Morris Sheppard Dam and Possum Kingdom Lake

Sheppard Dam was the first project of the Brazos River Conservation and Reclamation District, and how it was paid for is the telling part. Of the $8,500,000 cost, $4,500,000 was a federal grant and $4,000,000 came from property taxes in ten counties of the lower Brazos watershed. Congress authorized it in 1935 and named it for Senator John Morris Sheppard. Work began May 29, 1938, and ended March 20, 1941. The Handbook gives 2,747 feet long and 189 high; the plaque says 2,740 and 190 and credits the WPA.

What the plaque says

Morris Sheppard Dam and Possum Kingdom Lake Built in response to disastrous Brazos River flooding, Morris Sheppard Dam and Possum Kingdom Reservoir were early attempts at water conservation and flood control in Texas. The U.S. Government funded $4,500,000 of the three-year, $8,500,000 project through the Works Progress Administration, a Depression era recovery agency. Named for U.S. Senator Morris Sheppard and completed in 1941, the dam is 2,740 feet long and 190 feet high. Nine spillway gates allow for the passage of flood waters and drift material. Power generating facilities consist of two 11,250-killowatt units which serve much of the surrounding area. The creation of Possum Kingdom Lake from the impounded waters of Morris Sheppard Dam sent bridges, roads and an entire town underwater. Recovery was initially slow, but quickly picked up after World War II with the establishment of major fishing lodges, camping areas and other recreational facilities. The growth and success of the area is a tribute to the spirit of the surrounding communities which continue to benefit from the project's original purposes of water conservation and supply, and hydroelectric power generation. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 19 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.
• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 23 mi
  A Cross Timbers park on the old Camp Wolters grounds, built around a 1922 water-supply lake for a spa town, with Penitentiary Hollow's rock climbing and a 20-mile trailway.
• Fort Belknap — 26 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 29 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.

More markers nearby

• Pickwick-McAdams Cemetery — 2.1 mi
• George Webb Slaughter — 7.6 mi
• Palo Pinto County — 9.6 mi
• Brad Cemetery — 10.0 mi