Silver Lake Dam
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Silver Lake Dam
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Dam spillway from north, 2008
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| Location | Woodridge / Fallsburg, NY |
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| Nearest city | Middletown |
| Coordinates | 41°42′06″N 74°33′01″W / 41.70167°N 74.55028°WCoordinates: 41°42′06″N 74°33′01″W / 41.70167°N 74.55028°W |
| Built | 1840s |
| Architect | Rufus Lord, chief engineer |
| NRHP Reference # | 00000585 |
| Added to NRHP | June 20, 2000 |
Silver Lake Dam is located off Silver Lake Road, just outside the village of Woodridge, New York, United States. It was built in the 1840s to regulate Sandburg Creek, which provided water to the summit of the Delaware and Hudson Canal 10 miles (16 km) to the southeast. In 2000 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The 85-acre (34 ha) body of water it created eventually became known as Silver Lake, an attraction for visitors to the many Jewish summer resorts in Woodridge and neighboring communities. In the early 21st century the village of Woodridge, which owns the dam, has been working to repair it due to a leak.
As built, the dam is a stone structure, with large mortared slabs encasing a dry rubble interior. It is 176 feet (54 m) long, 5 feet (1.5 m) wide along the top and rising 13 feet (4.0 m) above the water level on the downstream side. There was a centrally located spillway 11 feet (3.4 m) wide by 2 feet (50 cm) deep. Two 15-inch (38 cm) cast-iron waste pipes controlled by large gate valves in the top of the dam next to the spillway went through the bottom of the dam.
In the 1840s, improvements to the Delaware and Hudson Canal, which had been running through the town of Mamakating to the southeast for its first decade of operation, required a more reliable source of water for its crucial summit, or highest-elevation, section, between there and Napanoch. Sandburg Creek, which drains an area from around Woodridge down to near the canal's path at Wurtsboro before emptying into the Basha Kill, was identified as a creek which could be impounded to create a sufficient reservoir, and it was dammed at the appropriate spot, long before the area was developed and settled.
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