100 years since vote to form Great Sacandaga Lake

( NEWS10 ) — May 7, 2024 marked 100 years since officials voted to build the Great Sacandaga Lake. The Hudson River Regulating District voted in 1924 to build a dam and create a reservoir as a way of controlling the flow of the Hudson and Sacandaga Rivers.

“After a really significant flood in 1913, which really affected the Albany area and contaminated public drinking water, so there was a typhoid outbreak,” is when the Saratoga County Historian, Lauren Roberts says something needed to be done immediately. The solution was to create the Sacandaga Reservoir, which became the largest reservoir in New York State. “The 1924 vote was really what cemented the fact that the dam was going to be at Conklingville and that the people of the Sacandaga Valley were going to be flooded out.”

Several hundred people lived in ten Sacandaga Valley communities. The government bought out their land under the name of public good. Buildings were deconstructed or burned, leaving only their foundations to be flooded. Lauren Roberts says the project was met with criticism and a few court battles over property value.

One company almost prevented the dam from happening. “Fonda Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad actually filed a court case injunction to stop the project. They stood to lose about seven miles of track and Sacandaga Park. Even though this vote goes through, the first contract is not let until 1927,” said Roberts.

But on March 27, 1930, the water of the Sacadaga Lake began to slowly rise to where it is today. The project was not seen as ‘good’ when people were forced to uproot their lives, schools, and cemeteries. Though over time, Roberts says it’s been proven a public good.

“Not only did it hold back the flood, it also augmented the flow. In the summertime, when there was drought, industries that depended on water power couldn’t keep going. Control of the dam allowed those industries to keep going.”

In the 1960s, the Sacandaga was renamed from a reservoir to a lake to encourage tourism. Today, it’s used for hydropower and wastewater treatment plants as New York’s largest reservoir.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NEWS10 ABC.