Lahontan Dam

Lahontan Dam and Power Station
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Nevada Historical Marker No. 215
The Lahontan Dam on the Carson River in the state of Nevada.
Lahontan Dam Lahontan Dam
Location	Churchill County, Nevada, USA
Nearest city	Fallon, Nevada
Coordinates	39°27′45″N 119°3′53″W
Built	1915
MPS	Newlands Reclamation TR
NRHP reference No.	81000381
MARKER No.	215
Added to NRHP	March 25, 1981

The Lahontan Dam is a dam situated on the Carson River in the Carson Desert between Carson City, Nevada and Fallon, Nevada in the United States. Its impoundment is known as the Lahontan Reservoir or Lake Lahontan. It is currently operated by the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District.

The Lahontan Dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Newlands Project. It is an earthen structure, 162 ft (49 m) high by 1,700 ft (520 m) long and contains 733,000 cu yd (560,000 m³) of fill. When it was completed in 1915, it was the largest earth-fill dam in the United States. The reservoir receives water from an area of 1,450 sq mi (3,800 km²) and provides a storage capacity of 295,500 acre⋅ft (364,500 dam³) at spillway crest. An additional 23,900 acre⋅ft (29,500 dam³) can be stored by raising the gates, bringing the total capacity to 319,400 acre⋅ft (394,000 dam³).

The primary purpose of the dam is to impound water for irrigation use. The site also includes hydroelectric generators with a total capacity of 4,000 kilowatts.

History

Construction began as part of the Truckee-Carson Project in 1911 and Lahontan City, Nevada, a company town, was built for the workers. Water distribution for irrigation began in 1916 and in the same year the project was renamed to the Newlands Project.