An arch dam in the foothills
Rather than a simple earthen impoundment, Devotion's dam is a curved masonry arch that carries the water's thrust outward into the rock of the gorge. Dick Reynolds hired serving Army Corps of Engineers officers to design it, and local crews built it, with a stone crest walkway across the top and a stepped spillway falling away below.
Family accounts hold that the design work at Devotion was studied as a prototype for later, far larger arch-dam projects in the American West — a claim worth stating as family history rather than as engineering record.
One system, many uses
The same water did several jobs. Impounded, it made a lake for pleasure as well as power. Released, it drove the generator in the powerhouse. Diverted, it ran by gravity through the trout hatchery's screened concrete raceways before returning to the Mitchell River. A waterwheel at Long Creek Lodge did smaller work closer to home.
Because the estate generated its own current, Devotion had electric light, refrigerated dairy production, and powered machine shops well before rural electrification reached the surrounding countryside.