Buchanan Dam

The congressman the dam honors was James Paul Buchanan, born in South Carolina in 1867 and raised in Washington County, Texas. A University of Texas law graduate, he was a district attorney and state legislator before winning the congressional seat Albert Sidney Burleson left in 1913, and he chaired the House Appropriations Committee until he died in February 1937; Lyndon B. Johnson took his seat. The dam is a multiple-arch and gravity structure 11,200 feet long and 145 feet high, and Lake Buchanan, thirty-one miles long, is the largest Texas lake by area.

What the plaque says

Buchanan Dam In 1931, the Central Texas Hydro-Electric Company planned to build a dam on the Colorado River on the county line of Burnet and Llano counties. However, in April 1932, the project went bankrupt and lay unfinished. State Senator Alvin Wirtz took the project, and, unable to secure private funding, turned to government. Wirtz secured the support of U.S. Representative and Chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee J.P. Buchanan by promising to name the dam after him. In 1934, House Bill No 1. of the 43rd Texas Legislature created the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), a conservation and reclamation district, in order to "control, store, preserve, use, distribute, and sell" the waters of the Colorado River. In the midst of the Great Depression, Buchanan Dam, often called the Hamilton Dam, and Inks Dam further downriver provided badly needed jobs to Burnet County residents. Locals lined up to receive one of the 1,800 new positions, mostly construction jobs paying 40 cents an hour. The salaries allowed families to maintain a better standard of living as well as supplement their farming income. In October 1937, the LCRA celebrated completion of the dam with a ceremony. Upstream flooding behind the Buchanan Dam, creating Lake Buchanan, had immediate effects on the community. Many long-term residents moved out of the path of the new lake. Around sixty graves interred in Old Bluffton Cemetery were re-interred in New Bluffton in Llano County. The lake's recreational potential brought new business and residents to Burnet and Llano, and fishing camps and vacation rentals were built near its shore. Since its inception, Buchanan Dam has brought numerous advantages to Burnet County. (2023)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Inks Lake State Park — 1.8 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 1.8 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 5.2 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Llano County Courthouse Square — 17 mi
  The 1893 Romanesque courthouse on Llano's square, built after a fire at the height of a boom that was meant to make the granite town an iron city.

More markers nearby

• C.S.A. Salt Works — 2.7 mi
• Granite Industry in Llano County — 2.7 mi
• Hoover's Valley Cemetery — 3.2 mi
• Longhorn Caverns — 5.2 mi