The Echo Park Lake Dam is back in the spotlight after being forgotten for many decades. The last time the dam, which is buried near the south end of Echo Park Lake, actually made news was in 1891. Back then, the city’s health inspector expressed concern that the dam could fail, sending a wall of water down the Arroyo de los Reyes, or what is now roughly the path of Glendale Boulevard.
“The existence of this reservoir at its present site I consider a menace to the life of everyone living along the Arroyo de los Reyes,” according to his statement in the council’s minutes. “I have seen this reservoir so full during the rainy season that I feared the bank would give way.”
A few months later, the city agreed not to raise the water level behind what was then Reservoir No. 4 as part of a deal to turn it into a city park.
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