According to local historian Dorothy Regnery's notes from her 1966 interview with Edgar H. Batchelder, who was 2 years old when his father became caretaker of Searsville Dam in 1897, "When the dam was 'wasting', or overflowing in the winter, salmon would swim upstream as far as the base of the dam.
In line with local historian Dorothy Regnery's notes from her 1966 interview with Edgar H. Batchelder, who was two years old when his father took over as caretaker of Searsville Dam in 1897, "When the dam leaked or overflowed during winter, salmon would swim upstream to the base of the dam.