Cloud Creek

Interest in flood control here began in the spring of 1934, when the Washita River flooded and killed seventeen people. Congress passed the Omnibus Flood Control Act in 1936, and the Flood Control Act of 1944 started small dams on eleven watersheds around the nation; the first finished under that law was on Cloud Creek. By 1977 the Washita and its sixty-four subwatersheds had more than 1,200 dams. At Cloud Creek's fiftieth anniversary speakers called for reinvestment, and in 2000 Representative Frank Lucas wrote a law authorizing $90 million over five years to rehabilitate watershed dams.

What the plaque says

Washita County Home of America's First Upstream Flood Control Dam Dedicated July 8, 1948 Rededicated July 3, 1998 Cloud Creek Dam No. 1 located 11 miles southeast of Cordell was the first of 1140 dams in the Washita River basin and the first of over 10,000 nationwide. It was built in partnership with the local community, the Washita County Conservation District and USDA Soil Conservation Service. These dams provide flood control, water supply, recreation, wildlife habitat and improved water quality to many communities. "The entire Washita flood control program is in itself a monument to the understanding and the energy of the people in Oklahoma who were among the first to take up the soil conservation program and who are leading the way in upstream watershed treatment for flood control." Hugh Hammond Bennett, Chief USDA Soil Conservation Service July 8, 1948 Oklahoma Historical Society 231-1998

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oklahoma Route 66 Museum — 15 mi
  The Oklahoma Historical Society's museum of the road in Clinton, decade by decade from the 1926 designation through the Dust Bowl and the war to the 1950s diner.
• Stafford Air & Space Museum — 25 mi
  Weatherford's museum for its astronaut son, Thomas P. Stafford, grown from an airport display case into 75,000 square feet of flight beside I-40 and old Route 66.
• Kiowa Tribal Museum — 25 mi
  The Kiowa Tribe's own museum at its Carnegie complex, where ten murals by Kiowa artists carry the people's story from before memory to the present day.
• Elk City Museum Complex — 27 mi
  Elk City's museums on old 66: the National Route 66 and Transportation Museum's drive through all eight states, a pioneer Old Town, a farm and ranch hall and a blacksmith shop.

More markers nearby

• Cordell Academy — 0.3 mi
• Red Bluff Community Church and School — 5.2 mi
• Tacola/Cloud Chief School — 8.7 mi
• Site of First Washita County Court House — 8.7 mi