History of the Dam
Newaygo County owes its beginning to the lumbering industry. In 1836, the Indians had given up title to the lands in what is now Newaygo County and the territory was to be thrown open to white settlement. A group of Chicago speculators was formed i n 1836 to operate in lands and timber. Hiram Pierson and Henry Pennoyer headed this group. The group proposed to hold by "squatter's rights" the mouths of all the streams north of the Grand River up to the Manistee until the land should come into the mark et and they could make claim to it.
One division of the group, headed by Clark Knights and Augustus Pennoyer, was to discover waterpower sites where they could build a sawmill. The party stopped at what is now Newaygo. Here Augustus Pennoyer and Jack McBride established claims at the mou th of the creek which they named Pennoyer. McBride built a cabin there and this became the first permanent white settlement in the county.
Augustus Pennoyer formed a partnership with Alexander Fulton of Muskegon, called the Muskegon Lumber Company. They chose the mouth of Pennoyer Creek, where the Henry Rowe Mfg. Company Plant is now located, as a site for a saw mill.
The beginning of operations of the Pennoyer mill was the forerunner of the big pine lumber business that was to continue for more than sixty years. During this sixty years, lumbering was the chief industry of the county.
In September 1852, the board of supervisors, then consisting of four members, authorized Christopher Culp to build a dam across the Muskegon River near Croton. This was the first dam authorized across the big Muskegon. However, Culp didn't get started immediately and another dam was authorized across the river at Newaygo. This dam was started in 1853, and was completed before the Culp dam at Croton was built.
In 1853, a trig lumber company was organized to take over the Pennoyer properties at Newaygo. John and Stephen Pennoyer, heirs of Augustus Pennoyer, sold their interests to Henry Pennoyer and he sold the property to A. B. Watson, a member of t he new firm composed of a number of enterprising lumbermen from Glenn Falls, New York. They were looking for a new field of operations and chose the Newaygo area. They formed a company called the Newaygo Company and started to build the dam mentioned toge ther with a large mill. The mill was completed in 1854 and was the largest water power mill in the state.
In 1903, the fifty-year-old wooden dam across the Muskegon River needed to be replaced. A wooden affair with a long apron was erected upstream. Before waters of the Muskegon could fill the pond, the dam went out.
About 1900, the Newaygo Portland Cement Company plant was built on the property occupied by the old Newaygo Company and they took over the dam.
At this time the prized trees were gone and the lumber industry faded. In 1916, Consumer's Power Company bought the dam and the Portland Cement plant. Consumer's Power Company decided to develop the waterpower to generate electricity for use in Grand R apids and Muskegon.
The third Newaygo dam was a unique type of plant for it had celebrated rope-driven generators, which were operating every day to help fill power needs of Newaygo until the dam was removed.
Consumer's Power Company offered to sell the dam to the city of Newaygo for S1.00, but the city felt it would be too costly to maintain.
Ownership of the Newaygo Dam was transferred to the Department of Natural Resources in the fall of 1966.
On Monday, January 16, 1967, the Consumer's Power Company in cooperation with the Department of Conservation drew the water of the Newaygo pond down. The purpose of this action was to enable Consumer's Power to seal off the headrace. This was under mutual agreement with the village of Newaygo and the Conservation Department for safety reasons. It was also done to enable engineers from the Department of Conservation and Fisheries workers to observe the dam during a draw down state. This would help t o determine what, if any additional work must be done to ensure the free passing of steelhead, trout, and walleye to spawning areas in the fall. This procedure was to be done each spring and then the waters were to be raised in the fall, but the waters we re never raised.
Reasons for Removal of the Dam
On October 17, 1968, in Lansing, Michigan, bids were opened for the destruction and removal of the Newaygo dam. Reasons for the removal of the dam in Newaygo, as stated by the Conservation Department, were:
In November 1968, engineers of Natural Resources gave a Grand Rapids contractor the green light to start battering down the Muskegon River's Newaygo Dam to clear the way for extending upstream fish runs in 1969.
The $34,000 demolition project was completed in February 1969, with the final clean up in September 1969.
Kenneth Christensen, Department of Natural Resources' fish habitat development specialist, noted, "This project is the first under our new program of removing barriers to open suitable stretches of rivers and thus provide additional fish spawning habit at plus expanded angling opportunities."
Public Opinion
There was much controversy over the removal of the dam among the people in and around the city of Newaygo. Jeff Steele, owner and operator of the Steele Sporting Goods store in Newaygo, expressed his opinions on this subject before the dam wa s removed. Mr. Steele stated that he had always been a strong supporter of the Conservation Department in the past and would be in the future and has agreed with most of their rulings concerning salmon, but in this instance he was on the opposite side of the fence. Mr. Steele felt the Newaygo dam should not be removed for the following reasons:
Dick Black, a board of director's member of the Michigan Outdoor Writer's Association and member of Mort Neff's 9 Michigan Outdoors TV staff, expressed the following opinions in an article following the one written by Mr. Steele.
In his article, Mr. Black stated several things which he called "half-truths" by Mr. Steele and then he expressed his own feelings about these "half-truths".
Half-truth-"We have been told that the salmon program never did and never will be predicated upon natural propagation".
Comment-to quote Drs. Wayne Tody and Howard Tanner who wrote in a fish management report entitled "Coho Salmon for the Great Lakes" - "A high production of wild smelts would be exceedingly valuable and should be given a high degree of management priority over straight hatchery production. It is of interest that Michigan's present steelhead population is almost entirely dependent on natural reproduction."
These two men whose brilliant efforts combined to establish the salmon in the Great Lakes, explain that the ultimate production goal for stocking the Great Lakes is sense forty million smolts of the trout and salmon specials. Hatchery reproduction must produce great quantities of these fingerlings. Supplementing this production will be natural reproduction in Michigan's 3,500 miles of streams now accessible, which can potentially produce some 12 million smolts. Areas of streams now inaccessible but whi ch like the Muskegon upstream from Newaygo to Croton, carry a potential of 5 million more. The area in question could produce as many as 100,000 chinook smolts an amount equal to a third or the annual Plant, as it is now.
Half-truth-"When the dam is removed, there will either be a rapids or a small falls, and the walleye will not travel up either one."
Comment- "I wonder how the walleye ever made it as far as the Newaygo Dam, since more than a few stretches of rapids exist downstream." Contract specifications include making the river navigable. If a small boat can propel itself upstream, a walleye should be able to."
Half-truth-"The use of any boat launching area will be negated because it will take a very good boatman to launch and get control of his craft before being caught in the swift water that will surely result from the dam removal".
Comment-"Boats are being launched in the swift water of the Muskegon River every day, from every access site, with the exception of those on impoundments"
In summary, Mr. Black said we should stop the nonsense and let the Fish Division manage the resource. If they were not capable of doing the job, we would not have salmon in the river.
On November 14, 1968 the following open letter to the people of Newaygo, from visitors to the Newaygo area, appeared in the local paper.
"We have heard you plan to remove the dam at Newaygo. In our opinion that would be a very sad mistake. It seems to us that you would be removing the very thing that brings so many people to your little city to see, the things that no one has to offer but you. We could see making steps of a sort to help salmon in their journey, but please don't take away the beautiful sight you have for people of this state and for all that come your way."
The author of this paper, after talking to many people in Newaygo and reading many articles written on this subject, finds herself with very mixed feelings as to whether such a drastic step, as removing our dam, should have been taken.
First, the people of Newaygo felt they could not take on the added expense of maintaining the dam. This, the author agrees with. It would have been a very costly burden for the people to undertake. Also, with the removal of the dam, the fish can no w travel upstream to spawning grounds.
However, the dam across the Muskegon River was a great attractive to the people of all states and was really a magnificent sight, especially in the fall. With the removal of the dam, the water was lowered to such an extent as to reveal the logs that ha ve lain at the bottom of the river since the lumbering days. It has also ruined the riverfront property for the people who live along the river between Newaygo and Croton. As the picture accompanying this paper reveals, a great deal of damage has been don e to homes on the river since the dam was removed. Not only have ice jams, as seen in the picture, caused damage to homes, but spring rains and thaws have also been very destructive to property along the riverbank. People have been driven from their home s on several occasions by water flooding the area.
The author feels it is too bad the Conservation Department could not have found a means, possibly an effective fish ladder for the fish to get upstream, without taking such a drastic step, since this measure has certainly ruined the one great attractio n our little city had, the Newaygo Dam.