Lahontan Dam facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Lahontan Dam and Power Station
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The Lahontan Dam on the Carson River in the state of Nevada.
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 Lahontan Dam
Location in Nevada
Lahontan Dam
Location in the United States
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| Location |  Churchill County, Nevada, USA |
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| Nearest city | Fallon, Nevada |
| Built | 1915 |
| MPS | Newlands Reclamation TR |
| NRHP reference No. | 81000381 |
| Added to NRHP | March 25, 1981 |
The Lahontan Dam is a large dam built on the Carson River in Nevada, United States. It creates a big lake called Lahontan Reservoir. This dam helps control water for farms and also makes electricity. It's an important part of the Newlands Project, which brought water to dry lands in Nevada.
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What is the Lahontan Dam?
The Lahontan Dam is located in the Carson Desert, between Carson City and Fallon, Nevada. It holds back the water of the Carson River, forming the Lahontan Reservoir. The dam is currently managed by the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District.
Building a Giant Dam
The Lahontan Dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation, a government agency. It is an earth-fill dam, meaning it's made mostly of packed earth and rock. The dam stands about 162 feet (49 meters) high and stretches 1,700 feet (518 meters) long. It contains a huge amount of material, about 733,000 cubic yards (560,000 cubic meters) of fill.
When it was finished in 1915, the Lahontan Dam was the largest earth-fill dam in the entire United States. It was a big engineering achievement for its time!
Why Was It Built?
The main reason for building the Lahontan Dam was to store water for irrigation. This means providing water to help crops grow in dry areas. The reservoir can hold a lot of water, about 295,500 acre-feet (364 million cubic meters). An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover one acre of land with water one foot deep.
Besides irrigation, the dam also has special machines called hydroelectric generators. These generators use the flowing water to create electricity. They can produce up to 4,000 kilowatts of power.
A Look Back: The Dam's History
Construction of the Lahontan Dam began in 1911 as part of the Truckee-Carson Project. To house the many workers building the dam, a special town called Lahontan City, Nevada was built nearby. This was a "company town," meaning it was created and owned by the company managing the project.
By 1916, the dam was ready to start distributing water for irrigation. In the same year, the entire project was renamed the Newlands Project. This name honored Francis G. Newlands, a senator who helped create the law that funded such water projects.
