Historical Marker · No. 398
Magic Dam
Lincoln County · Idaho
The sign's measurements describe only part of the structure. The main earthen embankment stands about 128 feet high and runs some 3,100 feet across the Big Wood River, and at full pool the water behind it covers roughly 3,740 acres, backing six miles up the Big Wood and two and a half up Camas Creek. It holds up to 195,000 acre-feet. A dam built to water farms now also turns three turbines with a combined capacity of 9,000 kilowatts, and the Big Wood Canal Company still decides when the gates open.
What the plaque says
Magic Dam Completed in 1910 at a cost of $3,000,000, Magic Dam stores water for 89,000 acres of irrigated farms near Shoshone and Richfield. Rising 129 feet high, it is 700 feet wide. An adjacent 1600-foot embankment with a concrete spillway helps retain more than 190,000 acre feet of spring floodwater for summer use downstream. A four-mile desert road reaches Magic Dam, which provides fishing and recreational opportunities in a broad valley northwest of here. 398 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department
Where it stands
43.17778, -114.32887 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Magic Reservoir — 12 mi
- Shoshone Historic District — 18 mi
- Wood River Mines — 21 mi