On a day much like any other, two elder gentlemen either walked into my office or opened their front door to give two different articles from different news sources from random days in 1939 and 1940 both articles about the Pensacola dam.
“Justice is calling people to action,” my son said hearing of these occurrences. What action would that be or become? LEAD Agency has stood with the City of Miami through our attorneys’ filings over the last few years. We have led a campaign to “Flood FERC” the federal commission that must issue licenses to hydro-dam operations like the Pensacola Dam. Our and your messages told the story the federal officials would need to know about the previous operations and the consequences of “business as usual” for people and the land where they reside or have great uses and love for, when the waters ultimately flood them.
A deep dive into the news articles show connections and relationships to who and where and how people viewed the land that would be flooded and how hard it was in another to burrow into the hard rock to create the workings to - in the end operate the water to be discharged.
What did I learn? In the Afton American I learned the names of the land owners who had not given in to the pressure the newly organized Grand River Dam Authority, a public corporation must have been using to gain soul ownership of the land to be flooded to become the lake. “You and each of you, are hereby notified that … has instituted condemnation proceedings in the District Court of Ottawa County to take by eminent domain the absolute, entire and unencumbered fee simple title to the lands hereinafter described, for use in connection with the construction and equipment of the Grand River Dam and hydroelectric power plant and for storing and preserving the waters of Grand River and for the purpose of carrying out and accomplishing the objects and purposes of the Legislature in creating the plaintiff; said lands to be so condemned and appropriated being described as follows, to-wit:…” The same spread of newspaper listed another set of people from Wyandotte and I would have imagined every other town or community near the lake and now all those who were established places we might know lay lost beneath the water.
The second article was about a now little-known miner had a major role in doing what he knew best to do. He used an “unusual” method to sink a shaft at the dam site. WHAT? A shaft? What was that for? And what was the method? The article dated April 1939 was accredited to the Tri-State Zinc & Lead Ore Producers Association.
As we literally dig through old news articles, legal filings and listen to recollections from lived memories, this Grand Lake seems less and less grand to me. The mining companies knew if the pumps were turned off, the aquifer would fill, become acidic and the heavy metals in that water would spill out and in their own publication, in their own words, would poison that newly formed lake.
What I have learned was once the dam was in place and the mine water discharged into Tar Creek and the other mine water discharges from Kansas and Missouri that flowed into the Spring River, all these tainted waters helped to fill the lake, the fish died in that trapped contaminated water that would be Grand, what a grand beginning for the newest most important and impressive structure built in Oklahoma history at that time.
One of my oldest friends. Literally, one of the oldest people who had ever befriended me entered the “name the new lake contest” and her entry was selected. She was one of the daughters of the last Principal Chief of the Cherokees before statehood and truly understood what the name meant: Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees, since much of the lands flooded were Cherokee allotments, Cherokee adopted homelands, the lake water covered those properties the “o’ “ which would be short for OVER, or flooded forever lands.
We are curious and want to learn more from you. Your lived memories are important. As a project LEAD Agency has partnered with the University of Oklahoma to work in earnest on the “Air, Water, and Work” oral history project.
Give us a call so we can, with your permission, record an interview with you to add your story to this important project and explore the past as you remember it.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim