Lake Whitney is a flood control reservoir on the main stem of the Brazos River in Texas. It is located on River Mile Marker 442 and controls drainage for of Texas and parts of New Mexico. The reservoir encompasses a surface area of more than 23,500 acres and of shoreline. The area consists of rolling, tallgrass prairies; cedar trees; hardwood timber; and bluffs and rock points. Lake Whitney is also part of the Texas Lakes Trail Region of North Texas. Whitney Dam is a concrete gravity and rolled-earth dam, 166 feet high, owned and operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. History Before the presence of the lake, the Brazos River Valley provided a hospitable landscape for human occupation for centuries. Archeologists have unearthed prehistoric sites dating back to well over 12,000 years ago. Throughout the early 1800s, Commanche, Taovaya, Caddo, and Hainai peoples settled along banks of the Brazos in this area. The most prominent group, the Hainai, migrated from Louisiana in 1835. Anglo-American traders and soldiers referred to their settlement as Towash Village, for the name of the Hainai's chief. The arrival of substantial numbers of Anglo-American settlers in 1850 displaced the Hainai's village and were forced to move further upstream. The White pioneers apparently established a settlement, which they called Towash, at the site of the former Native American community. Texas experienced a number of devastating floods in 1913 and 1921 resulting in death and destruction due to rivers overflowing from heavy rainfalls. As a result, in the 1930s the US government began approving and authorizing the building of dams along Texas rivers with the intention to absorb these floodwaters. The plan to create the Whitney Reservoir on the Brazos River for flood control and other purposes, such as hydro-electric power development, was originally approved and authorized by Congress in 1941. However, when the US became involved in World War II, the funding was diverted to the war effort. Construction of the dam resumed in the Flood Control Act of 1944. The construction of the dam started in May 1947 and the Brazos River was impounded in December 1951. The construction of the dam's powerhouse began in April 1951 and was completed in June 1953. After a record-breaking drought in Texas during the 1950s, there was an emphasis on reservoirs serving a secondary purpose as water storage facilities for Texas residents, communities, businesses, agriculture, and