French Landing Dam

I knew that Ford Lake is a manmade lake and I sort of knew it was because of a dam built by Henry Ford.  So I decided to look up the dam that would have caused the creation of Ford Lake and in the process I found out about the below dam.

 In the early 1900's, the Eastern Michigan Edison Company (later Detroit Edison and now DTE Energy) wanted to exploit the energy of the Huron River.  Towards that end, they started to purchase land along the river.

 In 1910, they purchased this parcel of land for creation of a hydroelectric plant.

In 1924, this power house and dam were completed.  It was the fifth in a series of dams built on the Huron River by Detroit Edison.  It was the largest of these dams and could generate 12.7 kilowatt hours of energy until its decomissioning in 1962.  In the process, Belleville Lake was also created.

It was eventually donated to Van Buren township and in 1981 they began restoring it.

I'm going to have to figure out where I can get a picture of the dam itself but I'm thinking that is a springtime project.