Ashfork-Bainbridge Steel Dam
Encyclopedia
Steel dam
A steel dam is a type of dam that is made of steel, rather than the more common masonry, earthworks, concrete or timber construction materials.Relatively few examples were ever built...
in the world, and one of only three ever built in the United States, was constructed in 1898 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often abbreviated as Santa Fe, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The company was first chartered in February 1859...
(ATSF) to supply water for railway operations near Ash Fork, Arizona
Ash Fork, Arizona
Ash Fork is a census-designated place in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. The population was 457 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Ash Fork is located at ....
. It is named for the town of Ash Fork, and for Francis H. Bainbridge, a civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
and graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
(RPI), who was an engineer for ATSF. The dam has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
since 1976.
Background
The ATSF and other railroads had to make special provisions for water supply in desert conditions, as non condensingCondenser (heat transfer)
In systems involving heat transfer, a condenser is a device or unit used to condense a substance from its gaseous to its liquid state, typically by cooling it. In so doing, the latent heat is given up by the substance, and will transfer to the condenser coolant...
steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
s consumed a prodigious amount of water. The usual approach was to construct a dam to retain surface water, or to drill a series of well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
s, and store the water in a water tank
Water tank
A Water tank is a container for storing water. The need for a water tank is as old as civilized man, providing storage of water for drinking water, irrigation agriculture, fire suppression, agricultural farming, both for plants and livestock, chemical manufacturing, food preparation as well as many...
. Railroad communities often grew up around these reservoirs or water stop
Water stop
A water stop or water station on a railroad is a place where trains stop to replenish water. The stopping of the train itself is also referred to as "water stop". The term originates from the times of steam engines, when large amounts of water were essential...
s. Ash Fork had been such a town from when the ATSF first arrived some years earlier although it had been a way point for stagecoach
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
lines previously.
Railroads in the U.S. and elsewhere had been leaders in structural development. The masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
arch bridge
Arch bridge
An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side...
s and viaducts of the early 19th century had given way to bridges made mostly of steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
, with considerable economy of material, construction cost, and time, and Bainbridge speculated that similar savings might be possible for dams. This dam was a significant departure from the more typical masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
construction. Already familiar with the construction of the ATSF's many steel bridges, Bainbridge decided to see whether steel construction could replace masonry in dams as well. The dam's light weight and prefabricated components must have made assembly easy relative to the laborious job of quarrying and setting stone.
Steel dams use relatively thin steel plates in contact with the water surface, with a framework of steel behind them transmitting the load to the ground. The plates are slanted upwards in the direction of water flow, so that the weight of the water puts compressive forces on the girders holding the plates up. This transmits force to the ground without the bending moment
Moment (physics)
In physics, the term moment can refer to many different concepts:*Moment of force is the tendency of a force to twist or rotate an object; see the article torque for details. This is an important, basic concept in engineering and physics. A moment is valued mathematically as the product of the...
that a vertical wall of plates would engender. It was believed that these dams could be constructed faster and more cheaply than masonry dams.
Location
The dam lies about 3 miles (4.8 km) to the east of Ash Fork, in Johnson Canyon, and about 15 miles (24.1 km) west of Williams, ArizonaWilliams, Arizona
Williams is a city in Coconino County, Arizona, United States west of Flagstaff. Its population was 2,842 at the 2000 census; according to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 3,094. It lies on the route of Historic Route 66, Interstate 40, and the Southwest Chief Amtrak...
. It is near the former U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66 was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year...
and Interstate 40
Interstate 40
Interstate 40 is the third-longest major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States, after I-90 and I-80. Its western end is at Interstate 15 in Barstow, California; its eastern end is at a concurrency of U.S. Route 117 and North Carolina Highway 132 in Wilmington, North Carolina...
. About a mile upstream lies Stone Dam, a masonry structure constructed 13 years later. The Grand Canyon Railway
Grand Canyon Railway
The Grand Canyon Railway , is a passenger railroad which operates between Williams, Arizona, and Grand Canyon National Park South Rim.-Santa Fe Ownership:...
originates in Williams, branching from the ATSF main that this dam served, and runs northeast to the Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
.
Construction details
The dam was fabricated by the Wisconsin Bridge and Iron CompanyWisconsin Bridge and Iron Company
The Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company is, or was, a fabricator and erector of iron and steel bridges and other large structures. Information is difficult to find, but according to one source it was founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1888. The Riemer family of Elm Grove, Wisconsin was heavily...
and shipped to the site in pieces for erection. Construction of the dam began in 1897 and was completed March 5, 1898 at a total cost of US$63,519.
The structure gets its scalloped appearance from 24 curved 3/8 inch steel plates (alternately loose and rigid to compensate for a temperature range from 104 °F (40 °C) to minus 4°F) that slope downstream. The central steel section is 184 feet (56.1 m) long, 46 feet (14 m) high, and weighs about 460000 pounds (208,652.5 kg). No spillway
Spillway
A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of flows from a dam or levee into a downstream area, typically being the river that was dammed. In the UK they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways release floods so that the water does not overtop and damage or even destroy...
was provided; instead, the dam was designed to withstand overtopping of 6 feet (1.8 m) of water pouring directly over its crest.
It holds about 36000000 gallons (136,274,832 l) of water when full.
History
The dam is an Arizona Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. A professional journal wrote in 1902 that Ash Fork Dam "has so many novel features of an experimental character that it is specially interesting and instructive to the engineering profession."In a survey in 1955, George Lamb said "it appears to be in as good condition as if it was just built." It is still in use, unlike the other two steel dams in the United States.
The Kaibab National Forest
Kaibab National Forest
At 1.6 million acres the Kaibab National Forest borders both the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon, in north-central Arizona. It is divided into three major sections: the North Kaibab Ranger District and the South Kaibab and are managed by USDA Forest Service...
(part of the United States Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
holdings) is now the owner of the dam, after acquiring it through a land exchange.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1976 with a structure ID of #76000373.
Further reading
- Jackson, Donald C. Great American Bridges and Dams, John Wiley & Sons, New York (USA) , ISBN 0-471-14385-5, 1984; pp. 210–211.
- Irrigation and Water Power Engineering a book found via Google books (one of few sources to mention steel dams) says there are 3 extant in the US and gives some information about each.
- REYNOLDS, T.S. (1989). "A Narrow Window of Opportunity: the Rise and Fall of the Fixed Steel Dam." Jl Soc. for Industrial ArchaeologyIndustrial archaeologyIndustrial archaeology, like other branches of archaeology, is the study of material culture from the past, but with a focus on industry. Strictly speaking, industrial archaeology includes sites from the earliest times to the most recent...
, Vol. 15, pp. 1–20.
External links
- Side Canyon web site on Ash Fork with background material on the town
- Arizona Society of Civil Engineers 150th anniversary booklet on historic civil engineering landmarks
- Holding Back the Waters - Dams as Water Resource Monuments by Joe Gelt source of some of the quotes and information in this article
- National Register of Historic Places entry for the dam
- The dam is shown in the lower illustration on this page, taken from a Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteStephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
"works of graduates" booklet from 1931. The illustration is an in progress shot. Notation "Designed and patented by F. H. Bainbridge '94" at bottom.