#552 Folsom Dam #552
by William Lum
Title
#552 Folsom Dam #552
Artist
William Lum
Medium
Painting - Watercolor
Description
Imagine these people under 50 ft of water. During my recent spring of 2021 visit to Folsom Lake, California, the water level was at 397 feet. At this time of the year in 2020 the lake level was 426 ft and in 2021 it was 449 ft. The look of the shoreline is different in a dry year and a much longer walk to the parking lot. Old water canals, bits of roadway, and even an old town sometimes appear in a severe drought period. A mining village called Mormon Island was located at the foot of what would become Folsom Lake in the late 1800’s. The first Folsom Dam was built in 1893 by Horatio Gates Livermore. The larger current concrete gravity dam was built in 1955 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. When the American River was blocked by the larger dam, Folsom Lake submerged the abandoned Gold Rush town of Mormon Island.
California has a history of unpredictable periodic droughts. It takes multiple years of continual drought to expose Mormon Island. If we are lucky, next rainy season will be a wet year to pull us out of a drought. Only time will tell and we hope we don’t see Mormon Island again.
My 11” X 15” watercolor was done on Arches, 300 lb, cold press paper.
Uploaded
April 16th, 2021
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Viewed 274 Times - Last Visitor from Ottawa, ON - Canada on 03/27/2024 at 8:03 PM
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