badin bulletin
Pagi Setin
turrets OfTT^CIENT city, but the dam. march ,5. ,g.7
Hydraulic Development
{Continued from page 3)
began to sharpen pencils and oil
adding machines.
-The first stage setting of the “blues”
ispenser revealed to our anxious eyes
f sang of worknien cutting an opening
the center of the upstream cofferdam,
that the Yadkin, which for nearly
our years (except when on the ram-
had passed every last drop of its
Volume through two enormous tunnels
^uld again return to its natural course.
Id we say cutting? Well, it looked
l^ore like whittling. It looked so much
whittling that “Captain” Rickey
^ii'ed to know how his bank balance
and upon finding out hunted up
S. Scott and laid down a wager, which
^fter serious consultation with his gen-
foreman) Scott accepted, to the
f that the job could not be done
y '-he end of the week. That was on
. In about an hour that hole
of cofferdam was a seething mass
umanity. There were so many in
^®^king so strenuously, that they
‘ even let the mud and dirt stay
each other’s .shoes. They couldn’t;
^ Were too close together!
^ Saturday evening (via the over-
route), the hole was open, and the
adkin once more flowing down its
natural course.
Then came payday, and the end of
the week, with a job well done tucked
away; and Sunday was to be a day of
rest and rejoicing. But the “Captam”
decreed otherwise. At five a. m. (well,
maybe it was six), he was up and on
his way to see how much form work
had been completed by those carpenters
working in the tunnels. (Because these
tunnels, which had taken so long to dig,
were to be filled with concrete, so as
to help hold back the water in the lake.) ‘
Well, would you believe it, not a jack
hammer on the job! Two enormous tun
nels full of nothing. Why?
We have often thought that at least
one man must have been determined to
have that question answered, because
he climbed back up those 350 feet of
Stanly hillside which has increased many
blood pressures and reduced much avoir
dupois, but never had been climbed for
the fun of doing it. He did not return
alone, however; with him was a small
sized army of carpenters, and mto those
tunnels they waded, splashed, ~
most swam, and down to hard work they
^°it was on Sunday, June 6, that one of
the very important, if not the most im
portant, parts of the work began. Day
Ld night shifts kept at the work of
plugging these tunnels until, another
Sunday morning, three weeks later, it
was found that ninety-five pounds of
air could penetrate no more cracks and
crevices in the rock, and the job was
pronounced satisfactorily completed.
It is necessary to return at this stage
of our story to the Whitney dam, and
pay what little homage we owe it.
Worthless as that structure is today,
covered with twelve feet of water when
the lake is full, it can at least be said
that for the brief period of a few hours
it was master of the situation, and held
back the rushing waters of the Yadkin
long enough to allow the final closure
to be made in tranquility at the Narrows
(and incidentally to lodge high and dry
on the rocks a party of our good friends
from Montgomery County, who were at
tempting to cross the river at Penning
ton ferry on their way to Badin to see
the event of the day!)
At four o’clock p. m. on June 27, 1917,
the two large gates were lowered into
place, effectually closing the last open
ing in the Narrows dam, and the Yadkin
River was harnessed. Simultaneously
with the construction of the dam, the
erection of the powerhouse and appur
tenances was under way. The comple
tion of this was so timed that when the
water in the lake reached an elevation
sufficient to enter the penstocks and
turn the waterwheels, the machinery
was ready to develop power.
Throughout the course of events lead
ing to the construction of the Narrows
Dam, the impelling force back of the
entire project was our president, Mr.