Waltons Mill Dam HABS/HAER photography and research

The former Waltons Mill dam was built across Temple Stream, a tributary to the Sandy River, in the Village of Farmington, ME. The dam was built to provide power to a series of mills in approximately 1873, and continued to provide power to mills into the 1960s. It was built of massive split granite blocks that were dry-laid, with the later addition of a concrete cap and a concrete abutment with a gated outlet. Temple Stream was determined to provide critical habitat for the endangered Atlantic salmon in 2009, and in 2018 the Town of Farmington approved a proposal by the Atlantic Salmon Federation to remove the dam and restore this section of Temple Stream. I was subcontracted by colleagues at the Northeast Archaeology Research Center to conduct the HABS/HAER photography and research for the Maine Historic Engineering Record, and conducted the field work in October 2020. In 2024, I had a chance to visit Farmington, and see the results of the stream restoration project, which was done beautifully.