Texas Highland Lakes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Texas Highland Lakes is a chain of 6 man-made lakes in Central Texas formed by several dams on the Colorado River as it winds southeast from its headwaters near the border of Texas and New Mexico to Matagorda Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The dams provide flood control and are used to generate hydroelectric power.
The lakes and dams are (from West to East):
- Buchanan Dam - Lake Buchanan
- Inks Dam - Inks Lake
- Wirtz Dam - Lake LBJ
- Max Starcke Dam - Lake Marble Falls
- Mansfield Dam - Lake Travis
- Tom Miller Dam - Lake Austin
The Colorado River, which had a history of major flooding, especially in the City of Austin, was "tamed" by the construction of the dams in the Texas Hill Country. Engineers used the hills to form the lakes' basins.
All of the dams were constructed by the Lower Colorado River Authority during the 1930s and 1940s, following two unsuccessful attempts to construct a dam upstream from Austin.
The City of Austin then constructed Longhorn Dam and formed a seventh lake in the chain, Lady Bird Lake, in 1960 largely to help beautify the city and to form a cooling pond for its natural gas-burning power plant just north of the river.
