Elk Falls Log Dam

[W. Gray]

Another photo and information from Jarhead.

Here is just half the picture of the mill at Elk Falls. The picture is too big to put in my printer.Note the log dam. Also I notice the mill is a lot closer to the river than the pictures of the mill I sent last night. The roof of this mill is a different pitch than the pictures of the mill I sent  last night. I wonder just how many times that old mill was built, flooded, then re-built Back in the 50's and 60's there was a hay barn ,south of the river on the east side of the road, just before you crossed the bridge. That barns corner posts were 12"x12" walnut beams that had been part of the old mill. I don't know who tore the old barn down but Mike Dexter lived north of Oak Valley and had a saw mill and was hired to saw those walnut beams into lumber. He said they were "plumb full" of bullets. I must confess that as a lad growing up in Elk Falls that I might of put a .22 short or two into that old barn, myself-------but I thought there was a squirrel climbing on the barn !!!!

[flintauqua]

Waldo, It appears to me that the vertical posts forming the lowest level of the mill in the picture here, are still visible in the other photo, right in the middle as one side of the race. 

This must have been a breastwheel or a vertical turbine powered mill, as there doesn't seem to be an over or under shoot wheel present.  In the later photo, I can't see how the power is transferred over (and slightly up) to the mill from the race.

Your thoughts . . .

[W. Gray]

Frank,

I don't know either. I am wishing we could have some more views.

In the other picture, it seems like there are not very many trees on the bank of the Elk.

In this picture, it looks like a lot more.

I guess those guys were confident sitting on top of the dam or standing in front of it.

Does anyone know when the stone diversion dam was built?

[jarhead]

Waldo,
You can't really tell in this picture but the river bends back to the north so some of the trees you see are on the opposite bank so that might explain why it looks like more trees. Somewhere I have (or used to have ) a pencil drawing of the mill. In it the "water wheel" is exposed and above the rock ledge. Maybe it was just what the artist thought the mill should look like but I tend to think it might of been like that at one time. If you go above where the water runs off the falls, there are groves cut into the rock. Alot like a sheet of corrogated tin is how I would describe it. I would think the groves were for a "water wheel" to dip down in---then again maybe the grooves were to create more wave action  for when the river was low