Holmes Creek Reservoir is the oldest dam in the state and one of the first in the Western states. It was built in 1852 to store water for pioneers in the area.
Built by pioneer settler Elias Adams Sr., the dam was originally just four feet high. Adams picked the blind canyon as a perfect spot for such a small dam. He used a wheelbarrow all winter to haul dirt to create a water stoppage.The area was a bog, and Adams also wrote that he found numerous buffalo bones in the area - likely from ones who had become stuck there and died.
There were some springs in the hollow, but no stream. Adams dug a diversion ditch from north of Adams Canyon (named after him), to capture Holmes Creek water, as it was needed to fill the dam.
The dam gave him a dependable water supply for his garden to the west.
Five years later, some neighbors helped Adams enlarge the dam. However, they used frozen dirt and the next spring the dam broke and sent a wall of water downstream that wiped out crops, turkey and chickens, but missed Adams' cabin.
Adams' son, Joseph, built the dam 22 feet high in the 1870s and added a gravel drain into the design. In 1898, area farmers bought the dam from the Adams family and started the Holmes Creek Company.
By 1929, they had raised the dam to a 70-foot height and added a new outlet. That's the way it basically stood until this fall when crews took out the old dam to strengthen it. The "Company Pond" nickname came from the irrigation company's ownership.
Harris Adams, 69, of Layton, is the great-grandson of the original builder of the Holmes Creek dam.
He said research has definitely confirmed it as the state's oldest dam and likely the oldest in the Mountain West. California's Santa Barbara Mission was built in 1776.