Beginning the painting of the Chinese Dam, AKA the Old Carmel River Dam. January 29, 2015, 11:30 am - 2:30 p.m.
This dam and bridge will be taken out next year after all other work has been completed upstream at the San Clemente Dam. project area.
This dam was built by approximately 700 Chinese workers in 1883-84 (three months/24 hours a day, according to information in the book River in Ruin by Ray March). According to a reporter from the Salinas Index who was at the dam site while it was being built, the dam is six feet wide at the top and twenty-one feet wide at the bottom. It is made from marble and granite gathered and hewn onsite, held together with Portland cement. A pipeline was installed to capture the river water to be piped twenty-five miles to Monterey and the Hotel Del Monte. (The bridge was built at a later date.) The dam cost just 2,267.21 to build!
The current project to dismantle the two dams and reroute the river will cost 84 million! Here is a link to the River in Ruin book publisher.
This dam was built by approximately 700 Chinese workers in 1883-84 (three months/24 hours a day, according to information in the book River in Ruin by Ray March). According to a reporter from the Salinas Index who was at the dam site while it was being built, the dam is six feet wide at the top and twenty-one feet wide at the bottom. It is made from marble and granite gathered and hewn onsite, held together with Portland cement. A pipeline was installed to capture the river water to be piped twenty-five miles to Monterey and the Hotel Del Monte. (The bridge was built at a later date.) The dam cost just 2,267.21 to build!
The current project to dismantle the two dams and reroute the river will cost 84 million! Here is a link to the River in Ruin book publisher.
First pass on painting the Chinese Dam on the Carmel River...a complex place to capture! I plan to paint the river at this location when the dam comes down.
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