EarthExplorerer.com and Google Maps Images showing the Redridge dam reservoir in June of 1938 and 2020, showing the difference in the reservoir’s size after it was lowered twice-- around 1950 when the steel dam was opened, and in 2004 when the top of the timber and rockfill dam was removed.

Copper Country’s infrastructure took a heavy damage during the 2018 Father’s Day flooding. Among the repairs still being made are those to Redridge’s historic steel dam.

Stan Vitton, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Technological University, is a key member of the Redridge Dam Revitalization Project. The group is working to save the Redridge dams for several reasons.

“The dam has historic value, number one,” Vitton said.

The steel dam was listed in the National Registry of Historic Places in 1992. Vitton also thinks the steel dam helps the resiliency of the road downstream in situations like the Father’s Day flood.

“The dam, in my opinion, retained enough water to keep the road from failing,” he said.

Marvin Heinonen is the supervisor of Stanton Township, which currently owns the dam. According to him, the dam is also a popular recreation spot for hikers, picnickers and especially fishermen. Steelhead congregate below the dam, and above the dam is entirely free from sea lamprey (first observed in Lake Superior in 1938), making it a good brook trout habitat.

After the damage to the steel dam made it less stable, Vitton, Heinonen and others worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to get grant money made available under the disaster declaration. They were approved for two projects. One to clear debris and cover repair work to the drainage pipes, and $270,000 to refinish the cement, and stabilize the loose steel support.

The logs and other debris have been removed from the dams and moved away from the reservoir already, but the work on the cement and steel has yet to begin.

“We’re going to put it out on bids and that concrete is going to be beefed up so that we don’t have any issues in the future,” Heinonen said.

He expects the repairs to keep the dam in safe condition for at least another 30 years. Local residents have talked about putting in picnic tables, benches or trash cans, but the township has not felt the investment would last.

“People just don’t take care of equipment,” Heinonen said.

The remote location of the dam makes any kind of regular patrol to prevent theft or vandalism unlikely as well. Instead the township plans to, for the time being at least, leave the area around the dam to nature.

“We’re going to leave it just like it is for now,” Heinonen said.

This story is the final installment in a series about the Redridge dams. The series on local dam conditions will continue.