Splash dam — 1903 — #4993_1
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Photograph Copyright Anderson & Middleton Company
United States — Washington (State)
Humptulips River
Thanks to Richard Bogar who notes: "I'm going to stick my neck out on this one. Stockwell had a lot of dams on the Humptulips and two of the big ones (48') were on th East Fork and West Fork. This photo I believe is the West Fork. Seems as though it is also in some of the NFS files. I know where the dam was as I have worked on the West Humptulips Trail for many years. The dam is in quite a gorge which looks a whole lot like the picture shows. There are still some of the dam logs sticking up from river bed. However, in her book Diane Ellison places this dam on the East Fork."
Thanks also to Sam Talley, who adds: "The splash dam was a means of building a great supply of water behind a dam so that quantities of logs could be floated downstream to lumber mills. When the flood gates were opened torrents of water or 'splash' would carry the logs swiftly down what would otherwise be shallow, slow moving water. The dams were on rivers, like the Wishkah, and streams and creeks as small as Charlie Creek. Sometimes there were several dams on one stream. The surging water would also wash away farmers meadows along the rivers, damaging crops and outbuildings. Brown colored water carrying the soil could sometimes be seen carried to the sea. Finally the diisgruntled land owners banded together, hired attorneys, and brought the splash dams under control. Some old remnants of the dams still exist."
