Fort Peck Dam

Fort Peck Dam is an earthen embankment on Montana’s Missouri River, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and completed in 1940. It impounds Fort Peck Lake and provides flood control, hydropower, and other benefits.

Fort Peck Lake: A large reservoir on the Missouri River in northeastern Montana, formed by Fort Peck Dam. The reservoir stores water behind the dam and extends for more than 130 miles.
Public Works Administration: A U.S. New Deal agency that financed large public construction projects during the Great Depression. Its funding helped launch construction of Fort Peck Dam in 1933.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: The 32nd president of the United States, who led the country from 1933 to 1945. His New Deal administration supported the public-works program that funded the dam.
Flood control in the Missouri River Basin: The reduction of damaging high flows through reservoirs, levees, and other river-management works in the Missouri River Basin. Fort Peck stores high flows and helps reduce downstream flood risk.
Fort Peck Dam slide of 1938: A major slope failure at Fort Peck Dam in September 1938 that sent earth and construction equipment into the river valley. The slide became the defining test of the unfinished dam’s stability.
Earth-fill dam: A dam built mainly from compacted soil and rock rather than concrete. Fort Peck Dam’s broad embankment uses compacted earth and rock to hold back the river.
Missouri River Basin: The drainage region whose waters flow into the Missouri River and its tributaries. The dam’s development reflected federal plans to manage water and power across this basin.
Robert Fletcher: An American civil engineer who led the design and construction of Fort Peck Dam for the Army Corps of Engineers. Fletcher directed the project’s engineering during its most intensive construction years.
Rural electrification in Montana: The extension of electric service to rural communities across Montana during the twentieth century. Hydropower from Fort Peck contributed to the region’s growing electricity supply.
Fort Peck Dam construction camp: A large temporary settlement that housed workers building Fort Peck Dam during the 1930s. The camp illustrates the scale of the labor force assembled at the remote project.

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Margaret Bourke-WhiteBroader topic: Bourke-White’s photograph of its construction appeared on the first cover of Life magazine in 1936.