(First of two parts)

On two occasions in the city’s history, serious proposals were considered to eliminate a portion of Fountain Lake known as Dane Bay.

This particular part of the lake was once a wetland, swamp, slough or marsh which was a part of the small creek which drained the Pickerel Lake watershed. When Fountain Lake was created by a dam, the water flooded back into the area eventually defined as the area between the Blackmer Bridge (now part of Lakeview Boulevard), the old M. & St. L. railroad bridge, and to the east of Blackmer Avenue to a depth of several feet.

By the 1930s, this small pond of water had acquired the more prestigious name of Dane Lake. Also, by the 1930s, the city’s citizens were demanding that something be done about Fountain Lake, which was developing into a shallow silt-laden body of water. The obvious solution was to dredge the lake to a deeper depth. In fact, some folks had been agitating for this particular solution for over a half-century.

In 1939 the dredging proposal became a reality. Part of the funding came from the federal Works Progress Administration. (The WPA also helped to create the present &uot;Cap&uot; Emmons Auditorium, the Freeborn County Fair grandstand, and the stone and concrete observation deck in Fountain Lake Park.) The remainder of the

project’s funds came from the city, Albert Lea Township, and the Freeborn County Board.

The dredge purchased by the city was made by the Morris Machine Works in Baldwinsville, N.Y. It had been used in the Chicago area and on the Mississippi River near Dubuque and Davenport, Iowa.

At the suggestion of Councilman L. W. Spicer, this dredge was named &uot;Captain George.&uot; This name honored George Ruble, the city pioneer who originally dammed the Shell Rock River to create Fountain Lake.

Captain George and all needed parts arrived in Albert Lea during December 1939 on nine railroad flatcars. The assignment for Captain George and its crews was to remove over a million square yards of sediment from the lake bottom during a two- or three-year period. The estimated cost would be $250,000.

This dredge was assembled at the city beach and started its assigned work in the spring of 1940.

The floating dredge had a cutting head and suction pipe to deepen the lake. Mud, water, gravel, rocks and even junk were moved to a shore area which needed more fill through a pipeline on pontoons in the lake and over land to the dump site. About 3,000 feet of pipe could be used and the connections between sections were made of rubber so curves, as needed, could be created.

Dredging in Fountain Lake was done on a 24-hour basis, except Sundays, with a total of 80 to 100 men when the lake was free of ice.

The first part of the project was to provide an eight-foot depth for the lake near the dam and Katherine Island. The sludge or tailings was piped to several low places near the Wilson plant. The rest of the main lake was dredged on an incline from the shore down to a depth of 18 to 20 feet in the middle portion. The pipeline was shifted from time to time to fill in other low spots and bogs, such as one near the city beach.

A decision was made to dredge the lake within an area defined by the dam and the Blackmer, Hatch and Bancroft Bridges. This included the dredging in what was then called Bancroft River in several news reports (in reality, a channel or bay for a creek coming into the lake). Lakeview and St. Theodore cemeteries border in part on this channel.

When this decision became known, residents on Blackmer and Pleasant avenues and the west end of Abbott Street decided to offer Dane Lake (or Bay) as a logical place to dump the dredge tailings.

On May 26, 1941, a petition with the signatures of 17 property owners was presented to the Albert Lea City Council. This action became the basis for a Tribune editorial in the May 27th issue:

&uot;Last night at the regular meeting of the city council a number of real estate owners, adjoining or abutting upon a portion of Fountain Lake lying between the Lakeview Boulevard bridge at Blackmer Avenue and the M. & St. L. railroad bridge, petitioned to fill in a portion of what is known as Dane Lake.

&uot;The petitioners argue that ‘the said portion of the lake is a low, marshy, breeding ground for mosquitoes and in hot weather a nuisance and health hazard and that the water is not of sufficient depth for fishing, boating, bathing or any other recreational purposes.’ …

&uot;Why not fill in the whole low place &045; why fill in just half of it?

&uot;To fill in just half of this portion of Fountain Lake &045; which is truly just a slough &045; would not be of a permanent nature. The first high water would wash the muck back under the bridge and into Fountain Lake proper.

&uot;If a stone wall or dike were constructed across the south side of the Blackmer bridge, the whole low place, between the railroad bridge and the Blackmer bridge could be filled in with muck that is taken from along the whole south shoreline of the lake, as far east as Fuller’s bay, east of Ballard’s point. By doing this it would transform Dane Lake into some fine ground, suitable for a park or even residential lots and the dredging done in Fountain lake, would be of a permanent nature.&uot;

&uot;We think if anything is done at all the whole low place should be filled in.&uot;

The city council took no action on this request to eliminate a part of Fountain Lake. Also, with any dike or wall constructed in Dane Bay, provisions would have to made for the flow of the small creek coming in under the railroad bridge on its way to the main part of the lake.

Dredging in Fountain Lake continued through 1943.

With the nation deeply involved in World War II, and contending with a manpower shortage, the decision was made in 1944 to terminate the dredging project. After all, the main part of Fountain Lake, plus Bancroft Bay and channel, had been made much deeper.

In July 1944, Captain George and all its pipes, pontoons and other equipment was loaded onto railroad flatcars and shipped off to the new owner &045; the Portland General Electric Co. of Portland, Ore. Thus, a dredge made in New York, used in Illinois and Iowa, then Albert Lea, wandered further west to Oregon.

An editorial in the Jan. 7, 1946, issue of the Tribune stated, &uot;It’s still going strong and still bears the name of Captain George which was given it when the dredge belonged to the city of Albert Lea.&uot;

Next: How another dredge was used to save both Dane and Edgewater Bays.

(Contact Ed Shannon at ed.shannon@albertleatribune.com, or call 379-3434.)