W. R. Holway, a notable engineer and lifelong Unitarian, served as the co-founder.
The board, in turn, hired J. H. Trammell to perform as the engineering contractor to plan the Spavinaw project, with W. R. Holway as his assistant.
They had decided to build a reservoir on Spavinaw Creek, a tributary of the Verdigris River, over fifty miles northeast of Tulsa.
•
In 1918, W. R. became a city waterworks engineer for Tulsa, in charge of a water treatment plant that filtered silt from the Arkansas River water that was then distributed for residential use.
Eventually, on September 18, 1937, with the help of Oklahoma Representative Wesley E. Disney, Senator Elmer Thomas and engineer W. R. Holway, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved $20 million in funding through the New Deal's Public Works Administration for the dam.