Local fishermen reflect as removal of Weir Dam on Whitewater River finishes
RICHMOND, Ind. — Philip Boomershine is one of many Richmond residents who fished at the Weir Dam ever since he was a child, back in the 1960s.
Last Wednesday, Oct. 4, he was at the site of the dam to see the city well underway into its demolishing of the 110-year-old structure.
Boomershine fished numerous times at the dam before leaving to join the military for 20 years. Once his service ended, he could again be seen with a fishing rod in hand at the location, knowing full well he would get a bite.
"I've fished here many, many times for many, many years. This is one of the spots they came to you and you could pretty much guarantee you catch something," he said. "It was enjoyable to sit out here and a lot of people spent the night out here."
Boomershine said he wasn't upset at all about the dam's removal, saying it served its purpose back in the day, but was now old and needed to be either repaired or replaced.
"A lot of people are upset because of losing that fishing, but it's still going to be here. It's just going to get a little harder to work," he said. "It's progress and Richmond needed this done for a long time. You can't blame the mayor, can't blame the president like people are doing. It's a good project. We need a lot of work done in areas like this here and this is a good start."
Nathan Centers, 36 years old and another resident of Richmond for nearly his whole life, said that he has memories of fishing at the location 20 to 30 times every summer and sometimes into fall. He said the removal is "a big heartfelt thing" for him.
"Growing up, this is one of the few places for people to be able to come to that were not able to really go downriver or upriver to fish to just come and publicly fish," Centers said. "It was a great spot to be able to come and fish just to blow off steam and relax a little bit."
Centers said that he visited the site Wednesday because he wanted to see what it looked like as it was being taken apart.
"It is kind of heart-wrenching to see that," he said. "The fishing spots that we had set up when I was younger up till this day was basically destroyed. But in the same sense, I understand because they want to get nature back to how it was before man interrupted it."
Despite the fact that he was sad to see it go, Centers said he was all about nature and was glad to see it being restored to how it was over a century ago.
Anglers made their way to the location on the Whitewater River even as removal of the dam was taking place, with Boomershine saying that he had seen someone fishing just that Monday.
"We've all been trying to get that last bit," he said.
The city of Richmond began the process to remove Weir Dam back in 2021 once it received funding, but it only started deconstruction of the dam Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023.
On July 2, 1918, the city council unanimously voted to appropriate $55,000 (about $1.2 million in today's dollars) for the building of the dam across Whitewater River.
Plans to build the Weir Dam began around April 1913 after the one before it, built around 1905, was destroyed in the Great Flood of 1913, as well as the temporary one the city built during the flood to unsuccessfully control the water level.
This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: Local anglers reflect as removal of Weir Dam on Whitewater River ends
