I received this from Sharon Brown of the Heritage Museum of Orange County:
I don’t know if you know or are interested in the history of the YL lakebed. I work at Heritage Museum of Orange County (HeritageMuseumOC.org in Santa Ana, and our property has the home of Hiram Clay Kellogg, one of the engineers involved in the development of the Anaheim Union Water Company, which included the dam and reservoir whose remains are now your park. Mr. Kellogg designed and supervised construction of the Yorba Linda dam. In 2007 the American Society of Civil Engineers designated the entire Anaheim Union Water District a historic civil engineering landmark. The plaque they awarded is located at Tri-City Park in Placentia. The following description of work on the dam comes from the ASCE nomination document: “Under the direction of prominent local engineer Mr. H. Clay Kellogg, “Yorba Dam” was constructed in 1907 adjacent the main canal. During the era of manual labor/horse and buggy transportation, state of the art dam construction involved equestrian teams and scrapers to import fill, hydraulic “puddling” and tamping by herds of sheep for compaction . The dam is 46 feet high with approximately 1,000 acre-feet storage, and with connections to lower irrigation ditches. ”
For a complete history of the water district, visit:
http://www.ascelasection.org/index.php/main/groups/history_and_heritage_committee/
I haven’t been to the Lakebed Park yet, but will try to get there soon. Maybe some signs about its history would add to its perceived value to the community.
