Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Great Dam at Lake Toxaway Went Out With a Roar, 1916

“Another Dam Broken,” from the Monroe Journal, August 15, 1916, Monroe, N.C.

The great dam at Lake Toxaway, 38 miles from Asheville, broke at 7 o’clock Sunday night. It went out with a roar. The entire dam, built of earth and stone, seemed to melt before the rush of waters within a few minutes. The initial opening in the dam, caused, it is believed, by the seeping of a natural spring at the base, was not longer than a railway coach.

The dam, built in 1902 at a cost of $38,000, was constructed at a point where the hills are not more than 400 feet apart. Over this dam the waters of Lake Toxaway river flowed down a narrow and densely wooded gorge for a distance of 16 miles of comparatively uninhabited territory before emptying into the Chuga river and striking the first towns in its path in South Carolina, 3,500 feet below the Toxaway section.

There have been no unusual rains in the lake section for several days, but it is thought that the dam was weakened by the heavy rains which flooded western North Carolina during the week of July 16. This is the third and largest of the lakes in the mountains of Western North Carolina which have gone out since the July storms.

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