Swan Falls Dam

Swan Falls Dam
Location	Ada / Owyhee counties, Idaho
Coordinates	43°14′36″N 116°22′46″W
Opening date	1901
Operator(s)	Idaho Power Company
Dam and spillways
Impounds	Snake River
Height	107 feet (33 m)
Length	1,150 feet (350 m)
Reservoir
Total capacity	7,425 acre-feet (9,159,000 m3)
Catchment area	41,900 sq mi (108,520 km²)
Surface area	1,525 acres (6.17 km²)
Swan Falls Dam and Power Plant
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Area	2 acres (0.81 ha)
Built	1900
Architect	Wiley, A.J.
NRHP reference No.	76000667
Added to NRHP	July 06, 1976

Swan Falls Dam is a concrete gravity type hydroelectric dam on the Snake River, in the U.S. state of Idaho. It is located near Murphy, Idaho.

The dam was built in 1901 to generate electricity. It is the oldest hydroelectric dam on the Snake River. In the 1990s the original power plant was replaced with a new one. The dam was built with fish passage facilities, but they proved to be very poor in performance. For this reason, among others, the C. J. Strike Dam, built upriver from Swan Falls Dam in the early 1950s, was not equipped with fish passage facilities. Thus the two dams combined to become the first artificial barrier to anadromous fish migration up the Snake River. Today Hells Canyon Dam is the first total barrier to fish migration on the Snake.

The dam and its reservoir lie within the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. The dam and power plant were listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

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  1904
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  Swan Falls Dam at sunrise

See also

• List of dams in the Columbia River watershed

Further reading

• Swan Falls Dam
• Snake River Hydroelectric Plants
• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. ID-20, "Swan Falls Dam, Snake River, Kuna vicinity, Owyhee County, ID"