Holcombe Flowage is a reservoir on the
Chippewa River in
Chippewa County and
Rusk County,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. The dam stands between the towns of
Birch Creek and
Lake Holcombe, just west of the settlement of
Holcombe, Wisconsin, in Chippewa County, where most of the reservoir lies. A small part of the reservoir also extends northward into the Town of
Willard in Rusk County.
The flowage is a popular recreation area, and the shores are thick with homes and cottages. It covers at an average depth of , a maximum depth of , and a volume of just under .
Holcombe Dam
The current Holcombe Dam () is a
hydro-electric
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...
facility built in 1950 by the Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power Company, and is now owned and operated by
Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy Inc. is an American utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico in 2019. It consists of four ope ...
. It produces an average of 34 megawatts, and is one of six Xcel hydro plants on the Chippewa.
The flowage was originally created by the 1878 Little Falls Dam impounding the Chippewa. The dam was built by Elijah Swift and Joseph Viles for the Chippewa River Improvement and Log Driving Company to provide reliable water for floating logs downstream. Parts of the dam were washed out by floods in 1880 and 1884. A terrible accident occurred in 1905, when eleven log drivers drowned trying to get to a log jam near the dam.
The dam functioned until 1910, when logging operations ceased. It washed out in the 1920s.
References
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Reservoirs in Wisconsin
Dams in Wisconsin
Xcel Energy dams
Dams completed in 1950
Energy infrastructure completed in 1950
Landforms of Chippewa County, Wisconsin
Landforms of Rusk County, Wisconsin
Hydroelectric power plants in Wisconsin