Dam Failure Case Study: Williamsburg Reservoir Dam (Massachusetts, 1874)

The industrialists who built the factories and the dams along the Mill River in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, were a remarkable group – inventive, hard-working, adaptive, political, and compassionate. They were, by necessity, cooperative in their shared use of the Mill River. However, their human characteristic of Yankee frugality and the physical features of the Mill River valley proved to be the major factors in America's first major dam disaster. On Saturday morning, May 16, 1874, the persistent seepage pressure through the Williamsburg Reservoir Dam and foundation finally caused the steep downstream slope of the dam to slide away, releasing the 2000 acre-feet of stored water down the narrow valley. The water wiped out the valley villages and factories and killed 139 people. If not for the early detection of the pending failure by the dam tender's family and the efforts of several men to warn the downstream communities, the death toll would have been higher by many hundreds. As America's first major dam tragedy, the event drew national attention and was followed by a trial and an American Society of Civil Engineers investigation, both of which found fault with numerous parties – the industrialist owners, the designer, the contractor, the county commissioners, and the Massachusetts legislature.