THE FIRST DAM OF TURKISH REPUBLIC: ÇUBUK DAM (1929-1936)

From the most ancient times people have been building weirs and dam lakes on rivers to accumulate water on the purpose of drinking water, irrigation and so on, and these kinds of works are still going on. The first attempts on the use of water resources more efficiently and effectively in the Republic of Turkey began in the period of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the first built dam was the Dam of Çubuk. The aim of the dam was to resolve the growing water need of the rapidly growing population of Ankara after it was declared as the capital city, to use it for irrigation on the agricultural lands that feed the city, to prevent city’s flooding and to resolve the growing water need of the developing industrial plants in the city. Following the preliminary study carried out in 1929, the dam construction began in May 1930 and it was completed in April 1936. The Dam of Çubuk was opened with an official ceremony attended by the Prime Minister İsmet İnönü on November 3rd, 1936. Later, a mansion was built on the slopes of the dam for Atatürk’s accommodation and it is known that Atatürk was having motor boating in the lake of the dam from time to time. When it was built on the river of Çubuk, it was 12 kilometers away from Ankara and height of the dam from the basis is 58 meters, and the capacity is 5.6 hecto cubic meters. In this paper, all kinds of subjects related with the Dam of Çubuk, which was a part of development and industrialization campaign in the first years of Republic, from making its tender to construction of link roads, from bringing some construction parts of it from abroad to opening ceremony, from building social facilities to designing the environment will be evaluated on the basis of the documents that are in the Prime Ministry Republic Archives and the news in the press and a general portray about the dam will be tried to be drawn.