by Mary Buchholz
These articles come from newspaper microfilm from the Belle Fourche Public library, using a new microfilm reader and printer. The photographs are from the Tri-State Museum.
From Pioneer Footprints BUILDING OF ORAMN DAM by Ralph Shaykett The survey for Orman Dam of the Belle Fourche Irrigation Project was made in 1905. Dimensions of the dam, the largest earthen dam in the world at that time, were one and one quarter miles in length, one hundred and ten feet above the creek bed, and containing one and one-half million yards of earth.
In 1906 Orman and Crook shipped in two trainloads of horses, mules, and machinery to Belle Fourche. They had plows, fresmoes, wheel scrapers, and dump wagon elevation grades which they started moving toward the dam site on Owl Creek.
There was no railroad nearer tha Belle Fourche at that time so all machinery and other material had to be moved with horses and wagons. Nor were there any bridges across the Belle Fourche River between Belle Fourche and Vale, so the stream had to be forded at what was known as the Giles Crossing, now the Olson place.
The elevating graders were pulled by twenty-four horses, isteen in front and eight on a push cart behind the grader.
In work on the dam the dirt was leevated in dump wagons. Most of the fresnoes used four horses.
I have seen as many as four circles of fresnoes and wheel scrapers with two hundred or two hundred and fifty teams in a circle all going at once. At the same time other men were hauling sand and gravel from a pit on the Belle Fourche River five miles south with teams and wagons, and were digging ditches and canals with horse power. There were probably 10,000 horses and mules on the job. Some were in the camp for replacements all the time. About two or three years later Orman and Crool were bandrupt, and Widdell, Flinley and Company took over the job. They brought in two steam shovels using stand width track. These were brought dowm the north the north side of the river from Middle Creek stockpens on short section of the track. They would run the length of one secion, then pull another section up with horses and move onto it.
When they got these machines to the dam they brought in narrow gauge engines and cars and laid a narrow gauge to the gravel pit on the river and used the dump cars to haul sand and gravel. These cars held about three yards each of sand and gravel. One engine could pull six cars.
The cement blocks for the face of the dam were also hauled from the river where they were made by hand. All the cement was mixed with shovels and hauled to the forms with wheel barrows. The blocks on the face of the dam were placed with donkey engines and gin poles, one on top of the dam and one at the bottom.
After a few years’ work on the projects, Widdle and Finley Company went broke. Bulter and Hayes took over and finished the dam in 1912. The diversion dam on the river, the inlet canal, and Johnson lateral were finished and had water in them in 1911.
Editor’s Note- Both the library and museum have several Butte County history books which are available to use – the advantage of these older books are the people who contributed to them were the citizens who knew the older people who helped settle this area.
Read the full issue of the Belle Fourche Beacon by clicking here.
