Brenna Weston is executive director of the Polk County Historical Society. This article is republished with permission.

The St. Croix River has a long and storied history. From Native Americans who lived and traveled on the river, to the trappers and traders passing through, and the loggers and settlers that followed. As lumbermen discovered more of this area of Wisconsin for their sawmills, the river soon became the main transportation for the hewn timber.

As more and more logging companies used the river, it soon became a hazard for boats on the river and for lumber companies in Stillwater to verify the millions of feet of logs that were floated downriver. This also became a regular scene for some amazing log jams. These jams would not only stop the work at the sawmills, but they would endanger the lives of the loggers on the river and oftentimes would halt river traffic completely. Massive log jams sealed off the river in 1865, 1877, 1883, and 1886 causing not only headaches but also, more importantly to the lumbermen, a loss of profit. It was finally decided that the river needed a dam to regulate the flow of logs and the level of water on the river.

The Nevers Dam, rumored to be the largest pile-driven dam in the world at one time, was built in 1890 and was used to control the large flow of logs that came down the St. Croix River from the logging camps up north down to the sawmills in Stillwater. Costing over $200,000, much of the dam was built by hand with little help from steam powered equipment. It was used heavily for only a short period of time, until 1912-1913, but was not demolished until 1955 after spring floodwaters severely damaged its integrity. The dam structure had previously withstood a 70-foot crest of the river in 1950, which was an all-time high.

There were an average of 30 people working at the dam during the logging heyday. This includes workers who blasted ice flows apart in winter, worked at the sawmill, sluiced the logs through and downriver, and, of course, the cooks.

Nevers Dam also held some unique features, including an electric light (or rather a generator powered carbon light) system installed in 1889, which allowed work to continue around the clock. This was such a new invention that people drove from miles away to see the lights. It also held a specially designed 80-foot-long submerged gate, called the “Lang gate” that would sluice large numbers of logs through. It could handle approximately 4,000,000 feet of logs per hour, a huge sum at the time!

Other highlights during construction of the dam described in the St. Croix Valley Standard newspaper include:

• “Mr. Thomas Wright is kept very busy now, cooking for 285 men”
• “Mr. Register claims that the party who substituted potatoes for his apples did not fool him very badly”
• “Mr. Carrigan claims that dry hard wood placed in a bed does not add to the heat of the room”
• “A human skeleton was unearthed at the gravel pit on the east side of the river. It is supposed to be the bones of an Indian, as there once was a trading post at this place”
• “Isaac Register received quite a serious injury last Friday by a heavy timber falling on him, but he is now up and around again”
• “Guy Matthews received quite an electric shock on Monday evening, caused by the electric light wires crossing the cable used in hauling cars”
• “The boys have organized a society known as the Damville Codfish club. Sobriety and a knowledge of etiquette are among the numerous essential qualifications for membership”

The men involved in the construction of the dam appeared to be a close-knit fun-loving group of fellows as evidenced by many of the above story clips. This is likely due to the dangerous nature of their work. In fact, the construction of the Nevers Dam was dangerous enough that two men lost their lives. Andrew Anderson died by falling in a mass of gravel and Wm. Webb fell into the water while painting a gate and was dragged into the undercurrent at the foot of the dam.

Eventually the Northern States Power Company acquired the dam and used it for a couple decades to control stream flow and regulate power production at the Taylors Falls hydroelectric plant. Eventually the Army Corps of Engineers ordered the dam remain open and the stream should be regulated from June through October. As the dam did not serve any commercial or environmental purpose, not to mention the damage it received from flooding in the 1950s, it was deemed too hazardous and was removed.

Source:

• Vezina, R. 1975. Nevers Dam…the Lumbermen’s Dam. Standard Press.