The Kohanza Reservoir was a reservoir in

Danbury Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2022 was 87,642. It is the seventh largest city in Connecticut. Danbury is nicknamed the "Hat City ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

. Construction was completed in 1866. It was the first of many

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

s built to supply Danbury's hat factories. The dam broke on January 31, 1869. The ensuing

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

of ice and water killed 11 people in half an hour, and caused major damage to many homes and farms, as well as uprooting trees and moving boulders.(3 February 1869)
The Danbury Disaster
''

The New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. His ...

'', p. 4., col. 1 The reservoir still exists in two smaller sections: Upper Kohanza Lake () and Lower Kohanza Lake ().

References

Reservoirs in Connecticut Geography of Danbury, Connecticut Lakes of Fairfield County, Connecticut {{Connecticut-geo-stub