The Donner Lumber and Boom Company built the first dam across the Truckee River outlet in Tahoe City in 1872 to control water released from Lake Tahoe and direct the flow of logs to lumber mills downstream. Afterward, competing interests regularly clashed over the right to regulate water released into the Truckee River. In the early 1900s, the federal government tried to settle these long-standing disputes when Congress authorized the U.S. Reclamation Service, as part of the Newland Reclamation Project, to take control of the land around the outlet, build a new concrete dam, and regulate water flow. Annual changes in rainfall and water levels hindered these efforts. Heavy snowfall around the Tahoe basin in the winter of 1915-1916 raised the lake's water level the next summer and caused flooding, prompting many angry property owners to file lawsuits. In 1934, drought struck the area, and desperate farmers climbed the outlet dam with earthmoving equipment intending to cut the rim to save their crops.