A Culture Lost Beneath the Waters: The Downsville Dam/Pepacton Reservoir

Northern end of Pepacton Reservoir, looking NE.

“(Pepacton)” was the first sign I saw as I drove northward along the Pepacton Reservoir on Route 30, just northeast of Downsville, NY. Interesting, those parentheses. A lost community. There was no evidence of any settlements – just a perimeter road through the forested banks of the Pepacton Reservoir. How many more towns were here once, I wondered?

In upstate New York with a rare free afternoon, I had set out to explore the Downsville Dam – an enormous earthen dam completed in 1954 as part of the Delaware water system. I remember walking with my father along the crest of the dam when I was about 5 years old. Then it had seemed an endless expanse of bare earth stretching from one side of the valley to the other. I recall other sightseers strolling along the crest that Sunday afternoon as if they were on an outing at the Boardwalk.

Dad was always impressed by major events – natural and man-made -- that changed the earth in some way. Large-scale earthworks were a special fascination. I can imagine how the Downsville Dam must have inspired him.

Aerial view of Downsville [NY] Dam. Historic
Postcard.  Delhi, NY: Bob Wyer Photocards, ca. 1960.

The dam is 2,400 feet long, 200 feet high, and 1,800 feet thick at its base. The upstream side is concrete; the downstream side is a long, gently sloping earth embankment. The Reservoir is some 18 miles long, has a shore line of 50 miles, and a surface area of 6,400 acres. It drains a watershed of 370 square miles and holds 150 billion gallons of fresh water. A 26-mile long tunnel transports water eastward from the Pepacton Reservoir to the Rondout Reservoir, thence through the Delaware Aqueduct towards New York City.

The Pepacton was part of the Delaware system first approved in 1931 that included the Rondout, Neversink, and Cannonsville reservoirs. They augmented the earlier Ashokan and Schoharie reservoirs in the Catskills. These new reservoirs were to meet New York City’s water needs at least until 1990.

I traveled to the hamlet of Downsville via Route 30, a scenic route along the East Branch of the Delaware River in Delaware County. I was hoping for a visitor’s center where I could learn more about the dam and its history, not to mention a good viewing point for photographs like they have for the “Big Dams” built during the New Deal. I encountered none.

As part of the New York City water supply system, security is tight around the Pepacton Reservoir. There are no pull outs, no visitor centers. Fishing is allowed in the reservoir, but only by permit. There are only a few places to launch a boat. I saw only one boat on the water that day. Glimpses of the reservoir can be seen through the trees along the perimeter road, but otherwise, the best viewpoint for a photo is taken from a car window as you drive over the bridge at the north end near Margaretville. As for the dam itself, there is certainly no more strolling along the crest. Chain-link fencing and lack of a pull-out discourages any would-be sightseer from stopping for a closer look.

View of valley before inundation by Pepacton Reservoir.
From NYS interpretive exhibit nr. Margaretville, NY.

The story of the Pepacton Reservoir is revealed only in a small installation of several photo boards under a shelter at its northeastern corner. These modest boards provided the basics of the story and some excellent historic photos of the four hamlets that were inundated: Pepacton, Shavertown, Arena, and Union Grove. In all, 974 people were displaced, along with 36 businesses, 8 churches, 5 schools, 4 post offices, and 13 cemeteries, and a number of outlying farms. Subsequent research discovered only one other local history, one video produced in 2007, and one website that considered the building of the Downsville dam and the loss of the communities in the valley. I found numerous articles on the project in the online archives of the New York Times, which were quite satisfying. Perhaps there are more, but I was unable to find them during this search.

In contrast to this paucity, federal dams such as the Grand Coulee, which I visited this summer, are focal points for tourism and ready sources of information. That dam had an excellent interpretive center, which offered written materials, videos, staff, and walking tours not only about the dam engineering, but also the lost Native American culture that lived for generations beside the banks of the Columbia River. The Grand Coulee is remote from major tourist routes, yet the center was filled with visitors, many of whom had driven many miles out of their way to learn about the site.

Given the budget issues facing all levels of government these days, there is little chance that a more thoughtful and comprehensive exploration of the creation of the Delaware/Catskill water system will be installed near the reservoirs anytime soon. And yet, I hope that at some point New York will find the resources to better remember the communities that sacrificed their existence for the sake of the larger good and celebrate the marvels of this great engineering feat.

Student posing outside the school at Arena, NY (demolished 1954)  
From NYS exhibit board nr Margaretville, NY. 

Resources:


“A memorial to the towns that were sacrificed for New York City.” The Hudson Valley and the Catskills. Website. URL: http://bearsystems.com/losttowns/lost.html accessed August 24, 2010. Information on lost towns from the Delaware/Catskill reservoir system: West Hurley, Ashton, Glenford, Brown's Station, Olive Bridge, Brodhead, Shokan, West Shokan, Boiceville, Beerston, Cannonsville, Rock Rift, Rock Royal, Granton, Neversink, Bittersweet, Arena, Pepacton, Shavertown, Union Grove, Eureka, Montela, Lackawack and Gilboa.


“Shavertown – Reservoir of Memories.” Video. 2007. Documentary created by students Cheyenne Tait, Carrianne Fairbairn, and Brittany McAdams along with Mrs. Colleen Heavey and Mrs. Wendy Redden of Andes Central School. Project was made possible in part with a grant from the Catskill Watershed Corporation in partnership with the NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection. URL accessed August 24, 2010 [no longer online as of December 2014].


Jacobson, Alice H. Beneath Pepacton Waters. Andes NY: A.H. Jacobson, c1988; rev. 1994.

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Home Again

Appalachin Mountains

 14 National Parks, 10,793 Miles, 23 States, 36 Days. Not that I'm counting.

I arrived back in my home state of New Jersey on Friday July 29, two days ahead of schedule. I'm not sure of the exact moment when I decided that my trip was over, but suddenly going home was my only goal.

That moment may have been when the air started to grow heavy with the sultry summer murkiness so familiar to Easterners. It may have been while traveling along the comforting green folds of the Appalachian chain. All I know that, instead of musing expectantly about the next destination as I had for the past 5 weeks, I longed to sleep in my own bed at home in New Jersey.

So, instead of staying on the orange route across country that I had highlighted in my atlas, I picked up the blue highlighter. Blue was reserved for deviations, usually short cuts. Concessions. Surrender. In this case, I traced over the Interstate highways that would get me home faster than the original scenic routes I had mapped for my return.

Since my homecoming, I have busied myself with putting my life back in order. No longer confined to the back of the car, the things I brought with me and the things I acquired along the way seemed to multiply and explode throughout the house. Piles of books, clothes for all seasons, gifts for family and friends. Suddenly, mounds of stuff are everywhere. I'm still not quite sure how my little Jetta held all those things so compactly.

One of the first tasks was to take the Jetta to the car wash, where the dull film of road dust accumulated since California was scrubbed away. The car emerged gleaming, except for the little round white Park- to-Park tour sticker I had on the back window, which looks proudly weathered. Gifts are being distributed to their intended recipients. Books and other resource materials are moving to a special shelf for the real work that will come later.

Memories of the trip, however, linger on. The sweet scent of dry sagebrush after the rainstorm near Joshua Tree. The odd sensation of traveling half-blind into the fog on “Going to the Sun Road” in Glacier National Park, with the stone cliff rising straight up from one side of the narrow road and a several hundred-foot drop-off on the other. The amazing turn in the road from an arid section of Washington State into the entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park, where suddenly you're in a verdant rainforest. Getting up before dawn to catch the new day coming to the ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

The most striking thing I discovered during this trip was the amazing beauty of each park. Each had spectacular aspects that were unique. And each park was preserved thanks to the heroic efforts of a small number of dedicated individuals who believed that these spaces should be preserved - not for economic benefit, but simply for their remarkable, breathtaking beauty.

What started out as a re-creation of the Park-to-Park highway dedication tour of 1920 and an exploration of the architecture and landscape design of the western national parks turned into something much more. First, I developed a deep appreciation for the sufferings that the first tour members endured on their trip. I found that, in many cases, the even the most direct roads taken in 1920 were impossibly circuitous. Much of the 1920 route consisted of dirt roads. Cars lacked the sophisticated suspension systems we have today. The passengers enjoyed only minimal protection from heat and cold. I marveled at the stamina of the group, especially on the road through the impossibly hot and unending plains that stretch from Casper, Wyoming, toward Yellowstone. Although there are times I felt I was “suffering” on this trip as I zipped along at 70 mph in my comfy, fully air-conditioned car, it was nothing to what they endured. We are the happy beneficiaries of the good roads that were built between and within these special places as a result of their efforts.

Second, I was completely overwhelmed by the monumental and dynamic landscape of the American West. Unlike the complacent, undulating hills I have always known on the East Coast, something is always on the move in the West -- earthquakes, landslides, cloudbursts, volcanos, wildfires -- at any moment, a dramatic natural event of enormous proportions might happen. It's somewhat disconcerting to someone like me, who is used to a more sedentary (or sedementary) life.

During the course of this trip, I took some 4,800 photos. Many of these are just visual notes, meant to trigger a memory, record a thought, or document something I thought interesting. Other, more ambitious photos tried to capture a mood, the delicacy of a wildflower, or the fleeting light of sunrise. I am still not sure how successful those efforts were.  It will take a long, thoughtful look through the images to sort that out.

So, this part of my trip is complete. It was amazing. Thank you to all who shared the journey with me along the way. Thank you, dear reader, for taking the time to follow along vicariously. Now the real work begins. I will keep you posted.


National Parks Visited (June July 2010):

Yellowstone (WY); Glacier (MT); Mt. Rainier (WA); Redwood (CA); Crater Lake (CA); Lassen Volcanic (CA); Yosemite (CA); King's Canyon, formerly Gen. Grant (CA); Sequoia (CA); Joshua Tree (CA); Zion (UT); Grand Canyon (AZ); Mesa Verde (CO); and Rocky Mountain (CO).


Most Useful Reference Books on the trip:

Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways: The 275 Best Drives in the U.S. 3rd Ed. Washington DC:  National Geographic Society, 2007.

Kaiser, Harvey H. The National Park Architecture Sourcebook. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.

Laine, Don and Barbara. Frommer's National Parks of the American West. 6th Ed. Hoboken NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2008.

Whiteley, Lee and Jane Whiteley. The Playground Trail: The National Park-to-Park Highway: To and Through the National Parks of the West in 1920. Boulder CO: Lee Whiteley and Jane Whiteley, 2003.

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