| Additional Information: | The Eureka Dam is made in part of metal sheet piling and concrete. Part of the old dam's cut-stone abutment work is visible at the site. Although called the "Eureka" Dam, the structure and accompanying "Eureka" Lock are located in the countryside about a mile and a half southwest of the unincorporated community of Eureka. A commercial campground is located next to the lock-and-dam site, but there are no other adjacent or nearby industrial or commercial properties. The dam is located on the Upper Fox River. Related buildings: lock, lock tender's house, stable, haulover, canal.
The Eureka Dam was built as part of the Fox-Wisconsin Improvement Project from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien. The project included extensive dredging and the construction of locks, dams and lock tender houses plus a canal at Portage along the waterway.
The first dam at the Eureka Lock site was a temporary dam made of brush and stone and was constructed by the federal government in 1876 for $1,513. It was replaced a year later by a timber-crib dam with stone abutments. The structure had a pile-and-timber foundatuion and cost $10,276 to build; stone for the masonry work was quarried at Kaukauna. The dam also had a navigable pass 50 feet wide on its north end which also served as a sluiceway during high water. Over part of the dam structure was built a swing-truss bridge (nonextant) with a wooden track on which a car with a small derrick was transported. The derrick was used to hoist the dam's gates and posts.
U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers reports indicated that the dam's navigable pass was closed in 1910 with a concrete structure containing steel sluice gates, and the dam's superstructure was rebuilt in 1928-29 at a cost of $48,883.
All of the Upper Fox River locks were closed by the federal government in 1951 (the Eureka Lock was reopened years later) and their ownership transferred to the state in 1962. Before the transfer could occur, a 1958 work plan called for building a new Eureka dam of steel sheet piling just upstream (west) of the old dam. The new construction, however, still connected with the old dam's old stone abutments. The Wisconsin Conservation Department of Natural Resources has done additional work at the dam site since the state assumed ownership. |
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| Bibliographic References: | (A) Corps of Engineers, Annual Report for Fox-Wisconsin Project, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1884, 1910, 1917, 1922, 1929.
(B) Document Package Entitled "Transfer of Upper Fox River to State of Wisconsin," containing map, letters, reports, etc., from Corps. of Engineers, 1958-1959.
(C) Corps. of Engineers map entitled Lake Winnebago, Upper Fox and Wolf Rivers, Wisconsin, 1916-1921; revised 1928, 1933, 1949.
(D) Samuel Mermin, The Fox-Wisconsin Rivers Improvement, pp. 1-100, 135, 162 passim.
(E) Richard N. Current, The History of Wisconsin, 2:19-21.
(F) Robert C. Nesbit, The History of Wisconsin, 3:88, 136-137.
(G) Corps. of Engineers, land tract map for Eureka Lock and Dam, 1958.
(H) National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Eureka Lock and Lock Tender's House, December 3, 1975.
(I) Report of the Upper Fox River by the Bureau of Engineering, State of Wisconsin Planning division, July 1952. |
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