Winchester Dam and its ripple-free reservoir offer northbound motorists on Interstate 5 a glimpse of bucolic tranquility as they zip across a bridge and glance down at trees and homes on the reservoir banks.
The original town of Winchester, once the Douglas County seat, was moved many years ago on skids upriver to the current county seat of Roseburg, Ore. Constructed in 1890 of giant logs, dirt and gravel, the Winchester is Douglas County’s oldest existing dam. It has been strengthened and repaired over the years.
The dam’s builders envisioned making Winchester an industrial center, but the Panic of 1893 dashed those dreams. Instead, the dam produced drinking water and electricity for nearby Roseburg.
A procession of small utilities owned the dam until its purchase in 1923 by the Medford-based California Oregon Power Company, better known as COPCO, which operated it for nearly 40 years before merging with the Pacific Power & Light Co.
Since 1969, the Winchester Water Control District has maintained the dam and its recreational reservoir and has a fish-counting station on the north bank.
The National Register of Historic Places listed the dam in 1996.
Source: "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form." National Register of Historic Places. U.S. Department of the Interior, 2 May 1996. Web. 23 Dec. 2015.
