[water rushing]
- Calvin LaPorte: The dam was originally built
for the log-driving days.
It sat dormant pretty much for a long period of time.
You may have a lot of water one year and the next year,
the reservoir would be nearly empty.
So they built a dam to stabilize the water conditions.
And that was the first concrete dam built in '23.
I was a caretaker.
They paid me $15 a month in 1945.
[water rushing] The dangerous part
and really the hard part is when you had to remove stop logs
and you had to get down there like three feet or more,
down below to reach down in there
and try to grab one of these stop logs with a pike pole.
And if you missed, you gotta hang on or just let it go
'cause it's gonna pitch you out front.
You have to play it by ear.
The precipitation governs everything.
If it didn't rain all summer,
you would never, ever have to do anything all summer.
[dreamy music]