement tunnel 568 feet long and eight feet at its widest point, and three gates were built into the structure to control the outlet of water from the lake.
The dam, completed in October 1936, is 1,550 feet long and 52 feet above the original stream. In March 1940, the maximum depth of the lake was only 10 feet. Another 10 feet was added to the pool level in 1943 and finally brought up to today’s normal level of 34 feet in January 1947. Eight miles of U.S. Route 250 were raised high enough to be above normal pool level because there was no better location around the valley to which it could be moved.
Information comes from The Times Reporter’s Aug. 28, 1968 edition. The picture is dated Nov. 11, 1936, before the lake was filled. The barn in the background is still there today.
