Old Garza Dam! Small building on top of Dam Way What is it??

[JWebber]

I was taking the family close to the old Garza Dam, I know the history of the dam etc. But there is a small building on the South Side. In the Brick work it has a small medallion that reads 1927. Inside is some strange objects. We could not make them out! Is this an old gate control station?? I would like to know the history of this building or what it is?? If anybody knows about this small building fill me in. Thanks!
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[spiny norman]

Jail cell for boaters who plow through a school of sandies.



Actually it housed the flow valve to release water from the old lake.

[Imaexpat2]

[Imaexpat2]

[quote="Imaexpat2"]

[JWebber]

[TCF]

The road that crossed the old dam was the only way to get to Denton back in the day. You can Google Lake Dallas and find some history there I think.
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Jerry Hamon
TPWD Angler Instructor
Van Alstyne, TX

[JWebber]

[TomE]

i believe it is the old pump house. Those black things that are in the floor are pipes.
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[JWebber]

[LesCharles73]

[spiny norman]

Great pics Les!

Those shafts are spooky. I'm surprised they have not been covered over. Kinda dangerous IMO.

[LesCharles73]

Boy I tell ya...

I actually called the Corps Of Engineers for permission to climb up on the dam. They said it was okay, but to be careful. I'm not sure how they would have felt had they known I was inside the old intake tower, but I made it out alive, so it's water under the bridge (so to speak).

It's was a good 30 foot drop until you would hit the water in the bottom of those shafts (which seem to be connected to one another) at the time I went there, but that probably depends on the lake level. It seems that the water down there is even with the lake. A few really big dead fish down there and who knows how many water moccasins which thankfully I did not see any of. Below the water is surely some partially raised gates and tunnels connecting the old lake to the new lake (formerly the spillway). As you can see from the pictures, there is sort of a notch around each shaft, leading me to believe that they were at one time covered with some sort of gridiron. Not sure why it is now missing (much like the mystery as to why most of the equipment has been taken apart), but they really should fix that. Someone could easily die in this place. There is one way out of those shafts, in the form of a rusty old ladder that is bolted to the wall of one of the shafts. Not sure if it will hold human weight - no way I was gonna try, or even lean over the thing for that matter!

The overflow spillway (bridge piers) is another matter. At one end (the north end), there is yet another "mystery shaft" with a ladder leading down and water at the bottom. This is at the top of the dam, where the old road used to cross. It is totally unprotected, and you could walk right in to it if you weren't looking. Who knows what it was used for back then, but it sure is creepy now!

I got to the structure via kayak, and of course I picked the windiest day to do it on. Paddling across that 500-some foot service spillway was terrifying. The wind was blowing through and creating all kinds of choppiness. The last thing I wanted was to end up in the water, with who-knows-what beneath me.

Does anyone know how deep it is in front of the "old side" of the gate house? I heard that it was over 100', but I've always been under the impression that Lake Lewisville's maximum depth is around 65-70' - at the new dam.

[gulfvet]

Ran the fish finder of the area today. On the "old side", depth was 14 feet. On the main lake side, there was a huge drop off about 100 feet off shore. Went from 14 feet to 43 feet, then up to 26 feet. However, nowhere near the 100 ft someone claimed. Looks like a good fishin spot if you can find a way to stay put. Lots of boat traffic and most times wind wake there.

[LesCharles73]

Thanks for the info! I'm surprised that there isn't a (relatively) deep channel approaching the old side of the gate house. Though nowhere near 100', I would think somewhere around 43', as it is on the "new" side. Maybe it has been filled in or has accumulated silt. The huge drop you noted on the main lake side was most likely the gated spillway outlet (think Lake Ray Roberts).

Thanks for checking it out for me!

[LesCharles73]

[gulfvet]

These are some great photos. The deepest water we've found on the old lake side along the building and dam is around 30 feet or so. Most of the water on the new side is in the 20 to 30 foot range until you get off the flats. That hole in front of the building is probably where the release area was.

[LesCharles73]

I'll bet you're absolutely right! It's too bad Lake Lewisville is too murky to dive. That would make for some interesting and spooky exploration!

[JWebber]

That's some really cool info you posted on this thread, thanks for all that.
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[LesCharles73]

You're welcome! I'm oddly fascinated by the history behind that area of the lake, so I'm constantly doing research. Unfortunately, this thread contains just about everything I've been able to find here on the interwebs, combined with a little of my own personal knowledge (so there's not much info on it out there that I know of). I hope to get out there on my kayak again (with my camera in a zip-lock bag) and I'll see if I can get some good pictures. I'd like to explore the gate house again, and I would really like to poke around on the peninsula of land near where the old fish hatchery was. That's got to be about 3 acres or so -- something's gotta be there worth seeing. The main thing I'm worried about is snakes and other wildlife, so I'll probably wear some good knee high boots and I might sharpen the old machete. There's a cool looking rock gate entry way thing out there, right next to the shoreline. It's to the left of the west cut, if you're leaving Westlake and heading out in to the main lake. I'd like to see if there are any old roads or buildings out there. I just need to get my hands on a truck -- my Mazda 3 don't handle kayaks, and I'd really rather not go at it alone anyhow.

Apparently one of the many Dallas Public Library branches has a manuscript with construction drawings, photos, and general info from the W.E. Callahan Construction Co (which built the dam). I'd like to look through that, and make some copies since it probably can't be checked out. The only thing holding me back is not knowing exactly which library it's in and the fact that it's in Dallas (I'm in Denton). Here's a link:
http://www.dallaslibrary2.org/texas/archives/l.htm
Mention of the Garza Dam is about a third of the way down. It says "1924 - 1927. .45 cu. ft.
Report on the Completion of Lake Dallas and Report of Floyd and Hawley on Completion of Garza Dam. Typescript, diagrams, and photographs."

Sounds VERY interesting to me!!!

Les

[JWebber]

Well I have some info I can share. when the new area of the lake was inpounded or made, alot or existing roads and structures were covered with water. This year I bought Inland lake Maps for my Garmin GPS, The topo shows the lake contours and structure under the water with old roads. They also show up on my software maps for lake Lewisville. When I click and aquire info on it the GPS shows roads and structures etc.. Pretty cool! If I follow the deepest channel contour of about 60 feet, looks like over the years silt and sut has filled these areas up a bit. It is about 50 to 55 feet and not a true 60 or 62 which makes since. Also the histoical plaque at lake park talking about artifacts found. It would be cool to see the true artifacts in pictures.

Article below:

LEWISVILLE SITE. The Lewisville Site is located in southern Denton County. It was formerly on the west side of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River at the mouth of Hickory Creek, but it was inundated by Lake Lewisville in April 1957. During periods of drought from 1978 through 1980 the site was exposed for the first time since 1957. It had been found in 1951 during the collection of Pleistocene vertebrate remains from a borrow pit used for construction of Lewisville Lake. An area of baked clay near the remains of an immature extinct bison was observed by the late Theodore E. White of the National Park Service and Glen L. Evans of the Texas Memorial Museum. With Edward B. Jelks of Southern Methodist University, who was conducting archeological examinations in the project area, Evans and White concluded that the baked area was a natural, not a cultural, phenomenon. Subsequent examinations of the borrow area by members of the Dallas County Archeological Society at Jelks's suggestion resulted in the area becoming known as the Lewisville Archeological Site (41DN72). Later publication of the results of examinations elevated the Lewisville Site into a national-level controversy among prehistorians.

The earlier investigations between 1951 and 1957, but most extensively in 1956–57, indicated that the site contained partial remains of some thirty faunal species (extinct and modern) associated with, or in close proximity to, twenty-one areas of baked clay that were called "fire-hearths." The faunal remains represented primarily mammoths, horses, camels, bison, wolves, coyotes, prairie dogs, peccaries, glyptodons, raccoons, deer, antelope, mussels, snakes, short-faced bears, lizards, fish, birds, tortoises, rabbits, squirrels, packrats, skunks, and mud-daubers. Hackberry seeds were found. The baked-clay areas were of two basic forms, ranging from small (57 by 67 centimeter) ovals, some nine centimeters in depth, to large (90 by 103 centimeter) roughly elliptical areas of overlapping hearths up to forty-five centimeters in depth. Seven artifacts were found, but only one provided evidence of distinctive cultural association. A Clovis point thought to belong to a people known to be nomadic hunters of big game was the only artifact found in situ in one of the "hearths" (No. 1). The spearpoint became a focus of controversy second only to the subsequent carbon-14 dates. The other six artifacts, a chopper, a hammerstone, three unaltered flakes, and a broken flake knife, had been found eroding out in the floor of the borrow pit.

Radiocarbon dates obtained by several different laboratories over a period of several years confirmed W. W. Crook, Jr., and R. D. Harris's initial reported date for the site in excess of 37,000 B.P. Between 1957 and 1963 the site was widely debated. Controversy centered on the age, cultural affinity, and whether the "site" was the result of natural or human activity. Subsequent to a critical review of Man's Antiquity in North America by J. A. Graham and R. F. Heizer (1967), the site was essentially shelved academically. After it was inundated, resolution of the Lewisville enigma was not considered likely, even by Crook and Harris.

The investigations of 1978–80 directed by Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Robert J. Burton and Larry Banks from the United States Army Corps of Engineers produced some new data that essentially parallel those of Crook and Harris, but that have also provided the basis for a more refined interpretation of the site. The new interpretations are possible primarily because of advancements in analytical techniques and procedures developed since the 1950s. Indications are that the Lewisville Site represented a possible specialized site of Clovis-aged (ca. 12,000 B.P.) people who were using fires at least partially fueled by lignite. The Cretaceous-age lignite was responsible for producing the earlier and erroneous dates. Because of this contamination, however, later attempts to obtain absolute dates for the site were unsuccessful, though it seems to represent the Western Hemisphere's oldest culture. The entire collection of materials from the site is located at the Smithsonian Institution.
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