https://garylayton.smugmug.com/Farm-Hahira/Pond-pictures-test-for-PondBoss/n-28nhKd/That dam inspection card was our first clue that we have something unique...no one in our family ever heard of a "gin pond". Yet it is officially named as one and is the ONLY "Gin Pond" in the National Inventory of Dams. There are over 92,000 dams that are catalogued and ours is the only "Gin Pond". Somewhere along the historical line, it was known to be a gin pond...officially "Boyette Gin Pond"...but we never called it that.
After Grandaddy logged the upstream area, he then added height to a road that was downstream of the Gin Pond. We assume the stream went under (or across??) the road. We still have access to the culverts that had removable boards so that he could control the water level in the pond. By making the road the new dam, the original dam (a "pre-Civil War dam" according to the National Inventory of Dams info page about our pond) became part of the new pond.
Every few years these folks...
'Environmental Compliance Specialist / EPD: Safe Dams Unit"...come to our ponds and inspect the dams. So far, so good.
I have attached the card that a wonderful employee there took the time, during the Pandemic, to track down the handwritten notes about our pond. This card put me on a path that has led to me understanding why we have a "Gin Pond" (the only one of over 90,000 dams the National Inventory of Dams keep track of) and how it came to be in our family. Lots of details, too much for this thread.
When you search Google for "Boyette Gin Pond" it takes you here:
https://nationaldams.com/dams/boyette-gin-pond-upper-dam-396r7g3and here:
https://nid.usace.army.mil/#/dams/search/sy=@name:gin%20pond&viewType=map&resultsType=dams&advanced=false&hideList=false&eventSystem=false
Here is the email from the Georgia EPD employee that helped us start figuring out what we had -- a lot to unpack. May be too much to read for folks:
"Good afternoon,
Glad to hear that you and your son are taking good care of your farm. I have updated our records to reflect you as the owner and made sure the information you provided matched what was in our system.
I was looking over what I have on the dam electronically and I do see a note in the system that says “This pond provided power for a cotton gin. The original dam was probably built before the Civil War. It is now breached and Boyette Road is the dam.” No one signed the note however so I’m not sure where this came from other than it was most likely written by a previous classifier that has since retired. I am away from the office at the moment but as soon as I am back there I will pull the physical file and see if there’s any leads to the history of the dam. It looks like the dam was originally classified by our office in 1983, so it’s unlikely I will have any records prior to that date, but I’ll check and see what I can find. The earliest aerial images that I have show Boyette Rd as the dam by January of 1993. You may also want to check out the USGS’s topographic maps database. It’s free to access online and their database starts for Georgia around 1880, though I think the earliest records they have available for south of Atlanta are from the 1950’s. Still, if you’re looking for leads on the history of the area it may be an interesting place to look. The link for their website is
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/I’ll let you know if I find anything, in the meantime, good luck!
Sincerely,
Kenzie Bradshaw
Environmental Compliance Specialist
EPD: Safe Dams Unit"
It is amazing to me that Ms. Bradshaw followed thru on my request for any info as to why they had us listed as a "gin pond." I am very grateful to her for taking the time to track down that inspection card and send me a picture of it. I attached the card again to this post.