If you are driving the “crest road” across Gavins Point Dam north of Crofton, Neb., headed into South Dakota just west of Yankton, you have Nebraska’s second largest reservoir, Lewis and Clark Lake, on one side. On the other side, you can see the spillway of the dam and the tailwaters as they flow through the dam’s turbines, producing electricity for the regional electric grid.

This earthen dam, built from 1952 to 1956 as a part of the Flood Control Act of 1944 — commonly known as the Pick-Sloan Plan on the Missouri — is just one in a system of six federal dams built upstream on the Missouri River, aimed at reducing flooding and offering recreation.

Gavins Point consists of an earthen embankment, a powerhouse and 14 gates — each measuring 40 feet by 30 feet — on a concrete-lined spillway.

Power and flood control

Although the dam remains relatively quiet most of the time, generating power with large turbines, it is most assuredly not quiet when floodwaters rage on the river. Most recently, in 2011 and 2019, along with numerous other instances since the dam was completed, water was held back into Lewis and Clark Lake and subsequent lakes up the Missouri in an effort to prevent flooding downstream.

Although the dam normally releases about 36,000 cubic feet of water per second through the powerhouse, at its height of releases during the floods of 2011, as much as 160,700 cubic feet raged through the spillway gates.

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RECREATION OPPORTUNITIES: The Gavins Point Dam area, pictured here from the Nebraska tailwaters, is popular for paddlefish during the season, along with other fishing, camping, hiking, boating and recreational opportunities on land managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on Lewis and Clark Lake through the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks recreation areas.

The dam backs up Lewis and Clark Lake, a recreational destination that attracts over 2 million visitors to recreation facilities in Nebraska and South Dakota. Lake Yankton, a smaller lake on the opposite side of the dam and on the north side of the river, also is a recreation location near the spillway.

Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, there is public camping spot provided above and below the dam. Recreation trails are developed on both sides of the lake and dam, and a visitor center sits atop a chalkstone bluff just above the dam powerhouse on the Nebraska side.

Fishing, cross-country skiing and boating are typical recreational opportunities around the dam and lake. It also is a prime viewing spot for bald eagles that inhabit the trees above open waters near the spillway all winter long.

Learn more about Gavins Point Dam at nwo.usace.army.mil/Missions/Dam-and-Lake-Projects/Missouri-River-Dams/Gavins-Point.