Located near Earnhardt Road, this dam has been breached on river right. It appears that an earthen dam on river right accompanies the stone dam. Creek water has blown a hole in that earthen dam and now the creek flows freely around the stone dam. One outlet can be seen here. There does not appear to be another.
We estimated the length of the stone dam to be about 100 feet with 80 of those feet at river level. The rest is built up on a hill alongside the the creek. There is a stone structure rising up from the dam on river left. A brick structure rises up from river level to above the dam on river right. The brick structure is right where the dam was breached and may have been an attempt to prevent the earthen dam from eroding. Or both of these structures could have supported a swing arm used during the dam construction. However, it is unclear to me that the brick structure was part of the original build. It is made with mortar and there is little mortar elsewhere in the dam.
In this photo, the brick structure looks like a buttress.
It could have a hollow interior.
This is the up river side of the dame. The outlet can be seen. It was completely covered up with debris and silt before the owner, Steve dug it out. There is a metal rod protruding from the dam on top of the outlet. That may have been used to hold a gate to close the outlet.
After visiting this dam, we walked to another on a tributary. It was of a different construction. The check dams we have seen are very nicely engineered with tight fitting stones, a sloped top on the upriver side and with water outlets. This dam had none of that and was likely designed to impound water behind it.
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