Buffalo Bill Dam
Encyclopedia
Buffalo Bill Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam
on the Shoshone River
in the U.S. state
of Wyoming
. The dam is named after the famous old West figure William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
who founded the nearby town of Cody
and who owned much of the land now covered by the reservoir formed by the dam, which also bears his name. The dam is part of the Shoshone Project
, one of the first projects overseen by the Bureau of Reclamation. The Shoshone project is the successor to several visionary schemes promoted by Cody to irrigate the Bighorn Basin
, turning it from a semi-arid sagebrush-covered plain to productive agricultural land. It was known at the time of its construction as Shoshone Dam, and was renamed in 1946 to honor Buffalo Bill Cody.
The dam was built from 1905 and 1910. The project's design engineer was Daniel Webster Cole. At the time of its completion, it was the tallest dam in the world at 325 feet. The land around the reservoir is maintained as Buffalo Bill State Park
. The dam was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1971 and was also named a National Civil Engineering Landmark in 1973.
rock on either side. The spillway is an uncontrolled overflow weir on the south side, 298 feet (90.8 m) wide, dropping through a tunnel in the left abutment.
in 1904, Buffalo Bill Dam became one of the earliest projects of the new Bureau of Reclamation. The ambitious project involved the construction of one of the first high concrete dams in the United States. Work began immediately, with drilling for geologic investigation starting in July 1904 and continuing for ten months. Work proceeded concurrently on the construction of an access road up the narrow canyon from Cody. The chosen contractor, Prendergast & Clarkson of Chicago, started work in September 1905, building a camp for workers and starting on a diversion dam, which was to divert the river into a wooden flume
, through a tunnel and out through another flume to rejoin the river bed. Two men were killed in the construction of the tunnel. A June 1906 flood destroyed the flume. The delay caused the Bureau of Reclamation to suspend the contractor's contract and to call upon the contractor's bonding company, the U.S. Fidelity and Guaranty Company
, to ensure the completion of the work. Little work was done until March 1907. Another flood in July damaged the diversion dam again. Working conditions were harsh, leading to the first strike in Wyoming's history in November, in which workers demanded and received three dollars a day from USF&G.
USF&G delegated responsibility for the work to two new contractors, Locher and Grant Smith and Company, in March 1908. Work progressed more quickly, with the first concrete pours in April. Spring floods set the project back once again, causing concrete work to be suspended. Concrete work started again in March 1909, and despite more spring flooding that suspended work from July to September, work moved quickly. Another threatened strike was broken when Italian laborers were replaced with Bulgarian workers. Final concrete was poured in January 1910, with a final cost of $1.4 million. Seven construction workers were killed on the project.
Immediately after completion the dam suffered from leakage through the outlet works, leading to low water elevations that exposed mudflats, which soon produced dense blowing dust. Corrective work to valves took until 1915. Problems with the right abutment's outlet works led to their abandonment in 1959. They were sealed in 1961. The reservoir began to lose capacity immediately as a result of the Shoshone's heavy silt load, and the material deposited at the head of the reservoir continued to blow when the reservoir was drawn down. Work continued on silt dikes and reforestation into the 1950s, but capacity is reduced from the reservoir's nominal capacity of 869230 acre.ft to 623557 acre.ft due to siltation.
The new reservoir covered hot springs at the forks of the Shoshone, similar to those found at Colter's Hell
at the mouth of the Shoshone Canyon.
unit that started operation in 1992. The plant operates with a head of 220 feet (67.1 m).
from nearby geothermal activity, and were subsequently struck by construction equipment. A natural cave had to be crossed by a concrete flume of two 70 feet (21.3 m) spans, constructed under difficult conditions in a high-gas environment. Work on the tunnel by the Utah Construction Company was complete in 1939. The Heart Mountain Powerplant was built at the tunnel's outlet in 1947 as a temporary facility. It was rebuilt concurrently with the dam heightening project and is operated on a seasonal basis. It operates a 5 MW Francis turbine on a 265 feet (80.8 m) head.
Arch-gravity dam
An arch-gravity dam, curved-gravity dam or arched dam is a dam with the characteristics of both an arch dam and a gravity dam. It is a dam that curves upstream in a narrowing curve that directs most of the water against the canyon rock walls, providing the force to compress the dam...
on the Shoshone River
Shoshone River
The Shoshone River is long river in northern Wyoming in the United States. Its headwaters are in the Absaroka Range in Shoshone National Forest. It ends when it runs into the Big Horn River near Lovell, Wyoming. Cities it runs near or through are Cody, Powell, Byron, and Lovell. Near Cody, it...
in the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
. The dam is named after the famous old West figure William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
Buffalo Bill
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...
who founded the nearby town of Cody
Cody, Wyoming
Cody is a city in Park County, Wyoming, United States. It is named after William Frederick Cody, primarily known as Buffalo Bill, from William Cody's part in the creation of the original town. The population was 9,520 at the 2010 census...
and who owned much of the land now covered by the reservoir formed by the dam, which also bears his name. The dam is part of the Shoshone Project
Shoshone project
The Shoshone Project is an irrigation project in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The project provides irrigation for approximately of crops in the Big Horn Basin, fulfilling the vision of local resident and developer Buffalo Bill Cody, who hoped to make the semi-arid basin into agricultural land...
, one of the first projects overseen by the Bureau of Reclamation. The Shoshone project is the successor to several visionary schemes promoted by Cody to irrigate the Bighorn Basin
Bighorn Basin
The Bighorn Basin is a plateau region and intermontane basin, approximately 100 miles wide, in north-central Wyoming in the United States. It is bounded by the Absaroka Range on the west, the Bighorn Mountains on the east, and the Owl Creek Mountains and Bridger Mountains on the south...
, turning it from a semi-arid sagebrush-covered plain to productive agricultural land. It was known at the time of its construction as Shoshone Dam, and was renamed in 1946 to honor Buffalo Bill Cody.
The dam was built from 1905 and 1910. The project's design engineer was Daniel Webster Cole. At the time of its completion, it was the tallest dam in the world at 325 feet. The land around the reservoir is maintained as Buffalo Bill State Park
Buffalo Bill State Park
Buffalo Bill State Park is a Wyoming state park in Park County, Wyoming, United States. The park surrounds a reservoir formed by the Buffalo Bill Dam on the Shoshone River. The park, reservoir and dam were named after William "Buffalo Bill" Cody who founded the nearby town of Cody and owned much of...
. The dam was 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...
in 1971 and was also named a National Civil Engineering Landmark in 1973.
Description
The dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam, only 70 feet (21.3 m) wide at the base and 200 feet (61 m) wide at the crest, with an original height of 325 feet (99.1 m). The concrete structure measures 108 feet (32.9 m) deep at the base, tapering to 10 feet (3 m) at the crest, with a volume of 82900 cubic yards (63,381.6 m³) of concrete. It is anchored into Pre-Cambrian graniticGranite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
rock on either side. The spillway is an uncontrolled overflow weir on the south side, 298 feet (90.8 m) wide, dropping through a tunnel in the left abutment.
Construction
With the authorization of the Shoshone ProjectShoshone project
The Shoshone Project is an irrigation project in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The project provides irrigation for approximately of crops in the Big Horn Basin, fulfilling the vision of local resident and developer Buffalo Bill Cody, who hoped to make the semi-arid basin into agricultural land...
in 1904, Buffalo Bill Dam became one of the earliest projects of the new Bureau of Reclamation. The ambitious project involved the construction of one of the first high concrete dams in the United States. Work began immediately, with drilling for geologic investigation starting in July 1904 and continuing for ten months. Work proceeded concurrently on the construction of an access road up the narrow canyon from Cody. The chosen contractor, Prendergast & Clarkson of Chicago, started work in September 1905, building a camp for workers and starting on a diversion dam, which was to divert the river into a wooden flume
Flume
A flume is an open artificial water channel, in the form of a gravity chute, that leads water from a diversion dam or weir completely aside a natural flow. Often, the flume is an elevated box structure that follows the natural contours of the land. These have been extensively used in hydraulic...
, through a tunnel and out through another flume to rejoin the river bed. Two men were killed in the construction of the tunnel. A June 1906 flood destroyed the flume. The delay caused the Bureau of Reclamation to suspend the contractor's contract and to call upon the contractor's bonding company, the U.S. Fidelity and Guaranty Company
USF&G
USF&G was an American insurance company which existed from 1896 until 1998. Originally called United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, the Baltimore, Maryland-based company was organized on March 19, 1896, and commenced business on August 1, 1896...
, to ensure the completion of the work. Little work was done until March 1907. Another flood in July damaged the diversion dam again. Working conditions were harsh, leading to the first strike in Wyoming's history in November, in which workers demanded and received three dollars a day from USF&G.
USF&G delegated responsibility for the work to two new contractors, Locher and Grant Smith and Company, in March 1908. Work progressed more quickly, with the first concrete pours in April. Spring floods set the project back once again, causing concrete work to be suspended. Concrete work started again in March 1909, and despite more spring flooding that suspended work from July to September, work moved quickly. Another threatened strike was broken when Italian laborers were replaced with Bulgarian workers. Final concrete was poured in January 1910, with a final cost of $1.4 million. Seven construction workers were killed on the project.
Immediately after completion the dam suffered from leakage through the outlet works, leading to low water elevations that exposed mudflats, which soon produced dense blowing dust. Corrective work to valves took until 1915. Problems with the right abutment's outlet works led to their abandonment in 1959. They were sealed in 1961. The reservoir began to lose capacity immediately as a result of the Shoshone's heavy silt load, and the material deposited at the head of the reservoir continued to blow when the reservoir was drawn down. Work continued on silt dikes and reforestation into the 1950s, but capacity is reduced from the reservoir's nominal capacity of 869230 acre.ft to 623557 acre.ft due to siltation.
The new reservoir covered hot springs at the forks of the Shoshone, similar to those found at Colter's Hell
Colter's Hell
Colter's Hell is an area of fumaroles and hot springs on the Shoshone River near Cody in the US state of Wyoming. The thermal area covers about a square mile at the mouth of the Shoshone's canyon. Its thermal activity has declined ever since its description by mountain man John Colter, who passed...
at the mouth of the Shoshone Canyon.
Shoshone Power Plant
Work on the Shoshone Power Plant started in 1920. The power plant is located 600 feet (182.9 m) downstream from the dam on the north side of the canyon. Following delays for spring flooding, work on the power house and supply tunnel was complete in 1922, ready for the installation of electrical equipment. Generating units 1 and 2 came on line in 1922, with Unit 3 in 1931. Installed capacity was 6.012 MW. All three units were shut down in 1980, worn out from fifty years of service. 1 and 2 were decommissioned and left in place, while 3 was replaced with a new 3 MW Francis turbineFrancis turbine
The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine that was developed by James B. Francis in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is an inward-flow reaction turbine that combines radial and axial flow concepts....
unit that started operation in 1992. The plant operates with a head of 220 feet (67.1 m).
Shoshone Canyon Tunnel and Heart Mountain Power Plant
The proposed Heart Mountain Canal project, intended to irrigate lands to the north of the river, required a new tunnel to direct irrigation waters to a suitable elevation for distribution. Work on the 2.8 miles (4.5 km) Shoshone Canyon Tunnel started in 1937, accompanied by the death of two tunnel workers who were overcome by fumes from explosives and hydrogen sulfideHydrogen sulfide
Hydrogen sulfide is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless, very poisonous, flammable gas with the characteristic foul odor of expired eggs perceptible at concentrations as low as 0.00047 parts per million...
from nearby geothermal activity, and were subsequently struck by construction equipment. A natural cave had to be crossed by a concrete flume of two 70 feet (21.3 m) spans, constructed under difficult conditions in a high-gas environment. Work on the tunnel by the Utah Construction Company was complete in 1939. The Heart Mountain Powerplant was built at the tunnel's outlet in 1947 as a temporary facility. It was rebuilt concurrently with the dam heightening project and is operated on a seasonal basis. It operates a 5 MW Francis turbine on a 265 feet (80.8 m) head.
Renovation and height increase
Starting in 1985, the crest of the dam was raised 25 feet (7.6 m), increasing the reservoir's capacity by 260000 acre.ft when the project was completed in 1993. The spillways were enlarged and equipped with radial arm gates. The project also included a visitor center, located at the north end of the dam's crest. The additional height allowed 25.5 MW of additional generating capacity to be added to the project. The expanded reservoir inundated facilities at Buffalo Bill State Park, requiring their relocation and reconstruction.Buffalo Bill Power Plant
The Buffalo Bill Powerplant was built concurrently with the work to increase the dam's height in 1992. The plant, located in Shoshone Canyon downstream from the original Shoshone Powerplant, operates three Francis turbines with generators rated at 6 MW each on a head of 266 feet (81.1 m).Spirit Mountain Power Plant
The Spirit Mountain Powerplant receives pressurized water through a conduit. It primarily functions to dissipate the pressure in the conduit before it enters an open canal, generating power as a byproduct. The unit operates a Francis turbine generating 4.5 MW on a seasonal base load basis, with a 110 feet (33.5 m) head. It was built in 1994.See also
- Pathfinder DamPathfinder DamPathfinder Dam is a cyclopean masonry dam, located on the North Platte River, approximately southwest of Casper, Wyoming. It was originally constructed between 1905 and 1909 as part of the North Platte Project and has been modified several times since then. It is included on the National Register...
, a similar and contemporary dam in Wyoming, built of stone masonry due to its distance from concrete supplies
External links
- Buffalo Bill Dam at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
- Shoshone Project at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
- Buffalo Bill Dam Visitor Center
- Buffalo Bill State Park
- Buffalo Bill Dam at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office
- Buffalo Bill Dam Construction Photographs at the University of WyomingUniversity of WyomingThe University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet , between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW to people close to the university...
- American Heritage CenterAmerican Heritage CenterThe American Heritage Center is the University of Wyoming's repository of manuscripts, rare books, and the university archives. Its collections focus on Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West and a select handful of national topics: environment and conservation, the mining and petroleum industries,...