Brocks Gap Dam was first proposed in the 1920s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, at a cost in 1921 dollars of $1,889,895. The proposal was revived and updated after World War II and advanced in the late 1950s. The dam was to be part of a series of dams proposed by the Corps' Potomac River Basin Report, which envisioned an ambitious series of water storage and flood control dams throughout the Potomac River basin, responding to a perception of need for additional water and a threat of flooding. Brocks Gap is a water gap in Little North Mountain in Rockingham County, Virginia, just upstream from Cootes Store.