PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2022

Hiking the Farmdale Reservoir Dam

Farmdale Reservoir Dam escape hatch

$8 million, nearly $100 million in 2022 dollars. The latter, an earthen damwith a six-foot diameter tunnel at its base, towers 80 feet above the creek bed be low and is nearly 1,300 feet long. With any significant rain, the water backs up, creating an instant lake behind it that can reach 400 acres in size. Most of the time, however, that area is dry. When the dams were completed in 1951 – the general contractor was Acme Construction of Cleveland — it was said that they could withstand “anything that will ever be thrown at it.” In the more than 70 years since, that has largely proven to be true. Downtown East Peoria has been spared ever since by that one-two defense. Today that easternmost dam also is home to Farmdale Reservoir Park, 837 acres of tall grass prairie, oak and hickory woodland, abundant wildlife and 1.5 miles of stream managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. With some 15 miles of trails contained therein, it is one of central Illinois’ most unique spots for hiking, biking, horseback riding, geocaching and cross-country skiing. All in all, it has been a pragmatic and popular solution, making the best of whatwas once a very real andpotentially life- and property-threatening problem. Mike Bailey is editor in chief of Peoria Magazine. Information for this story was pulled from the old Peoria Morning Star, with the help of the Peoria Public Library and East Peoria’s Fondulac District Library. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Farmdale Reservoir website also was an important resource.

East Peoria City Hall after the flood

2,200 people, what local officials had witnessed was bad enough and they vowed that a flood of that magnitude could never be allowed to happen again.

reinforce and raise the levees to protect the industries – and the jobs therein – along the waterfront. President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself would

‘A SIX TO FIFTEEN FOOT WALL OF RAVAGING…COFFEE -BROWN WATER GATHERED…AND LIKE AN INVADING HORDE OF SAVAGES DESTROYING EVERYTHING IN IT’S PATH’

take notice, praising the effort in one of his fireside chats. The water came just inches from topping the levee, and enough was enough. In 1949, work began on the con struction of two dams – the Fondulac Reservoir Dam in East Peoria and the Farmdale Reservoir Dam about three miles east of town — at a then-cost of

Millions of dollars were spent over the next 20 years to deepen and straighten Farm Creek, and a new diversion channel and spillway were built. Yet the flooding continued. In 1943, the Illinois River crested at a then-record 28.82 feet. Factory workers, schoolboys, store clerks and other volunteers worked round the clock over three days of sandbagging to

JUNE 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE 49