The St. Croix River again flows unchallenged past Wolf Creek and Nevers Place. Only a half-submerged wooden "crib" and a few wooden pilings in mid-stream hint that this was for 65 years the location of what was said to be the largest pile-driven dam in the world.
Nevers Dam was a product of the lumbering era; its purpose was to control the flood of logs that came down river from the northern pineries to the sawmills at Stillwater. Built in 1890 by the St. Croix Dam and Boom Co., it served the lumbermen for a relatively short time . . . the last log was sluiced through in 1912, signaling the end of the wood cutters' heyday on the St. Croix.
After those busy logging days, when Nevers Dam was an active little community of lumbermen, farmers, mill-hands and workmen, it passed into a quieter and longer period in its history. This second phase started in 1903 when it became a river control point and reservoir for the hydroelectric power dam about to be built at St. Croix Falls, eleven miles below.
Its end came after spring floods had completely undermined the dam in 1954. Since it was unusable and a potential hazard on the river, its owner, Northern States Power Co., had it torn out in the fall of 1955.
The dam had been threatened many times before, most memorably in the spring of 1950 when the old structure withstood the pressure of a seven-foot crest of the river, an all-time high.
An N. S. P. employee working at the dam that night, described the near-disaster in the company magazine "Our Shield." "Nevers Dam has been battered by logs, log jams, floods, storms and ice during its many years of existence, but the sudden and unprecedented flood of May 7th and 8th is tops. For hours and hours the only thing that kept the river from topping the 600 ft. earthen dike was a thin wall of dirt a foot wide and a foot high thrown up by hand shovels. A gas shovel, bulldozer and trucks arrived and went into service and finally at 1 p. m. on Monday the dam was considered secure."
By holding out against the rampaging river, Nevers Dam forestalled considerable flood damage to the lowlands beyond the gorge of the Dalles and to the power house at St. Croix Falls.
When the dam finally did wash out in '54, Pat Cain and Gene Pomeroy, both with N. S. P. at St. Croix Falls, were on watch at Nevers through the night to radio a warning ahead to the powerhouse at St. Croix Falls so it could brace for the crest of water and debris.
The St. Paul newspaper reported "the landmark on the St. Croix River is crumbling . . . the platform walk has snapped and some gates swept away."