Lake Marvin is a small lake on Boggy Creek in the sand hills east of Canadian, built in the 1930s by the Panhandle Water Conservation Authority for soil conservation, flood control, recreation and wildlife. It holds about 553 acre-feet. The land around it is the Texas unit of the Black Kettle National Grassland, 576 acres of the grassland's 31,300; the rest lies across the line near Cheyenne, Oklahoma.
The lake is named for Marvin Jones, who practiced law in Amarillo before winning a seat in Congress in 1916. He joined the House Agriculture Committee in 1921 and chaired it from 1930 to 1940, through the Dust Bowl and the New Deal. He helped found the Farm Credit Administration and had a hand in the soil conservation and farm laws of those years, among them the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937, under which worn-out plains farms the government had bought were turned back to grass and later became the national grasslands. He left Congress for the Court of Claims in 1940, ran the War Food Administration from 1943 to 1945 and was chief judge of the court from 1947 to 1964. He died in Amarillo in 1976.
Today the lake is a quiet place to camp and fish. The Forest Service campground has twelve sites, with free tent camping and electric hookups at $20, a picnic site and a boat ramp, and bass, catfish and panfish when the water allows. The Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area lies just west on FM 2266.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour