Page 39 - SOM Summer 2017

THE LOST DAM

A PART OF GRANTS PASS’S INTRICATE HISTORY

Brought to you by the Josephine County Historical Society
here was a power dam built on the Rogue River at Grants Pass over
T130 years ago. It was the Grants Pass Dam, also called the Grants Pass
Diversion Dam or the Grants Pass Power Dam. The site of the dam can still
be seen from Caveman Bridge and anyone who has enjoyed the river on a jet
boat experiences a bump in the river after passing under Caveman Bridge.
That bump is what remains of the old wooden dam. The dam was low and
only backed up about three feet of water, but it channeled water toward the
power plant. Grants Pass produced its own electricity from 1886 to 1905.

In 1905, the Gold Ray Dam, near Gold Hill, started to provide power
for Southern Oregon. After the Grants Pass dam was no longer used for
power, it backed up the water enough to have an excellent swimming area
at Riverside Park. There was a bathhouse, a dock, a tethered raft in the
center of the river and a long slide into the river. Much of the dam was
washed out in floods in the 1920s, but the swimming area remained until
the Polio scare in the late 1940s. People still swim there, but without the
dam the river is swift and not as safe.

The Josephine County Historical Society in Grants Pass operates the
Schmidt House Museum and the JCHS Research Library and Bookstore.
www.jocohistorical.org

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