River/Stream: Cedar River
Location: southeast of Cedar Rapids, Linn County
Latitude: 41.901359/div>
Longitude: -91.507002
Built: 1936
Owner: Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Height: originally 8 feet
Length: 780 feet
Hazards: drownings, debris, usage, other
Warning Signs: standard signs are up
Portage: Pull out on the sandbar on the river left and portage across the rocks and dry section of the dam, putting in at the sandbar below the rapids.
Comments: state park; highly deteriorated. Although to experienced paddlers they look like runnable, solid class II rapids with some potentially sticky holes, pieces of steel that once reinforced the concrete dam below the surface can pierce a boat's hull and/or entrap a swimming paddler.
Fatalities 7
- July 20, 2019 - Jairo Mejia Jimenez, went underwater while swimming near the dam
- July 7, 2019 - Ricky Lee Veenstra, fell from jon boat at spillway, was not wearing a PFD
- July 8, 2002 - Norman Kauffman & Merwyn Schlabach, wading
- August 2, 1986 - Douglas Timmerman, swimming
- May 20, 1962 - Gary Nolte, fell from dam while netting fish for a group of children
- December 28, 1936 - Clifton Cavanaugh, attempted to span spillway with ladder and lost balance
Photos by David Leskowicz
