Lakes of the Area Tour

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Contrasting spectacularly with its surroundings, Lake Meredith lies on the dry and windswept High Plains of the Texas Panhandle in a region known as Llano Estacado, or Staked Plain. Lake Meredith was created by Sanford Dam on the Canadian River and now fills many breaks whose walls are crowned with white limestone caprock, scenic buttes, pinnacles, and red-brown, wind-eroded coves. Above lies the mesquite, prickly pear, yucca, and grasses of arid plains. And up the sheltered creek beds stand cottonwoods, soapberry, and sandbar willows. The National Park Service administers the recreation area under a cooperative agreement with Bureau of Reclamation. Lake Meredith serves the area as popular water recreation area.

Greenbelt Lake, formerly Greenbelt Reservoir, is in the Red River basin about four miles north of Clarendon in south central Donley County (at 35°00' N, 100°54' W). The reservoir, built at the convergence of Carrol and Kelly creeks with the Salt Fork of the Red River, is owned and operated by the Greenbelt Municipal and Industrial Water Authority to supply water for municipal and industrial use. Adams Construction Company started work on the 5,800-foot-long rolled earthfill dam on April 12, 1966; the dam was closed and water impoundment began on December 5. By 1968 the lake was on the verge of inundating the original townsite of Old Clarendon, prompting the removal of the old cemetery and other remnants of "Saints' Roost." The reservoir has a capacity of 59,110 acre-feet with a surface area of 1,990 acres at the service spillway elevation of 2,664 feet above mean sea level, and a capacity of 81,760 acre-feet with a surface area of 2,470 acres at the emergency spillway crest elevation of 2,674 feet above mean sea level. The drainage area above the dam is 288 square miles.

Logan is pleased to welcome you to the shores of Ute Lake. The idea for this project was conceived by the local people who foresaw the time when Ute Lake would be essential for the growth and welfare of Logan, Quay County and New Mexico. As a result of their efforts, the project became a reality. Ute Dam, completed in 1963, is owned and operated by the NM Interstate Stream Commission (NMISC).
Ute Dam is the overall largest Labyrinth Weir Spillway facility in the free world and the largest built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation with a design discharge capacity of 550,000 cubic feet per second.

Lake Tanglewood is on Lake Tanglewood, which was impounded by a dam on Palo Duro Creek in northeastern Randall County. The private, residential, year-round resort began in the early 1960s as part of a restricted land development corporation, Lake Tanglewood, Incorporated, which leased land from the Curry Ranch properties. The community incorporated in June 1971, perhaps spurred by talk of a trailer park to be developed there. Aldermen, a town marshal, and a constable were elected, and a volunteer fire department was started. In 1974 a nondenominational community church was completed. The town hall and clubhouse had previously been used for Sunday services. By 1984 Lake Tanglewood had a population of 485 and was the third largest town in Randall County. In 1990 the population was 637.

MACKENZIE RESERVOIR. Mackenzie Reservoir, on State Highway 207 in western Briscoe County and eastern Swisher County, was impounded in the 1970s when a dam was completed in south Tule Creek canyon. In 1965 the Mackenzie Municipal Water Authority was approved by the state legislature for the purpose of building a dam to provide water for the cities of Silverton, Tulia, Floydada, and Lockney. Clayton Keller of Tulia was made business manager, and a contract was awarded to the Gilvin-Terrell Construction firm of Amarillo. In 1972 the project was begun, just east of the site of the slaughter of the Indian ponies by Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie's Fourth Cavalry in 1874. During construction, archeologists from West Texas State University (later West Texas A&M University) explored the lakesite under an emergency grant from the office of Governor Dolph Briscoe. They excavated more than seventy sites where humans had lived 10,000 years ago. In 1974 the dam was finished at a cost of $2,600,000. It is 2,300 feet long, 20 feet thick at the top, and rises 166 feet over the riverbed. At the time of its construction it was the tallest earthen dam in the country not built by federal funds. The wetted and rolled embankment contains 3,657,000 cubic feet. The dam has three outlets: a thirty-inch pipe to connect and service the four cities; a sprinkler system; and an eighteen-inch pipe to release water downstream when the Texas Water Rights Commission (later the Texas Water Commission), which granted approval for the dam's construction, so requests. In the early 1990s the lake had a conservation surface area of 910 acres and a storage capacity of 46,250 acre-feet at the service spillway and some 56,000 at the emergency spillway. In May 1976 a 2,386-acre park owned by the Mackenzie Municipal Water Authority was opened to the public for fishing and camping. Several boat ramps, campsites, and hookups were provided in the park, which was run by a concessionaire. In addition, several lots were leased for lakeside homes. In the 1990s the lake was still a popular site for camping, swimming, picnicking, and fishing. The only quartz quarry in this part of the United States is near the reservoir.

Completed in 1994, Lake Alan Henry is the Authority's newest water supply project. John T. Montford Dam is located on the South Fork of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River in Garza County, more than a thousand river miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Lake Alan Henry is committed as a long-term future source of water for the City of Lubbock.

Conchas Dam is located at the confluence of the Canadian and Conchas Rivers. Prehistoric and historic peoples used these east flowing rivers as routes between the Rio Grande and the Plains for ten thousand years. From the PaleoIndian hunters of the mammoth and bison to the Spanish and Mexican expeditions of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries, explorers and traders crossed the area.