Mill Pond Dam

There used to be a lumber mill sprawled along the south bank of the Little Wolf river, and on the north bank, the Nelson-Esche feed mill. Both these mills needed power, and the lumber mill needed a millpond, so the river was dammed just east of where Bridge Street crossed it.

From what I can tell, this wasn't the first time the Little Wolf was dammed. At one time, there was another dam a couple miles south of Manawa, built about 1849 for the More and Goldberg & Co. lumber mill, in the village of Centerville, which was later called Little Wolf — about where the Poor Farm bridge is now. That lumber mill burned to the ground in 1916.

The dam built for the feed mill and lumber mill doesn't appear to be the same as the modern dam I knew. Either it was replaced, or was extensively rebuilt for the hydroelectric plant that was installed in 1902.

The modern dam had a row of gates operated by a rack & pinion; the older dam doesn't appear to have these gates.

As a kid, I crawled around in the power house a couple times looking for forgotten control panels, rusting hulks of generators, or any decrepit machinery just waiting for an evil genius to show up and turn it all into his laboratory. I have to sadly report that, except for chunks of broken concrete and some trash, the building was empty.