Creation of the Sacandaga Reservoir
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History for 08-29-15
Creation of the Sacandaga Reservoir in 1930 was the culmination of an immense engineering project that radically changed people’s lives and the geography of the southern Adirondacks.
“Sacandaga” is a Native American word that may mean “flowing grass” or “drowned land.”
Before creation of the reservoir, the Sacandaga River was an unchecked tributary of the upper Hudson River. So much water was poured into the Hudson that Albany, Watervliet, Troy, Green Island and other Capital District communities were subject to frequent floods.
The flooding in 1913 was particularly severe and the idea of a flood control reservoir slowly gained traction. In 1922 the state appointed a board to execute the project. Their motto was: “Tame the Hudson by taming the Sacandaga River.”
Residents of the Sacandaga Valley were skeptical as work gangs arrived, many from outside the area, to prepare for the multimillion dollar venture, cutting trees, tearing down farm buildings and villages, even moving cemeteries.
The merry-go-round with its handmade horses at an amusement park operated by the Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad was disassembled and taken to the Shelburne Village museum in Vermont.
Former Fulton County historian William G. Loveday, Jr., said, “For a lot of them it was their family land for generations and they just hated to leave. They had to take the state estimates for their land. This caused a lot of bad feeling. Other people could see the benefits of it. There were terrible floods from Wells down to Northville and along the Hudson River in the last year before the reservoir was created.”
The chief engineer of the massive undertaking was Edward Haynes Sargent, a Massachusetts native who married a woman from Northville, Emma Olmstead. Sargent met Olmstead when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained engineer was doing survey work in the Sacandaga Valley. Sargent is buried in the Edinburg Cemetery and his tombstone is the only one facing the lake he created.
A major piece of the project was construction of the Conklingville Dam in Hadley. “A workforce of 1,200 men was required for the dam construction alone, which began in November 1927,” Loveday said.
The dam is made mostly of earth and stone fill with a core of hardened cement. People came from miles around to watch construction of the 95 foot high structure.
According to the town of Edinburg history, buildings not moved by 1929 were torn down or burned. An estimated 1,100 people were forced to abandon their homes.
Russell Dunn, author of “Adventures Around the Great Sacandaga Lake,” said, “In the fall of 1929, many people deliberately drove through the (Sacandaga) Valley, winding their way along the interconnecting roads, through villages that no longer existed and past forests that no longer held trees, simply because they knew they could never do it again.”
In the spring of 1930, the time had come to abandon hamlets such as Osborne’s Bridge, Day Center and Huntsville. Loveday said, “On March 27, 1930, a quiet ceremony took place at the dam and Chief Engineer Sargent turned the valves to close the gates and commenced flooding of the valley.”
Creation of the 29-mile reservoir enabled people, many from Johnstown, Gloversville, Amsterdam and Schenectady, to build relatively inexpensive lakeside camps in the 1940s and 1950s.
Seeing the potential for tourism promotion, the state legislature changed the reservoir’s name to Great Sacandaga Lake in 1961. “Sacandaga Lake” was already the name of a smaller lake in Speculator.
The Great Sacandaga’s role as a flood control reservoir has created issues over the years for recreational users as the lake’s level fluctuates, depending on flood control needs.
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