Self Sustaining Facilities

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Plans to build the 80-foot-high hydroelectric dam, at Devotion Estate, began in the late 1920’s. With the help of a U.S. Army Core of Engineers, as well as “Blitz” father, who was currently employed by the U.S. Government as a Structural Engineer. The location of the dam was agreed upon, and was to be located over the existing Mill Creek Stream, a central location of the Devotion Estate.
            The dam would curve around the valley and would be over 30’ thick at the base, and 8’ wide at the top. The face of both sides of the dam were covered in river rocks and at the top a smooth slate was applied to all the walkways and top caps. Both sides of the dam would serve to provide function, as well as aesthetics.  Complete with; boat launches, covered boat slips, (one slip even included a giant navigational key laid in stone on the deck), covered picnic areas, a large metal trapeze set for children to play upon, and even a 30 feet wide floating lily-pad would grace the lake, for sunbathers to lay upon, unfettered by the cares of life, their floating ‘oasis’ safely anchored to a permanent position amidst the expansive 50-acre lake.
            

            The fall of the waterfall from the 80-foot-high stone damn, in addition to water channeled through an intricate system of pipes into another stone building called the power-house, would create more than enough power to adequately supply to entire town of Devotion with ‘off-grid’ electricity.
            As the water from the dam would enter the forebay, controlled by a valve atop the dam, water was sent downward over the escarpment via large pipes, where it fell to meet the, Reynolds power-house, and turbines located inside the PowerStation at the base of the dam.
          

At the power-house, water was then sent through three 25 Hz electrical generators that could generate a total capacity of 160 megawatts (210,000 hp). 

The water would then be released into three concrete ‘catch ponds’.  The catch ponds were simultaneously used as a ‘trout hatchery’, where the continuous flow of water kept the Trout fry with a constant supply of clean oxygenated water. The water passing onward into three lakes, then back into the original riverbed of the Mill Creek, a few miles upstream of the Mitchell River.                    T

                 The ‘Katharine Reynolds Hydroelectric Dam’, lake and falls are of historical significance to the Reynolds family as a national historical landmark. 

             Richard Joshua Reynolds Jr.’s (1906-1964) mother, Katharine Smith Reynolds (1880-1924), was the ‘powerhouse’ unto her husband  Richard Joshua Reynolds (1850-1918),   

            While the ‘Katharine Reynolds Hydroelectric Dams’ precision design aspects were to be later realized   as decades ahead of their time, the ‘Reynolds Design’ model for forward thinking hydroelectric power, is still today a marvels of  ‘great- depression engineering’ that not only innovative, but also majestic in their presentation.