Frank Brown’s revolutionary design of the Bear Valley Dam made him famous
The Bear Valley 1884 Dam that created Big Bear Lake was the culmination of Frank Brown’s dream of creating an irrigation colony in the far west since leaving Connecticut in 1877. The single arched dam revolutionized dam building and made Frank Brown famous. The multiple arched dam built in 1912 with 10 arches became an engineering standby based on the 1884 dam.