Lake Somerville

The reservoir is a flood-control project first and a lake second. The Corps of Engineers began the dam in 1962 at an initial cost of $25 million, and impoundment started once it closed in 1967. The lake was formally dedicated on May 17, 1968. At normal level it covers 11,160 acres, with 85 miles of shoreline, but at peak flood pool it spreads over some 24,400 acres. The dam shields 9,000 acres along Yegua Creek and helps protect 887,000 acres of farmland along the Brazos, which is why it was built.

What the plaque says

Lake Somerville First shovel of earth for Somerville Dam was turned Sept. 22, 1962, by Lyndon Johnson, then vice president of United States. Dam was built to control flooding on Yegua Creek. In the 46 years prior to 1958, Yegua has flooded 43 times, costing lives, crops. Project was finished 1967. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 11 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 11 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 21 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 21 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.

More markers nearby

• Thomas J. Gary — 0.6 mi
• Somerville — 1.0 mi
• 1906 Reunion of Hood's Texas Brigade — 1.0 mi
• Site of the Somerville Harvey House — 1.0 mi