Shaver Lake
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the census-designated place, see Shaver Lake, California.
Shaver Lake is a man-made lake in Fresno County, California, on Stevenson Creek, located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains at an elevation of 1,675 meters (5,500 ft). Several smaller streams also flow into the lake, and it receives additional water from the underground tunnels of Southern California Edison's Big Creek hydroelectric project. The town of Shaver Lake is located on its shore.
The lake was formed with the construction of Shaver Lake Dam, which was built by Southern California Edison and completed in 1927. The dam was built in 50-foot (15-m) blocks, with a keyway to hold it in place and a 75-centimeter (30-inch) copper sheet to make it watertight. Its capacity is 135,283 acre-feet (167,000,000 m³). Some water from the lake is discharged into Stevenson Creek for fish and other wildlife, but the rest is diverted to Big Creek, where it powers several hydroelectric plants in succession.
The area now covered by the lake was extensively logged before the dam was built, and an extensive log flume system several miles long was constructed to bring logs down the mountain. The town to this day maintains a nostalgic logging theme. Several buildings in town are in fact old, converted sawmills.
