Gainer Memorial Dam - Hope, RI
Posted by: 
nomadwillie
N 41° 45.197 W 071° 35.086
19T E 285102 N 4625613
Named after Jospeh H. Gainer, who was mayor of Providence during the construction of the dam.
Waymark Code: WM12VHV
Location: Rhode Island, United States
Date Posted: 07/19/2020
Views: 1
Gainer Memorial Dam is a big dam. That's pretty obvious to even the most casual observer. It's 3,000 feet long, 110 feet high, and holds back almost 40 billion gallons of water. The reservoir behind the damn contains over 60% of the state's water supply. It the dam decided to break, the ground would be flooded for over twenty miles in all directions.
When the dam was completed in 1925 it was considered an engineering marvel. It has been inspected many times over the years and although modern construction methods weren't used when it was built, it is said to be able to withstand a direct hit by an earthquake up to magnitude 5.0.
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Construction was well under way by 1921. At that time, it was the largest project ever undertaken in Rhode Island, and workers were housed in a temporary village established nearby. The reservoir was created by the construction of an earth-filled dam across the Pawtuxet River near the former village of Kent. The reservoir began storing water on November 10, 1925. The treatment plant began operation on September 30, 1926. At the official opening ceremonies that day, Providence Mayor Joseph H. Gainer called the $21,000,000 project the "City's Greatest" and said ".. the man to whom most of the credit for this undertaking belongs is Frank E. Winsor, the man who has been in charge of the work since 1915." The dam is known today as the Gainer Memorial Dam in honor of the mayor.
The plant was one of the most technologically advanced of its day and the only one of its kind in New England. It was renovated in the 1940s and again in the 1960s. It has a maximum capacity of 144 million US gallons (550,000 m3) of water per day.
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