Section 1 of 4
A town that sited itself on a fall
Lake Waukewan lies roughly sixty feet above Meredith Bay and drains into it over a short, steep run. That drop is the founding condition of the town: enough head of water to turn a wheel, close enough to a navigable lake to ship what the wheel made. The gate, the race and the wheel pit that controlled it are still in the ground, and they record the original engineering more precisely than any deed.
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01
A town that sited itself on a fall, then sold the lake
Meredith grew where water dropped from Lake Waukewan to the bay, and everything about the centre follows from that drop.
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02
Lake Waukewan, held above the village
A lake sitting above a town is a stored head of water, which is what made the site worth building on.
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03
The fall, the gate and the wheel pit
The surviving stonework records exactly how the drop was controlled and used.
