White Rock Dam, Reservoir and Park
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early Dallas residents relied on natural springs, Artesian Wells and the Trinity River for their water. By the early 1900s, these sources began to prove inadequate for the growing city. In 1909, under Mayor Stephen J. Hay, the city began acquiring 2,292 acres of land to build a reservoir on White Rock Creek. The Fred A. Jones Co. began construction in January 1910, and the new dam and pump house were finished in 1911. Due to ongoing drought conditions, the lake did not fill until April 1914. Beginning in 1917, the city permitted fishing on the lake. Within 10 years, sailing and boating were popular activities. In 1929, the land around the lake became a city park. The next year, the city built a picnic shelter and tables, and the firm of Carsey and Linskie designed an Art Deco bathhouse and boathouse. The city also developed a sandy swimmers’ beach. Until 1935, the city administered a prison farm at the lake, and from 1935 to 1942, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CO. 2896) camp operated, building many facilities. During this time, the Works Progress Administration provided for many other improvements. In the 1930s and 1940s, more than a half million people visited the lake each summer. During World War II, the former CCC camp became a U.S. Army Air Corps center and the site of a camp for German prisoners of war. A drought in 1953 caused the city to ban swimming and temporarily use the lake as a water source. In 1958, the city passed an ordinance banning large outboard motors; this drove outboard enthusiasts to other lakes. The number of park visitors declined in the ensuing years, but revitalization efforts have led to increased park usage and a movement to preserve the park and its history. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As Dallas outgrew its springs, wells, and the Trinity River in the early 1900s, the city acquired thousands of acres and built a dam on White Rock Creek, completing the reservoir and pump house by 1911 though drought delayed a full lake until 1914. Over the following decades the shoreline became a beloved city park with an Art Deco bathhouse, a swimming beach, and facilities built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. During World War II the former CCC camp served as an Army Air Corps center and a camp for German prisoners of war.
Why it matters
White Rock illustrates how a growing Southwestern city secured its water supply and then reinvented the reservoir as a public recreation ground shaped by New Deal labor and wartime need.
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Related people
- · Stephen J. Hay
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
White Rock Pump Station
Dallas, TX
As Dallas's population surged and droughts strained its water supply in the early 1900s, the city engineering department designed and built this pump station in 1911 to draw on additional water. Its Renaissance Revival dress—corbelled brick and terra cotta—gave a utilitarian waterworks the dignity of a public building. Though its machinery has changed over the decades, the structure endures as a landmark of the city's water system.
DeGolyer House
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Everette Lee DeGolyer struck oil in Mexico while still a college student and went on to become one of the world's foremost petroleum geologists and a celebrated rare-book collector. In 1936 he and his wife Nell moved to Dallas and built this rambling Spanish Colonial Revival home above White Rock Lake, evocative of a Mexican hacienda and finished with fine craftsmanship. After the couple's deaths the estate passed to Southern Methodist University and the City of Dallas.
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