By Phil Roberts, 8-10-22
The saga of Anchor Dam in northwest Wyoming, well known to most people, has become symbolic of what happens when engineering aspiration confronts the stubborn forces of geological realities. There it stood along Owl Creek for a half century and more, displaying the finest architectural features of a state-of-the-art dam, except for the inability to hold back the water and create a usable reservoir.
I had my own experience with the architectural wonder/debacle. About 1976, long after the Bureau of Reclamation had mostly given up fixing its mistake in remote western Hot Springs county, I found myself in Thermopolis with lots of time on my hands. My duty, to interview the leaders of the legal community and law enforcement hit a snag—I think it had to have been either a massive trial or someone’s early August snafu of sending almost everyone off on vacation that Monday. I had been to town several times that summer in my work for the attorney-general’s office so I had the opportunity to see the museum and enjoy the world’s largest mineral hot spring and the buffalo grazing at the state park. Here I was, finding out I’d have to spend the next day doing my assigned job while I had the luxury of loafing the entire day. It was too far from Cheyenne to go back and return again. There was nothing on the agenda for anything nearby.
Dressed in my three-piece suit (I called it my “law suit”), I decided to take a short sight-seeing tour that morning and maybe be back in town for lunch at the Sideboard, Manhattan or Perry’s Log Cabin café. And then I remembered going with my dad in his propane truck years before to make a pre-winter delivery at the dam-tender’s house overlooking the Anchor Dam site. Wasn’t it close to town, on the way to Hamilton Dome?
I pulled over and reached for the official state road map. I searched carefully—up and down the course of Owl Creek. Nothing. How was I to know that the State was cooperating with the Bureau of Reclamation’s efforts to cover up the mistake—or, at least, keep it from the prying eyes of the public who might express concern over spending untold millions of public funds on a dam that couldn’t hold water?
Despite the deception on the map, I remembered it was along a road from Hamilton Dome—couldn’t be THAT far, I thought. I glanced at the gas gauge in the newer model blue state car (with the bumper sticker telling anyone observing the car going faster than 55 mph to call Guv Ed in deference to Nixon’s efforts to reduce speeds and, therefore save gasoline. It had to be enforced vigorously in order to have an effect on the vast distances involved in driving in Wyoming. Half a tank. It should be more than enough to get there—and make it back to Thermopolis before noon.
But no sign of a dam after 10 miles. No sign of it after 20…and then 30. And no roadside signs indicating that the dam even existed. I turned off the car’s air conditioner, hoping to conserve fuel. I was about to give up and turn around, but at 41 miles, there was a hopeful sign—“County Road Ends” in 12 miles. Might it terminate at an unfilled dam?
I pressed on, feeling like those engineers who told Floyd Dominy, the irascible UWyo educated head of the Bureau, that “if the bottom goes out again” and water disappears into yet another sinkhole, “we can fix it with a bigger plug.”
The project’s consulting geologist, like the stubborn and autocratic Dominy, also from U Wyo must have grinned. Samuel Knight, the university’s legendary geologist, had warned that the weak shale behind the proposed damsite wouldn’t hold water. But the engineers persisted. “Can you think of a more perfect place to build dam, between two massive identical cliffs through which Owl Creek trickled between—almost all year?”
And with paces out West for new damsites rapidly shrinking and the “can-do” sprit of 1950s engineers, the multi-million-dollar project was pushed through a partially informed Congress.
The dam-tender heard the sound the night the dam was almost filled. He said he woke to the sound of what to him seemed like a giant sucking the last drops of a big milkshake through a straw. The saga to fix the sinkholes continued for a decade and a half. Finally, after more sinkholes appeared, the USBR gave up and started to convince the occasional curious travelers nearby that there was “nothing to see here.”
But back to this curious traveler. Finally, the road disappeared into gravel, but right ahead must be the dam. Up a gradual hill and there—a chain-link fence with two strands of barbed wire strung across the top and a menacing sign: “No trespassing beyond this point. Violators will be prosecuted,” The USBR was playing hardball on this.
I surveyed the situation. The gas gauge was about an eighth full—just enough to get back. The dam must be just around the corner, just out of view. I had my camera. In the past decade, I’d learned how to scramble up fences while I was in the Marine Corps. I resolved to climb the fence. What could go wrong?
My suit coat already was hanging in the car; I top off my vest, glanced at my highly polished Florsheim oxfords, wishing I were wearing combat boots. With my camera strapped around my neck, I scrambled up and over, not hooking up once on the twin strands of barbed wire.
The dam was practically in sight. I took my camera from around my neck, turned on the light exposure and put the camera to my eye. Steps away! But suddenly, loud barks from nearby, pierced the gentle wind. There, just yards away, and closing fast were two large Dobermans. I could see their teeth already.
I had no time for even two steps forward or the squeeze of the shutter. I turned, just ahead of the first dog, and with one jump, leapt up the fence and over. I could hear the rips of my white shirt and the loud tears of my pants, but it was drowned by the snarls.
I was over the fence and safe. Before I could open the car door, the two dogs appeared on the “safe side” of the fence. I rushed to roll up the windows, convinced the dogs were coming in for me.
I stared at the gas gauge. Less than eighth of a tank to make it back those many miles to Thermopolis. After almost an hour of sweating, and watching the needle go down to near empty, I came to the hill leading down Broadway into town. Just then, the engine sputtered , running only on fumes. I coasted into the highway shop where I filled the tank to what the clerk inside initially suspected I also had filled a gallon gasoline can.
My knees shook, just thinking of my close call with the watchdogs. But as I had the lunch special of soup and a sandwich at the Manhattan Café, I resolved to take a nap the next time I had the urge to explore. I spent the rest of the day in a spare meeting room in the courthouse preparing for the interviews the next day.
When I got back to my motel room, before I went to bed, I switched on the TV. Big mistake. The TV movie, Wolfen, was just starting and a pack of angry wolves magically appeared in the back seat of a car…I consigned myself to the inevitable nightmares…