Built 1911 Area 51 ha Added to NRHP 23 November 1977 | NRHP Reference # 77001239 Opened 1911 Nearest city Belle Fourche | |
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Similar Rocky Point Recreatio, Sheridan Lake, Pactola Dam, Tri‑State Museum, Belle Fourche | ||
The Belle Fourche Dam, also known as Orman Dam, is a dam on Owl Creek in Butte County, South Dakota, USA, approximately eight miles east of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, along U.S. Route 212. Its construction created the Belle Fourche Reservoir, the Belle Fourche National Wildlife Refuge, and the Rocky Point Recreation Area.
Map of Belle Fourche Dam, Belle Fourche, SD 57717, USA
The reservoir has approximately eight thousand acres of water surface, 6700 acres of land, and 58 miles of shoreline. It's stocked with walleye, catfish, and white bass. Average depth is twenty-five feet, but it has areas as deep as sixty feet at full capacity. Common activities at BFR include boating, fishing, ice fishing, ice skating, camping, cooking out, water skiing and fossil hunting.
At its 1911 completion by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, Belle Fourche Dam was the largest earthen dam in the world. The dam is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1989 it was listed among the approximately 250 Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks.