Shasta Dam
Our friend Alison, who is a shopper of profound skill, scored this Shasta Dam tourist plate on a recent expedition.
Built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation between 1938 and 1945, Shasta is part of the first post-Hoover Dam generation, a concrete arch structure capable of storing more than 4.5 million acre feet of water.
Located on the Sacramento River north of Redding, Calif., it is part of the Central Valley Project. It works in tandem with the smaller Keswick Dam, located just downstream, which re-regulates flow from the more erratic up-and-down releases associated with Shasta’s power plant (such a two-dam configuration is not uncommon).
Thanks to California’s bodacious snowpack, Shasta currently holds 4 million acre feet of water, 6 percent above average for the beginning of April.
references
John,
Please complement Allison on her keen eye on the acquisition of this rare artifact. Once she acquires the Hoover Plate (very common) and the Parker Dam Plate (extremely rare), she’ll have the set.
The commonality between these three Dams is the legacy of Frank (actually Francis) Crowe. Frank built all three dams. The sequence was Hoover, Parker then Shasta. The designer of Shasta dam is John Crowe (frank’s nephew). He designed the first ‘mock up’ of Shasta in the Parker Dam Camp’s Rec Room.
Oh, we were talking about water, weren’t we?
dg