“Name that Year” is designed to put your knowledge of Tracy and its newsmakers of the past to the test. Each week, we will publish a news item that ran in a past edition — maybe it was a major event, or a story about a Tracy resident — it’s up to you to determine in what year that particular news item hit the pages of the paper: LIKE MAGIC — ALMOST — A NEW LAKE WAS CREATED AT WALNUT GROVE IN THIS YEAR.
At present, it has the somewhat unglamorous name of “Walnut Grove Reservoir,” according to Rolf Nackerud, a member of the local board for Plum Creek County Park.
However, the creation of the lake itself has enhanced what was already one of the most beautiful parks in this area and the only county park in Redwood County, Nackerud says.
The “magic” which created the lake, of course, is a huge 1,000-foot-wide earthen dam constructed last year across a tributary to Plum Creek southwest of Walnut Grove.
The dam is more than 50 feet tall and took nearly 100,000 cubic yards of fill to construct. Federal, state and Redwood County authorities cooperated to build it as a flood control project and also to provide recreational benefits to the park.
The lake backed up behind the dam is approximately 25 acres in size with depths ranging from 10 to 28 feet.
Nackerud said nearly seven square miles of farmland drain into the system. This spring, state conservation officials have already stocked the lake with northerns and next week are scheduled to deposit more fish here — perch, bass, sunfish and maybe a few catfish.
The original construction of the dam is complete, except for some leveling and seeding.
• Last week’s answer: Tracy became a one-grocery-store town the summer of 1998 when the downtown grocery store closed. Check out the Headlight Hotseat podcast every Saturday at noon!
