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DENISON DAM   The Denison Herald Sunday Morning, June 25, 1972 DENISON DAM HAD A DREAMER Over the years a lot of persons, youngsters, and others not so young, have amused themselves by chunking pebbles into Lake Texoma and studying the ripple patterns. Normally, this is an idle whiling away of time without any significance. But it wasn't that way back in the very early months of Lake Texoma when an elderly man walked up to the water's edge at the Texas end of t he dam one afternoon. Still erect despite his 75 years, the man stood tall as he gazed out across the lake obviously engrossed in his thoughts. The he stooped, picked up a rock, and gently flipped it into the water. Silently he watched the ripples until the last circle head blended with the smooth lake surface. Then the old man turned to his long companion, a Herald reporter who had accompanied him to the scene, and commented, "Well, that's that!" It was a lonely scene, with no blaring band, no crowd and no applause as Denison's George D. Moulton, in his own way, observed the realization of an 18-year dream. The final accomplishment of the $64 million Red River dam, of course, involved a lot of persons at many levels of different means - but the preparation for the project can be traced to one man, George Moulton. As the project's apostle Moulton preached the gospel of Denison at every opportunity, from the individual on the street to influential peresonages in Washington. Brought to Denison as a boy, Moulton was reared as the stepson of Col. J.B. McDougall, a pioneer business entrepreneur whose interests ranged from a laundry to the town's leading opera house and even banking. While he was the first to admit that "I'm no engineer." Moulton had acquired some knowledge in the field largely because of some mining interests, and could....the ...maps that...the Denison Ferry...of Denison as a site for a flood control dam. The idea of a Red River dam occurred to the Denisonian during a visit in the mid-1920s to California, where his imagination was fired by ambitious talk about a Boulder Dam. Returning home, he wrote the first of what was to become a veritable avalanche of correspondence telling countless individuals and the world in general about the possibilities of a dam on Red River at Denison. One of the first letters in March 1926 was to Oklahoma Congressman Charles D. Carter, requesting contour maps of the area that today is roughly the Lake Texoma basin. Moulton may have been flattered by being named the Denison Dam Dreamer but he preferred to th ink of the effort more in terms of logic, feasibility, material benefits, and a lot of effort. "It's all very gratifying," Moulton said late in his life. "I known a lot of people thought I was crazy and that even my friends sometimes ducked out of view to avoid my evangelizing for the dam. But there never was any doubt in my mind that someday the project would be built. "The nation was talking about the need for flood control and here on Red River we had part of the answer in a reservoir that would hold flood water out of the Mississippi and at the same time furnish power for electricity." Moulton died here Decemter 14, 1944, about six months after the formal dedication of his dream.   Denison Dam Waterways Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson CountyTXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |