Holcombe Flowage
Reservoir in Chippewa and Rusk counties, Wisconsin
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Through Hydroelectricity
The flowage is a popular recreation area, and the shores are thick with homes and cottages. It covers 2,881 acres (1,166 ha) at an average depth of 12 feet (3.7 m), a maximum depth of 61 feet (19 m), and a volume of just under 47,000 acre-feet (58,000,000 m3).
Holcombe Dam
The current Holcombe Dam is a hydro-electric facility built in 1950 by the Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power Company, and is now owned and operated by Xcel Energy. It produces an average of 34 megawatts, and is one of six Xcel hydro plants on the Chippewa.
The flowage was originally created by the 1878 Little Falls Dam impounding the Chippewa. The dam was built by Elijah Swift and Joseph Viles for the Chippewa River Improvement and Log Driving Company to provide reliable water for floating logs downstream. Parts of the dam were washed out by floods in 1880 and 1884. A terrible accident occurred in 1905, when eleven log drivers drowned trying to get to a log jam near the dam. Sixteen men in a boat had tried to break up the logjam. Five men managed to leap to safety but the rest were thrown against the logs and rocks by the current. The dam functioned until 1910, when logging operations ceased. It washed out in the 1920s.