Before Pineview Dam there was the Wheeler Dam

                       Pineview Dam.          Photo by Whitney Arave

IN 1898, the first major dam east of Ogden was the Wheeler Canyon Dam. Located west of today’s Pineview Dam, was some 300 feet long and about 40 feet deep.

According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of June 30, 1898, the Pioneer Power Company built the dam of masonry and concrete.

Work on this dam had started in 1897.

The Standard-Examiner of Sept. 8, 1905 reported than an engineer had proposed that a new dam be built to the east of Wheeler Dam, near the Shanghai River Bridge. That was amazingly close to where Pine View Dam was eventually constructed decades later.

After that, the South Fork of the Ogden River was surveyed and even bull dozed somewhat for a possible dam site that never happened, despite several decades of trying.

According to the Standard-Examiner of Sept. 5, 1910, another dam was proposed to be built in Coldwater Canyon. 

    All that's left of the Coldwater Canyon water system today is a small shack and some old piping.

However, that never happened and a 10-inch water that had been installed in Coldwater Canyon in 1909 was used for many years to supplement the Ogden City water supply.

                                         The replica lime kiln near Coldwater Canyon today.

-The lime kiln in Coldwater Canyon was reported operating again, according to the July 20, 1924 Standard-Examiner. After a three-decade lapse, the kiln was working again and even a road was built to the site.

(Today, the lime kiln is commemorated along the Coldwater Canyon trail as a pioneer industry, complete with a rebuilding of a kiln.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net