Hauser Dam (also known as Hauser Lake Dam) is a hydroelectric straight gravity dam on the Missouri River about 14 miles (23 km) northeast of Helena, Montana, in the United States. The original dam, built between 1905 and 1907, failed in 1908 and caused severe flooding and damage downstream. A second dam was built on the site in 1908 and opened in 1911 and comprises the present structure. The current Hauser Dam is 700 feet (210 m) long and 80 feet (24 m) high. The reservoir formed by the dam, Hauser Lake (also known as Hauser Reservoir), is 25 miles (40 km) long, has a surface area of 3,800 acres (1,500 ha), and has a storage capacity of 98,000 acre-feet (121,000,000 m3) of water when full.The dam is a "run-of-the-river" dam because it can generate electricity without needing to store additional water supplies behind the dam. The powerhouse contains six generators, bringing Hauser dam's generating capacity to 17 MW.HistoryThe first Hauser Dam was built by the Missouri River Power Company and its successor, the United Missouri River Power Company. Samuel Thomas Hauser, a former Territorial Governor of Montana from 1885 to 1887, enjoyed a lengthy career in banking, mining, railroads, ranching, and smelting, but encountered a series of financial setbacks after the Panic of 1893 which nearly ruined him financially. In his early 60s, Hauser began to rebuild his finances by branching out into the relatively new industry of hydroelectric power generation. In 1894, he formed the Missouri River Power Company, and won the approval of the United States Congress to build a dam (Hauser Dam) 2 miles (3.2 km) below Stubbs' Ferry. In 1905, Hauser and other directors of the Missouri River Power Company formed the Helena Power Transmission Company (also known as the "Helena Power and Transmission Company"). The two companies merged on February 16, 1906, to form the United Missouri River Power Company.The dam was named for Samuel T. Hauser. Hauser Dam was a steel dam built on masonry footings on top of gravel, with the ends of the dam anchored in bedrock on either side of the river. The Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company constructed the dam for the power company. J.F. Jackson, a Wisconsin Bridge and Iron engineer, designed the structure. Martin Gerry supervised the construction for the power company. Gerry and Wisconsin Bridge engineer James McKittrick argued several times over the dam's design, and Gerry ordered a number of changes to the dam to strengthen it. Jackson's design had to overcome a significant engineering problem: bedrock lay out of reach under the riverbed, covered by a thick layer of gravel. To overcome the fact that 300 feet (91 m) of the center section of the dam was built on a gravel riverbed and the rest on bedrock, sheet pilings (supplied by the L. P. Friestedt Company of Chicago, which had a patented steel sheet piling system) were driven 35 feet (11 m) into the riverbed and the steel of the dam attached to the pilings. The pilings were set at an angle of 1.5:1 to discourage sliding, and a triangular masonry footing capped with concrete on the upstream side set against the pilings in the riverbed to support the dam. The upstream face of the dam was covered in concrete, and a 20-foot (6.1 m) deep layer of volcanic ash laid down on the upstream riverbed extending 300 feet (91 m) from the dam to discourage seeping. Volcanic ash is very fine, and Jackson trusted that the weight of the water above the ash blanket would compact it to the point of being impenetrable, thus preventing water from eroding the gravel around the pilings. The dam was 630 feet (190 m) long and 75 feet (23 m) high. The spillway was 500 feet (150 m) wide and 13 feet (4.0 m) deep. The 10 horizontal turbines in the powerhouse delivered 14,000 kilowatts of power. The total cost of the dam at that time was $1.5 million. The United Missouri Power declared Hauser Dam operational on February 12, 1907.
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