DAM AMAZING Pardee Dam is a fascinating structure, both historically and in engineering terms.When completed in 1929, it was the tallest concrete gravity arch dam in the world. It’s still impressive, one of America’s 300 tallest dams at 345 feet high, and quite long as well at 1,337 feet. Constructed in less than two years, Pardee Dam serves as a monument to its designer and builder, Arthur Powell Davis. Davis, a nephew of Colorado River explorer John Wesley Powell, was famous in his time as a visionary engineer who traveled all over the world to consult on dams and irrigation projects. In fact, the idea for a dam on the Colorado River, which eventually came to be known as the Hoover Dam, is largely attributed to Arthur Powell Davis. He rose through the ranks of the then newly formed Bureau of Reclamation to become director from 1914 until 1923, when it is said that he resigned in the office of the Secretary of the Interior over a disagreement on how to run the Bureau.
So in 1923, when EBMUD was formed, the top dam building engineer in the nation, and possibly the world, came to EBMUD. Pardee Dam was his last major work. A month before he died in 1933, Davis was named as consulting engineer on the Hoover Dam project, one he had championed for many years. As a side note, Davis was also a co-founder of the National Geographic Society in 1888.
A view of Pardee Dam from the historical monitoring pillar at the north abutment. Photo: © EBMUD, used with permission
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april 2018
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