Derby Dam
Nevada
This low concrete wall east of Reno drained an entire lake off the map.
A thirty-one-foot concrete wall across the Truckee River was the very first thing the federal government built after Congress decided to irrigate the West. Work started in October of nineteen oh three and finished in the spring of nineteen oh five. It stores nothing. All it does is turn water sideways, into a canal that carries it toward farmland in the Lahontan Valley, country that sees less than four and a half inches of rain a year.
This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 1 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
It was the first project of the newly organized U.S. Reclamation Service (known today as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation), organized by the Reclamation Act of 1902.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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