Buffalo Bill Dam and the Shoshone Project Brochure

SHOSHONE PROJECT BENEFITS FISH AND WILDLIFE - The reservoir and its RECREATION - Buffalo Bill Dam and environs provide habitat for a variety of fish Reservoir are located adjacent to one of the IRRIGATION - Water stored behind the and wildlife species. A minimum flow is main routes leading into Yellowstone original Buffalo Bill Dam supplies four provided to maintain the fishery in the National Park. The reservoir provides irrigation districts encompassing over 93,000 Shoshone River below the dam. opportunities for camping, fishing, acres of farmland in the Bighorn Basin. The picnicking, swimming and boating. principal crops are beans, alfalfa, oats, MUNICIPAL WATER - Six towns and several Sailboarding and wildlife viewing are also barley and sugar beets. Since crop rural areas in Park and Bighorn counties are popular at the reservoir. Recreation Buffalo Bill Dam production started in 1908, lands served by served from a central water treatment plant. facilities around the reservoir are managed Reclamation water have produced over $700 This new treatment plant is supplied raw by Wyoming State Parks and Historic Sites and the million worth of products. water under pressure from the Spirit as part of Buffalo Bill State Park. Mountain Energy Dissipation Structure. Shoshone Project

FLOOD CONTROL - Although the dam was North Fork Campground T not built primarily for flood control, it does and Picnic Area offer incidental flood protection for areas 20 downstream. Buffalo Bill 14 State Park 16 Camping

Picnic Grounds

Boat Ramp r

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v The additional reservoir storage provided by r

e raising the dam will be put to beneficial use s Park by the State of Wyoming. The water will be e Headquarters R available for cities and towns, industry, 291 B agriculture, and other uses as markets uffalo Bill develop. Visitor Center Bartlett Lane 1910 Picnic Area Buffalo Bill Shoshone POWER - The project Boat Club Dam Powerplant Docks provides about 100 Buffalo Bill million kilowatt hours Powerplant of power per year. It is To marketed regionally by N Cody the Western Area 291 Power Administration.

U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation Wyoming Area Office PO Box 1630 Buffalo Bill Powerplant Today in the canyon downstream from the dam Mills, WY 82644 The Shoshone Project became one of the first Buffalo Bill Dam was Reclamation's first high BUILDING A VISITOR CENTER - The visitor BUFFALO BILL DAM HISTORY federal water development projects concrete arch dam. When completed in 1910 center at the dam was completed in 1993. undertaken by the newly formed Reclamation it was the highest dam in the world at 325 Half the cost of construction was borne by Service, later to become known as the Bureau feet. Because of its historical significance, local interests. A non-profit corporation was of Reclamation. After Reclamation took over Buffalo Bill Dam was added to the National formed to raise the local share of the project in 1903, investigating engineers Register of Historic Places in 1973. It is also construction costs and to operate and recommended constructing a dam on the a National Civil Engineering Landmark. maintain the visitor center. Shoshone River in the canyon west of Cody. RAISING THE DAM - An 8-year project to NEW POWER GENERATING CAPACITY - Construction on the Shoshone Dam (later to modify the dam and associated facilities was An additional 25.5 megawatts of power be called Buffalo Bill Dam) started in 1905, a completed in 1993. The State of Wyoming generating capacity was added to the year after the Shoshone Project was provided about 40 percent of the funding for project. This included construction of the new authorized. Engineers were faced with the modification, making this one of the first 18-Megawatt Buffalo Bill Power Plant in the seemingly insurmountable physical state/federal cost-sharing agreements for river canyon below the dam and refurbishing challenges, among them the deep granite water project construction in the nation. the Shoshone Power Plant, which is visible canyon which made work difficult and the in the canyon below the dam. A 4.5 remote location which made it hard to secure The project involved raising the crest of the Megawatt generator was also added in the and keep construction workers. Another dam nearly 25 feet to create an additional Spirit Mountain Energy Dissipation Structure constant challenge was the Shoshone River 260,000 acre-feet of reservoir storage on the hillside above the Buffalo Bill Power which did not always schedule its flows to capacity. Atop the new crest are aeration Plant. coincide with work on the dam. One year half piers which support a walkway across the the annual runoff occurred during a 30 day dam. The piers are designed to help the crest The Shoshone Canyon Conduit is a tunnel period, making work almost impossible. At one function as an emergency spillway in the which carries water under pressure from the point the river cascaded over the top of the event the dam is overtopped during reservoir down the canyon. Some of the As the Union Pacific Railroad stretched unfinished dam at a depth of 17 feet. extremely heavy runoff. water in the conduit flows into the Buffalo Bill across the Great Plains in the late 1860's, Power Plant. Before the remaining water hundreds of pioneers sought their fortune in Because there were no natural deposits of ENLARGING AND GATING THE SPILLWAY continues through the conduit to the Heart the unsettled territories of the West. As more sand and gravel at the site, both had to be The dam's spillway, which runs through the Mountain Power Plant and Heart Mountain and more settlers moved West to develop manufactured from granite. Clean pieces of mountain under the visitor center, was Canal, it must pass through the Spirit their homesteads, it became apparent that a granite weighing from 25 to 200 pounds were enlarged, and radial arm gates were installed Mountain Energy Dissipation Structure which dependable supply of water was needed. hand placed in the concrete. The boulders to allow for controlled spilling. The gatehouse reduces water pressure. make up about 25 percent of the masonry of structure located across the parking lot from In 1897 and 1899 Colonel William F. (Buffalo the dam. the visitor center, although mostly below Bill) Cody and his associates acquired from ground level, is equivalent to a 10-story the State of Wyoming the right to take water building, making it among the tallest from the Shoshone River to irrigate about structures in Wyoming. 169,000 acres of land in the Bighorn Basin. They began developing a canal to carry BUILDING DUST DIKES - Two dust- water diverted from the river, but their plans abatement dikes and one protective dike did not include a water storage reservoir. were constructed at locations around the Colonel Cody and his associates were reservoir. The North Fork and the South Fork unable to raise sufficient capital to complete dikes keep water on areas of the lake bottom their plan. Early in 1903 they joined with the which produce dust when the reservoir level Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners in drops. The Diamond Creek Dike prevents the urging the federal government to step in and reservoir from inundating Irma Flat. help with irrigation development in the valley.