The Penrose Dam on the Shoshone River, located near the Park/Big Horn County line, underwent concrete repairs last week.
The river channel was temporarily diverted away from the Penrose Dam and …
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The Penrose Dam on the Shoshone River, located near the Park/Big Horn County line, underwent concrete repairs last week.
The river channel was temporarily diverted away from the Penrose Dam and the intake gates to the Sidon Canal with rocks and dirt as part of an estimated $120,000 repair project.
The diversion dam was built by the Sidon Canal Company over 100 years ago at the point where the Shoshone River flows past the Sidon Canal gates.
“We don’t even know the date it was originally constructed,” said Willie Bridges of Pryor Mountain Engineering in Cowley, who advised on the repair project. “There was some restoration work on the dam in the 1960s.”
Bridges said a section of the concrete dam had broken off the top of the diversion dam, necessitating the current repair project as a winter undertaking.
“All the concrete has been poured,” he said Friday.
While the river flow is diverted away from the intake, some repair work will be done on the gates as well; even when the gates are closed, some water has leaked through into the canal.
The Sidon Canal carries Shoshone River water for 37 miles to farms in northern Big Horn County between Cowley and Byron.
—Dave Bonner