Lake Overholser - Oklahoma City, OK
Posted by: 
hamquilter
N 35° 29.150 W 097° 40.075
14S E 620835 N 3927737
Located west of the downtown area, just west of 23rd Street and N. Council, 700-acre Lake Overholser has a history as a water source and recreational area.
Waymark Code: WMDJFF
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 01/20/2012
Views: 8
Lake Overholser
A steel bridge spans the northern end of LAKE OVERHOLSER
(fishing, boating, picnicing). This seventeen-hundred-acre lake
with a ten-mile shoreline was created by the damming of the North Canadian River in 1916 to furnish a water supply for Oklahoma City, and named for Ed Overholser, mayor of the city (1915-18).
For about six miles along the east side of the present lake and the Canadian River is the Site of Camp Alice, established in 1883 by David L. Payne, a Civil War veteran and former member of the Kansas legislature. Twice Payne and his land-hungry band of Boomers had attempted to settle in the territory that is now the state of Oklahoma. United States troops had halted the former invasions, but in April, 1883, Payne, with a caravan of 117 wagons and 516 men and women reached this spot, setting up Camp Alice, also known as Payne's Trading Post. Here the group surveyed and platted a townsite and also laid out the site of a capitol for the proposed state which they were advocating and attempting to create. The colonists staked out farms
and began plowing in order to put in crops. In the following month, however, a company of United States infantry destroyed the camp and forced the colonists to return to Kansas. In 1884, Payne led another group to a site near where Blackwell now stands, but again the colonists were removed. Payne died in Wellington, Kansas, November 28, 1884.
Lake Overholser has been approved (1941) as a seaplane base. A float, shelter house, and necessary markers have been provided, and the lake became the first officially designated seaplane base in Oklahoma. A Guide to the Sooner State, 1941
Completed in 1918, Lake Overholser Dam created a 700 acre lake, which aided in flood control and provided Oklahoma City with its primary source of water, enabling her to grow substantially in the years following its completion. In 1947, with the formation of Lake Hefner, a 2580-acre impoundment nearby, and Oklahoma City’s use of other water sources such as Lake Stanley Draper, Lake Arcadia and Lake Atoka, Lake Overholser began to recede in importance. It still remains the largest, oldest and most intact buttress type dam in Oklahoma.
The Overholser Dam is a popular place for folks to congregate in the summer months. Some will bring their fishing poles and sit for hours south of the dam. Others enjoy walking across the dam and looking at the massive construction and machinery. During flood times, when the dam is opened, water rushes through it with a roar you can't believe and people visit to see and hear its power.