Hartford Courant, November 18, 1919
LAKE RAPIDLY FORMING
BEHIND STEVENSON DAM
Water Stands 60 feet high
behind gigantic concrete structure.
(Special to the Courant, Stevenson, Nov. 17)
Seven miles of the River Road between Southbury and Oxford are under water tonight and the place that was once Riverside, Connecticut is at the bottom of a rapidly-forming lake.
The gates of the massive dam of the Connecticut Light and Power Company were closed early Sunday morning and the volume of the Housatonic River was so great that the water stands sixty feet high tonight directly behind the dam. More than 4,000 cubic feet per second are being emptied into the new lake, which is to extend back ten miles in the valley.
The old Zoar Bridge, connecting Oxford and Monroe, was dropped to the bottom of the lake by the burning away of the cables, and houses that have accommodated hundreds of laborers were burned.
Selectmen of Oxford, Southbury, Monroe and Newtown were notified Saturday that the dam was to be closed, with the result that eleven roads intersected by the flow line of the lake were closed at the proposed water's edge with heavy barriers, to prevent accidents.