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Croton Dam

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1906–1908; 1915 addition. Croton Dam Rd. at the Muskegon River
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)

Croton Dam was one of Michigan's first large-scale electrical generating plants and the site of innovations in construction engineering and in the transmission of electrical power. It consists of an earth embankment, a concrete and brick powerhouse, and a concrete spillway. The powerhouse for the turbines and generators is a brick L-shaped building resting on a reinforced-concrete foundation, which in turn rests on about three thousand round oak piles. Steel trusses support the gabled roofs. The dam is 670 feet long. During its construction and after, engineers from all over the world visited Croton Dam. The lake behind the dam provides recreational facilities. The powerhouse is still extant and produces electricity for Consumers Power Company. William Augustus Foote of Adrian, entrepreneur and financier, his brother James Berry Foote, an electrical engineer, and William G. Fargo, a civil engineer from Jackson, collaborated to build the dam for the Grand Rapids–Muskegon Power Company.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
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Data

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Croton Dam", [Newaygo, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-NE1.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 398-398.

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