Lake O' the Pines

Lake O’ the Pines is a reservoir on Big Cypress Bayou, also known as Big Cypress Creek, chiefly in Marion County, Texas, USA. The reservoir also occupies a small part of Upshur and Morris Counties. The dam is located approximately west of Jefferson.

History

Lake O’ the Pines (formerly known as "Ferrell's Bridge Reservoir") was created by the construction of the Ferrells Bridge Dam on the Big Cypress Bayou approximately upstream from the bayou's confluence with the Red River. The reservoir was created as part of the overall plan for flood control in the Red River Basin below Denison Dam in Oklahoma. The project was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1946. Additional purposes of wildlife conservation, recreation, and water supply were added during construction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the dam was in January 1955 and the dam was completed on December 11, 1959.

Dam and reservoir

The concrete-and-earthfill dam is long. The crest of the spillway is above mean sea level. The conservation storage capacity is 250,000 acre-feet (308.4 million m³) with a surface area of . The bayou has a length of and a total drainage area of . The lake’s normal conservation pool is above mean sea level. The lake provides water supply storage for the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District which serves the cities of Jefferson, Ore City, Lone Star, Avinger, Hughes Springs, Daingerfield, and most recently Longview. The water supply storage exists in the conservation pool between elevations 201–230 feet. Water intake structures are located at various points on the lake and one downstream of the lake. Discharges from the two gates in the control structure located on the southeast end vary from a minimum of 5 cubic feet per second (0.14 m³/sec) to a maximum of 3000 cfs (85 m³/sec).

External links

• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Lake O’ the Pines
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Corps Lake Gateway: Lake O’ the Pines
• Recreation.gov: Ferrells Bridge Dam Lake O’ the Pines
• GORP: Parks: Lake O’ the Pines – (Ferrells Bridge Dam) – Texas Corps Projects
• Longview Yacht Club
• "Poet o' the Pines" Milton Watts - Writer/Poet and Lake o' the Pines area resident