After Bantam refused water rights to the City of Waterbury, Robert A. Cairns [1859-1937], Waterbury’s city engineer, turned to the Shepaug watershed in Woodville. He was granted permission by the CT State Legislature and in 1933 the dam was completed. Besides providing water for the City of Waterbury, the dammed river covered the Petersville section of Warren with its store, post office and houses and flooded homesteads along both sides of the river to the Cornwall line and beyond.
Cairns considered the development of the waterworks system in the Litchfield Hills his greatest accomplishment.
