Lewisville Lake
| Lewisville Lake | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Aerial view of Lewisville Lake and Dam | |
| Location | Denton County, North Texas |
| Coordinates | 33°04′09″N 96°57′52″W / 33.06917°N 96.96444°WCoordinates: 33°04′09″N 96°57′52″W / 33.06917°N 96.96444°W |
| Lake type | reservoir |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Surface area | 29,592 acres (11,975 ha) |
| Max. depth | 67 ft (20 m) |
| Surface elevation | 522 ft (159 m) |
Lewisville Lake is a reservoir located in North Texas (USA) on the Elm Fork of the Trinity River in Denton County near Lewisville. The lake is primarily used recreationally for boating and watercraft, however, it was built for flood control purposes and to serve as a water source for Dallas and its suburbs.
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[edit] History
Lewisville Lake is the second lake to impound the waters of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River in this area. The first lake, Lake Dallas, was constructed in the 1920s by the W.E. Callahan construction Company for the City of Dallas at a cost of $3 million. The dam, completed in 1927, was built near the village of Garza and named the Garza Dam. This dam was 10,890 feet (3,320 m) long with a 567-foot (173 m) long service spillway. Lake Dallas, with its 194,000-acre-foot (239,000,000 m3) capacity and forty-three miles of shoreline, served as the principal municipal water source for the city of Dallas for 31 years.[1]
In the 1940s, a need for increased water storage capacity and additional flood control became apparent. The United States Congress passed the River and Harbor Act of 1945 and called for additional construction in the Trinity River basin. The Corps began construction of a new lake in 1948 that would not only incorporate Lake Dallas, but also impound Hickory Creek to the West, and Stewart, Panther, Cottonwood, Doe Branch, Office, and Little Elm Creeks to the East.
In 1951, members of the United States Army Corps of Engineers stumbled upon an archaeological site near Lewisville Lake.[2] In 1956, Wilson W. Crook, Jr. and R.K. Harris announced that Carbon-14(14C) testing on artifacts from the site, including a Paleo-Indian Clovis projectile point, indicated that humans had lived there c. 36,000 BP.[3][4] This led to much controversy in the archaeological community.[5][6]
The 33,000-foot (10,000 m) long Lewisville Dam was completed in 1955 at a cost of $21 million, and the old Garza Dam at Lake Dallas was breached in 1957 creating the new lake, known then as Garza-Little Elm Reservoir. This new lake had one hundred eighty-three miles of shoreline and a 436,000-acre-foot (538,000,000 m3) capacity.[7]
It was not until 1978 that the water levels of the lake would go down far enough to access the site once again. Between 1978 and 1980, Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institute performed a more thorough analysis of the site. He concluded that the original dating was probably due to a rare form of cross-contamination and that a date of c. 12,000 B.P. was probably more correct.[8][9] Still, the site is considered one of the earliest inhabited by humans in the Southwestern United States and Mexico.[10]
The breaching of the Garza Dam and incorporation of Lake Dallas into the Garza-Little Elm reservoir led to confusion concerning the lake's legal name. This was compounded by the Village of Garza renaming itself the City of Lake Dallas. The federal government attempted to rename the lake as Lewisville Reservoir in 1960 only to reverse itself in 1961. The confusion persisted until the mid-1970s when the lake was officially designated Lewisville Lake.[11]
[edit] About
It is generally murky with extremely low visibility. The water by the dam is clear with a visibility of 2 to 3 feet (~1 m).
The lake has many facilities for overnight camping and fishing—the black bass lake record was broken three times in 2006.
In 1991, the City of Denton installed a hydropower facility at Lewisville Dam. The single horizontal S-Shaped Kaplan unit is capable of producing 2893 kilowatts, and is connected to the grid via the Brazos River Distribution Authority.
[edit] Statistics
- Shoreline length: 183 miles (295 km)
- Date impounded: 1954
- Conservation pool elevation: 522 feet (159 m) msl
- Flood pool elevation: 532 feet (162 m) msl
- Top of Dam elevation: 537 feet (164 m)
- Operated by: United States Army Corps of Engineers
[edit] Recreation
The lake is very close to a large population base in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, so during the summer months, the lake can become extremely crowded. For a number of years Lewisville Lake was ranked the most dangerous lake in Texas due to the number of accidents and fatalities which occurred. Most of the fatalities are from individuals enjoying the day at the many parks around the lake and going too far out in the water. The number of actual boating accidents on the lake is fairly low. Adding to the danger for boats and other recreational watercraft, the lake contains numerous shallow areas with exposed and submerged trunks and other water hazards. Other recreation around the lake also includes a few areas for public hunting of water fowl and feral hogs (archery only).
On the lake, there are six marinas: Eagle Point Marina, Pier 121, Cottonwood Creek Marina, Dallas Cornthian Yacht Club, Lakeview Marina, Hidden Cove Marina, and two restaurant/bars.
The first large scale bass tournament was hosted at Lewisville Lake in 2005, The Bassmasters' Elite 50, Kevin VanDam took home 1st place and a check for $100,000. He also caught, at the time, the lake record bass at 11 pounds 13 ounces (5.4 kg).[12] The Woman's Bassmaster Tour's inaugural event was held in October 2005. The Tour returned in May 2006[13] and again in April 2008, with angler Kim Bain winning, taking home $51,000 in cash and prizes.[14]
[edit] Transportation
Six bridges currently cross the lake:
- The main bridge is on Interstate 35E, which crosses the lake on its western finger and is a notorious traffic bottleneck during rush hour.
- Another regularly used bridge is on the eastern finger of the Lake through Little Elm, connecting two halves of Farm to Market Road 720, locally known as Eldorado Parkway. It is the only two-lane bridge crossing the lake.
- US 380 crosses the extreme northern end, requiring a short bridge.
- The Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge, opened on August 1, 2009, is a NTTA toll bridge connecting Little Elm via Eldorado Parkway and Interstate 35E near Swisher Road. It is located to the north of the original Garza Dam.
- Two bridges, part of a northern extension of Farm to Market Road 2499, opened in 2011 and cross the lake's extreme western ends.
Highland Village/Lewisville Lake Station is a commuter rail stop on the DCTA A-train. It connects downtown Denton with DART's Green Line in Carrollton.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Texas Handbook Online
- ^ Bloom 1979, p. 96.
- ^ Crook & Harris 1957, p. 68-70.
- ^ Crook & Harris 1958, p. 1.
- ^ Bloom 1979, p. 94.
- ^ Heizer & Brooks 1965, p. 155.
- ^ Army Corps of Engineers
- ^ Dixon 1999, p. 83-84.
- ^ Stanford 1982, pp. 208-209.
- ^ Menchaca 2001, p. 27.
- ^ Town Mall
- ^ "Kevin VanDam Wins Lewisville and Breaks Lake Record". http://www.nitro.com. http://www.nitro.com/pressroom/227-Kevin-VanDam-Wins-Lewisville-and-Breaks-Lake-Record.cfm.
- ^ "WBT returns to Lewisville". bassmaster.com. http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/wbt/news/story?page=tourn_06_WBT_TX_Lewisville_Lake_practice.
- ^ "Bassmaster WBT: Lewisville Lake". bassmaster.com. http://proxy.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/members/insider/bmmarchive/column?page=b_col_WBT_Lewisville_Lake_070808.
[edit] References
- Bloom, John (May 1979). Broyles, Jr., William. ed. "The Dallas Man". Texas Monthly (Indianapolis, Indiana: Emmis Communications) 7 (5): 84–85. http://books.google.com/books?id=Mi4EAAAAMBAJ. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- Crook, Wilson; Harris, R.K. (1957). "Hearths and Artifacts of Early Man Near Lewisville, TX". Journal of the Texas Archaeological Society (Texas Archaeological Society): 7–97.
- Crook, Wilson; Harris, R.K. (January 1958). "A Pleistocene Campsite Near Lewisville, Texas". American Antiquity (Society for American Archaeology) XXIII (3): 233–246. doi:10.2307/276304. ISSN 00027316. JSTOR 276304. http://www.jstor.org/stable/276304. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
- Dixon, James (1999). "Chapter 3: North America's Oldest Sites". Bones, Boats & Bison: Archeology and the First Colonization of Western North America. University of New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 45–90. ISBN 9780826321381. LCCN 99041913. http://books.google.com/books?id=3t2dLm-7GQ4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- Heizer, Robert; Brooks, Richard (May 1965). "Lewisville - Ancient Campsite or Wood Rat Houses?". Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (University of New Mexico) 21 (2): 155–165. ISSN 00384801. JSTOR 3629390. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3629390. Retrieved 2011-10-29.
- Menchaca, Martha (2001). "1 Racial Foundations". Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White roots of Mexican Americans. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292752542. http://books.google.com/books?id=iFn5bnx2OBcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-09-23.
- Stanford, Dennis (1982-09-14). Ubelaker, Douglas; Viola, Herman. eds. "A critical review of archaeological evidence relating to the antiquity of human occupation of the New World" (PDF). Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution) 30: 202–218. ISSN 0081-0223. http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/Anthropology/pdf_lo/SCtA-0030.pdf. Retrieved 2011-11-03. Lay summary – Texas Monthly (1979-05-01).
[edit] External links
- UNT - 1940 Map of Lake Dallas
- US Army Corps of Engineers
- Lewisville Lake from the Handbook of Texas Online
- Texas Parks and Wildlife Lake Info
