Qualla: Trinity Dam

Trinity Dam: Introduction

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This article or image contains material based on a work of a Bureau of Reclamation employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States., Public domain. Three towns lie beneath the blue waters of Trinity Lake. Trinity Center, Stringtown, and Minersville vanished in the early 1960s as water rose behind California's third-largest dam, their former residents watching helplessly as rising floodwaters swallowed the communities where they had lived for generations. The reservoir was originally named for Senator Clair Engle, a champion of the project, but locals so despised that name that by 1997 it had been officially changed to Trinity Lake. The bitterness ran that deep.

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Image: Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This article or image contains material based on a work of a Bureau of Reclamation employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States. | Public domain

Trinity Dam: Depression-Era Dreams

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This article or image contains material based on a work of a Bureau of Reclamation employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States., Public domain. The dam's origins stretch back to the 1930s, when drought and the Great Depression gripped California. Congress passed the 1935 Rivers and Harbors Act, authorizing the Central Valley Project to bring water to the parched agricultural heartland. A 1942 proposal suggested diverting...

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Trinity Dam: Building Against the River

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This article or image contains material based on a work of a Bureau of Reclamation employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States., Public domain. Construction began on June 4, 1956. Workers diverted the Trinity River around the dam site by July 1957, but nature had other plans. Late that year, floods destroyed the cofferdam protecting the construction zone, halting work for months. The delay proved useful: crews used the t...

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Trinity Dam: The Salmon's Dilemma

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This article or image contains material based on a work of a Bureau of Reclamation employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States., Public domain. Trinity Dam created an impassable barrier for migrating salmon. Within a decade of completion, more than three-quarters of the Trinity River's flow was being diverted to the Central Valley each year. The remaining trickle ran warm and shallow, degrading the gravel bars essential ...

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Trinity Dam: Water and Power

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This article or image contains material based on a work of a Bureau of Reclamation employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States., Public domain. Today Trinity Dam rises 538 feet from its foundations, its crest stretching nearly half a mile long. The reservoir behind it can hold more than 2.4 million acre-feet of water encompassing over 145 miles of shoreline. At the dam's base, Trinity Powerplant houses two Francis turbin...

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Trinity Dam: Recreation on Drowned Ground

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This article or image contains material based on a work of a Bureau of Reclamation employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States., Public domain. Since 1965, Trinity Lake has been part of the Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area. Marinas and boat ramps line the Stuart Fork arm in the southwest and cluster around the resort town of Trinity Center, rebuilt on higher ground after the original community was floo...

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