THE WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

March 31, 1906

 

HIGH WATER

Causes an Overflow at the Water Power House.

Owners of Dams Worried.

 

            Sunday and Monday nights there was a down-pour of rain and when people came down town Monday forenoon they saw a sight at the stone bridge.  The government water gauge showed that on Monday night nearly three inches of water had fallen and from the fact that this condition was general all over this section and the fields and streets covered with sheets of ice and the frost not yet out of the ground, water naturally filled every ravine and some cellars and the bulk of it found its way to the ponds, lakes and streams, the latter sending torrents of water over the dams and down the Waupaca toward Oshkosh at a voluminous rate.  The ice held the water back for at time but soon it broke over the hole-in-the-rocks where is located the once proposed filtering water-intake and from there it found its way around the pile of stone and around the water power station raising about a foot above the threshold of the doors, necessitating on the part of Supt. Phillips, the calking of the doors to keep the water out of the generating room.

            For at time there was a miniature Niagara flowing over the southwest side of the stone bridge.  While the backwater did not interfere materially in the electric generating station of the city water plant the A. G. Nelson Lumber Co’s feed mill was obliged to stop Monday owing to the excessive volume of water on both sides of the dam.

            Luckily no serious damage was done although the Electric Light and Railway Co’s dam was full to overflowing and when word came Monday afternoon that the dams at Amherst and Sheridan had gone out they and many others feared the worst, but it proved to be an unfounded rumor and everything had quieted down by Tuesday morning.

WOOLEN MILL DAM OUT.

            But matters were not so fortunate at J. W. Evan’s Woolen Mill dam; a section nearly a rod wide having washed out and it is feared the stone bridge is quite seriously injured as a result.

            (Part missing) “oldest inhabitants (part missing) never saw the like.”  (Part missing) heard Jason Gurley, who is a pretty good authority, say:

            “Why this was only a sun showing compared to a circumstance of high water which was witnessed here about forty years ago. During the winter three million meet of logs had been dumped into the lower pond near the sawmill and as far back as where the Rosche Foundry stands.  When the spring freshet came water backed up, and on the flats between Lord Bros. mill and State Street everything was under water.  The Ritz Stave and Barrel factory, the building back of Matt Fisher’s shop, then doing a big business was under water to the second story for several days.  But it was all caused by choking the pond and river with logs.