Adventure 011 - Shaver Lake Dam

Capture California, the Game-2012

Adventure: 011 – Shaver Lake Dam

Team: Thing One, Thing Two

Date:  July 25, 2012

Location: Shaver Lake

Description:
On July 25^th, on our way up to Edison Lake and Florence Lake behind Huntington Lake—which by the way, all three of them have dam's—we passed by Shaver Lake Dam. Since we had not submitted our Friant Dam adventure, we thought, why not submit this one. Besides, this dam and lake has some interesting recent history.

During the winter of 2011/12 Southern California-Edison had to empty Shaver Lake to repair seepage on the Shaver Lake Dam. During that time, there was concern about either inadvertent or intentional damage to historical items at the bottom of the lake bed, including Native American burial artifacts. But even observing from Highway 168 revealed enough interesting items on the bottom of the lake bed to keep one occupied for a long time.


Information from a Fresno Bee article showed how the present dam was developed from the original lumbering operations back in 1892. How Charles Shaver and Lewis Swift conceived of taking a broken flume system, using to move logs from the Sierra's down to the mills in the Valley. The original dam was washed out, but rebuilt in 1892. This dam was also washed out by a flash flood which reported to shake the earth and move boulders weighing several tons, snapping trees along the way.


That led to the successful dam of 1893 which packed rock, dirt behind boards. As the lake filled behind the dam, the water expanded the boards making the dam completely leak-free. The town of Shaver was built to accommodate the lumbering operations. The town included mills, saloon, stores, hotels, houses, blacksmith operations, and a steamship, a lot like the one in the African Queen. In 1914 the mill closed after cutting 450 million board feet—enough to supply a major city. In 1919 SCE bought the area for its hydro-plant operations. In 1927 the current dam was created.



When the lake was drained this winter, it exposed the old 1893 dam, complete with a still working control valve, various giant wheels and the steamship Michigan. Amazing.