As networks of railroads spread across the United States, engineers were also busy building thousands of dams. Steam locomotives required large amounts of water, and in areas of the arid west, that was often hard to come by. Thus, reservoirs were constructed adjacent to tracks to supply the trains with water.
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Dams were usually constructed with masonry and large blocks of quarried stone, which was very labor-intensive. Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway engineer Francis H. Bainbridge had an idea. The railroad company was already purchasing steel in bulk for the construction of tracks, trestles, and bridges. If steel could be used to build the dams as well, it would save the company time and money.
Construction on the dam began in and was finished early the next year. Pieces of the dam were constructed off-site and assembled in Johnson Canyon. The final cost was a relatively inexpensive $63,500, or approximately $2 million today. Although the steel dam proved much cheaper and faster to construct than masonry dams, there were justified concerns about its long-term integrity. Only three steel dams were constructed in the U.S., and today the Ashfork-Bainbridge Dam is the only one that still holds a reservoir.
Although they supported the experiment, from the start, the railroad company didn't trust that the steel dam would work. Around 13 years later, a masonry dam was constructed a mile upstream from the Ashfork-Bainbridge Dam, so that if the steel dam failed, there was still a reservoir in place to supply water for their needs. Although the railroad is gone, both dams are still functional today.
The land around the Ashfork-Bainbridge Steel Dam is now a part of the Kaibab National Forest. The steel dam was added to the National Register of Historic Places in .
It can be somewhat difficult to find the roads and trails that reach the dam on online maps. The easiest access is off US Interstate 40. Take the Welch Road exit and turn onto Forest Road 6.
After about a mile, take a sharp left onto Forest Road 6E, which is an unmaintained remnant of the historic Route 66. Stay on that road for about two miles, then turn right onto a road that goes north towards the Masonry Number Two Reservoir.
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After about half a mile on this road, you'll reach the trailhead of the Stone to Steel Trail. The trail is about a mile long and starts near the masonry dam and ends at the Ashfork-Bainbridge Steel Dam.
The Redridge Steel Dam is a steel dam across the Salmon Trout River in Redridge, Houghton County, Michigan. Completed in , it is a flat slab buttress dam constructed of steel, a relatively rare material for construction of dams, which are typically made of earthenworks, concrete, or masonry. Most sources indicate that it was one of only three such dams constructed in the United States, the other two being the Ashfork-Bainbridge Steel Dam (, Arizona) and the Hauser Lake Dam (, Montana), the last of which failed within a year of construction.
In , prior to the construction of the steel dam, the Atlantic Mining Company built a timber crib dam across the Salmon Trout River. The dam created a reservoir which supplied water to the Atlantic stamp mill which extracted copper from ore-bearing rock. With the growth of the Atlantic stamp mill and the construction of the Baltic Mining Company mill nearby, this reservoir proved to be insufficient, and in the steel dam was built. It was designed by J. F. Jackson and built by the Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company. The old timber crib dam remained in place, submerged, upstream of the steel dam. A system of spillways, sluices (or launders as they are referred to in contemporary texts), and pipes brought water downhill to the stamp mills. The dam itself measures 74 ft (23 m) high at its center and extends for a length of 1,006 ft (307 m) across the river. Access to the reservoir was shared by the Atlantic and Baltic mines, which had a common board of directors.
The dam operated for several decades, until the mines closed. After that time, the dam was no longer maintained. On Easter morning of , the spillway behind the dam broke, causing a flood. There was little damage to the steel part of the dam, but with the mining operations stopped, the dam owners had the spillway valves opened. However, there were still incidents of overtopping,[2] and the Copper Range Company (successor to Atlantic Mine Company and owner of the dam) had large holes cut in it in so that it would not retain water. This lowered the level of the reservoir, revealing the earlier timber dam.[3]
Ownership of the dam was transferred to Stanton Township in . Fears that the timber dam might fail and Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality considering the dam a "significant hazard" forced the township to consider renovating the dam in . Five options were proposed for a long-term fix for the dam. These options ranged from repairing the steel and wooden dams for $311,000 to restoring/reconstructing the entire structure for over a million dollars. Stanton Township could not afford to do any of the proposed options, so another option was sought out. A short-term fix was found to make the dam safer. The upper 13 feet of the wooden structure was removed in to bring the water level down and relieve some of the pressure. A more permanent repair is still needed. A recent study[when?] by a team of students from Michigan Technological University determined that both dams are likely to remain safe for the foreseeable future.[citation needed]
Steel dams use relatively thin steel plates in contact with the water body, with a framework of steel behind them transmitting the load to the ground. The plates are slanted upwards in the direction of water flow, so that the weight of the water puts compressive forces on the girders holding the plates up. This transmits force to the ground without the bending moment that a vertical wall of plates would engender. It was believed at the time that these dams could be constructed faster and more cheaply than masonry dams.[4]
Redridge is in Houghton County, one of the more rugged counties in Michigan, and access to the dam site is relatively challenging, although there is a history of Michigan Technological University students making pilgrimages to the site, especially those interested in industrial archaeology.