Arrowrock Dam

The height record ended sooner than the sign's 1934: a Swiss dam passed it in 1924 by most accounts, and the Park Service gives the honor to Oregon's Owyhee Dam in 1932. What lasted was method. Frank Crowe's cableway for pouring concrete was first used here and later built Hoover Dam. The government laid its first public railroad up the canyon to supply a camp of 1,400 people, and daily service ended on dedication day, October 4, 1915. Its sand-cement face weathered badly, and between 1935 and 1937 the dam was resurfaced and raised five feet.

What the plaque says

Arrowrock Dam Higher than any other dam from 1915 until 1934, Arrowrock still is an essential part of Boise Valley's irrigation system. Located six miles upstream from here, Arrowrock is 350 feet high and 1,150 feet wide. Built at a cost of $4,725,000 to provide additional water storage to get 2,635 valley farms through dry summer seasons, it had enough extra capacity to take care of more than 1,000 new farms as well. Its 18-mile canyon reservoir holds 280,000 acre feet of water. 376 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Idaho Penitentiary — 8.2 mi
  A territorial prison that ran for 101 years on conditions that barely changed, and closed the year its prisoners burned it.
• Idaho State Capitol — 10 mi
  Walls hauled from the prison quarry, heat pumped from 3,000 feet down, and its newest rooms built underground.
• Basque Block — 10 mi
  A merchant's 1864 brick house became the boardinghouse where herders from the Basque Country found beds, meals and their own language.
• World Center for Birds of Prey — 14 mi
  The hilltop where the peregrine falcon was bred back from DDT, and where condors for the Grand Canyon country still hatch.

More markers nearby

• More's Creek — steps away
• The Old Toll Road — 2.5 mi
• Beaver Dick's Ferry — 5.7 mi
• The Oregon Trail — 5.7 mi