Pictured is Edenville Dam construction in 1924. Upon completion, it would retain a summer-time pond at 675.8 feet, creating Wixom Lake in the river valley of the Tittabawassee and Tobacco rivers. The dam held for 95 years – the failure was of the embankment that catastrophically collapsed on May 19, 2020.
This photo from 1924 depicts the Edenville Dam under construction, viewed from the southeast looking northwest. The scene looks very different than any modern vantage point of the current reconstruction, yet the core engineering goals remain similar. While the 1924 crews relied on a complex, rigid wooden tower system for pouring, today’s crews use a fleet of specialized equipment to direct a conti…
