Well, 264 Mangum, it looks like your photo hosting site crapped out again.
However, I was raised in the Panhandle (Cimarron County - further West) and I knew a couple of the guys that helped build it. I asked then where were they going to get to water to fill it. I was told that there was quite a bit of sub-surface water that would fill it.
Later, when it was evident that nothing was going to fill it, I enquired again and was told that when they built it, they didn't get all to way down to bedrock with the dam. Thus, the water just went sub-surface again or evaporated. As mentioned later, the diminishing aquifer up there has been lowered because of irrigation and it will never be a lake.
As for the closed road, it was part of the stimulus package to spend $1,000,000 to fix the guardrail on the dam road. However, Senator Coburn saw the ignorance of that idea and put a stop to that part of the stimulus.
If one goes on beyond Hardesty towards Guymon, one crosses a bridge that was built at the time to go over the far end of the dam. It's pretty amusing at times to see this kind of tall bridge and no water in sight.
Good pictues, Shadowrider. I had almost forgotten what all that looked like up there.
However, I was raised in the Panhandle (Cimarron County - further West) and I knew a couple of the guys that helped build it. I asked then where were they going to get to water to fill it. I was told that there was quite a bit of sub-surface water that would fill it.
Later, when it was evident that nothing was going to fill it, I enquired again and was told that when they built it, they didn't get all to way down to bedrock with the dam. Thus, the water just went sub-surface again or evaporated. As mentioned later, the diminishing aquifer up there has been lowered because of irrigation and it will never be a lake.
As for the closed road, it was part of the stimulus package to spend $1,000,000 to fix the guardrail on the dam road. However, Senator Coburn saw the ignorance of that idea and put a stop to that part of the stimulus.
If one goes on beyond Hardesty towards Guymon, one crosses a bridge that was built at the time to go over the far end of the dam. It's pretty amusing at times to see this kind of tall bridge and no water in sight.
Good pictues, Shadowrider. I had almost forgotten what all that looked like up there.
