Pokegama Lake Dam Explained

not to be confused with Pokegama Lake, Pine County, Minnesota

Pokegama Lake Dam (National ID MN00584) is a dam in Cohasset, Itasca County, Minnesota, northwest of the city of Grand Rapids.

The concrete and timber crib dam was constructed in 1884 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, with a height of, and a length of at its crest.^[1] It impounds the Upper Mississippi River for flood control, navigation, and municipal drinking water. Rebuilt in 1936, the dam is owned and operated by the Mississippi Valley Division of the Corps of Engineers.

The dam creates a system of connected reservoirs with a total maximum capacity of 120,000 acre-feet, and a normal capacity of 82,000 acre-feet:^[2] Jay Gould Lake, Cut-Off Lake, and the largest, Pokegama Lake. The dam is the location of a number of Minnesota weather records.

Pedestrian bridge

During rehabilitation work in 2011, a new pedestrian bridge was constructed on the concrete footings on the downstream side of the dam, connecting the Pokegama Recreation Area Campground to the south side of the Mississippi River.^{[3] [4]}

See also

• List of crossings of the Upper Mississippi River

External links

• USACE page
• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation:
  • about six dams including this one

Notes and References

1. Web site: Pokegama Lake Dam . https://web.archive.org/web/20160306032621/http://ce-npdp-serv2.stanford.edu/DamDirectory/DamDetail.jsp?npdp_id=MN00584 . 2016-03-06 . National Performance of Dams Program Database . Stanford University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
2. Web site: Pokegama Lake, northcentral Minnesota . https://web.archive.org/web/20110916172414/http://findlakes.com/pokegama_lake_minnesota~mn00584.htm . 16 Sep 2011.
3. News: 100+ year old technology replaced at Pokegama . January 2011 . Crosscurrents . April 5, 2018 . U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - St. Paul District.
4. Web site: Pokegama Dam, Cohasset, MN . www.johnweeks.com . 2018-04-05.