Site of Four Mile Dam

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Site of Four Mile Dam, out here in Kimble County. Now, some projects are born ambitious, and this one came into the world with a charter to prove it. Back in 1896, the Junction City Irrigation and Power Ditches got their charter, and the people behind it were not thinking small.

The plan was to furnish power for mills and mining, supply city mains with water, irrigate extensive lands, and water livestock. That is a lot of promises riding on one dam. The engineering supervision fell first to a local man, G.

W. Regsdill, which is the kind of thing that sounds reassuring right up until it doesn't. Then the project passed into the hands of R.

J. Hand, out of San Antonio. And the dam itself, well, it was built of native stone and cypress wood.

The ditches were four feet deep, twenty feet across at the top, and twelve at the bottom. Somebody measured all of that out and felt good about it. In 1903, the whole project was sold.

Jay E. Adams of San Antonio and A. C.

Green of Palestine, Texas, took it over. New owners, same ambitious dream. And here is the thing about ambitious dreams.

The big ditch was still carrying water as late as 1925. It worked. It just never turned a profit.

Unprofitable, the marker says, plain and simple, the way you'd say it about a mule that eats too much and plows too little. The charter was forfeited in 1950. Fifty-four years after it was written, all those promises about mills and mining and city mains and livestock, gone with a legal formality.

Out here in Kimble County, the native stone and the cypress wood are what's left to tell it.

What the marker says

BUILT UNDER AN 1896 CHARTER, OBTAINED FOR THE JUNCTION CITY IRRIGATION AND POWER DITCHES, TO FURNISH POWER FOR MILLS AND MINING SUPPLY CITY MAINS, WATER EXTENSIVE LANDS AND LIVESTOCK. AT FIRST UNDER ENGINEERING SUPERVISION OF G. W.REGSDILL, A LOCAL MAN, THEN OF R. J. HAND, SAN ANTONIO, PROJECT WAS SOLD 1903 TO JAY E. ADAMS, SAN ANTONIO,AND A. C. GREEN, OF PALESTINE, TEXAS. DAM WAS NATIVE STONE AND CYPRESS WOOD; DITCHES WERE 4 FT. DEEP, 20 FT . AT TOP, 12 AT BOTTOM. BIG DITCH CARRIED WATER LATE AT 1925; BUT WAS UNPROFITABLE. CHARTER WAS FORFEITED IN 1950. (1967)