Wrightsville Reservoir

Wrightsville Reservoir is a reservoir located in Washington County, Vermont. It is located at the intersection of the municipal borders of three towns, Montpelier, Middlesex, and East Montpelier. It is a popular recreational spot in the summer, for swimming, boating, and fishing in the Montpelier area. While it most of the area of the lake is owned by the town of Middlesex, it is closer to Montpelier and is usually accessed from Vermont Route 12. It has a popular swimming beach with a disk golf course and a boat launch, both near Route 12.HistoryIn response to the damage suffered by Montpelier and surrounding communities in the Great Flood of 1927, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the Wrightsville Dam during a period from 1933 to 1935. The resulting reservoir required the disbandment and flooding of the village of Wrightsville, which contained at least 30 built structures at the time. The North Branch Cemetery was also forced to move in 1934, with the excavation and relocation of 651 graves dating back to the 1800s. The original construction, completed in 1935, was an earthfill retention dam 1,525 feet long and 115 feet high, faced with stone on one side for protection. It had a 645-foot concrete conduit divided into three pipes. One was plugged, one went to the Wrightsville Hydroelectric Power Plant, and the third emptied through to the North Branch. It also had a spillway cut through the rock 30 feet below the top of the dam.The Wrightsville Dam was one of only 4 dam projects built concurrently from 1933 to 1935. The other three were the East Barre Dam, Waterbury Reservoir, and the Winooski River Local Protection Project. The costs from all four of these projects were conglomerated and calculated as one expenditure, totalling $13.7 million.