Texas Highland Lakes
The
Texas Highland Lakes are a chain of man-made
lakes formed by several
dams on the
Texas Colorado River, which winds Southeast from its headwaters near the border of
Texas and
New Mexico through Central Texas to the
Gulf of Mexico.
The lakes and dams are:
The river, which had a history of major
flooding, especially in the City of
Austin, Texas, was "tamed" by the construction of the dams in the
Texas Hill Country. Engineers used the hills to form the lakes' basins. With the exception of Longhorn Dam, all of the dams were constructed by the
Lower Colorado River Authority during the
1930s and
1940s following two unsuccessful attempts to construct a dam upstream from Austin. The dams provided flood control and are used to generate
hydroelectric power.
The City of Austin constructed Longhorn Dam and formed Town Lake in 1960 largely to help beautify the city and to form a cooling pond for its natural gas-burning power plant just north of the river.