A small dam of lumber and rock was built at the outlet in 1870. Sources disagree on who built it, so we list both names below.
The present concrete dam was built between 1909 and 1913 to store irrigation water for the Newlands Project, which waters about 55,000 acres of farmland in Nevada.
It controls the top six feet of the lake and can raise it by up to 10.1 feet. The federal government bought it in 1915 for $139,500.