Views of the Neighborhood – Mansfield Dam

~ John W. Howell

Today we are visiting the Mansfield Dam, which is close to the neighborhood. Mansfield Dam is 278 feet (85 m) high, 7,089 feet (2 km) long, and 213 feet (65 m) thick at the base. The concrete gravity dam was designed to control flooding. Built on the Colorado River by the Lower Colorado River Authority it stores 369 billion US gallons of water and generates 108 megawatts of power. The lake formed by the dam is Lake Travis. The Spillway Elevation is 714 feet above sea level. LCRA begins to open floods gates when water reaches 681 feet above sea level. At 681 feet above MSL, discharge capacity exceeds 130,000 cubic feet per second as the lake rises. Construction was begun in 1937 and completed in 1941. It is named after Joseph Mansfield who was in the house of Representatives for thirty years and chaired the Rivers Committee.

I hope you like the tour.

A monument to Joseph Mansfield.

I had not thought of bringing my drone, but it would have been in vain had I thought of it.

There was a highway that went across the top of the dam. Traffic got too heavy for these two lanes, so another bridge was built.

I would have loved to get a shot up and down the river, but no trespassing.

Razor wire and I don’t get along so I’ll heed the sign.

A shot of the dam, river, and highway bridge.

A little bit of a view of Lake Travis formed by the dam.

A turbine fan on display. It stands about eight feet tall.

A different view of the dam to give you an idea of the expanse.

This is a shot from a road that runs below the Dam. This was as close as I could get.

Here is what the Colorado River looks like downstream from the dam. The water flows out of one spillway and continues down the river. On the banks is a residential area with water access points. That is a group of kayakers in the background.

The river, dam, duck, man, and his dog

I took this shot since it seemed odd to me that that guy had not jumped from the bridge. If you are going to violate one rule, why not break them all?

Thank you for coming along.

68 thoughts on “Views of the Neighborhood – Mansfield Dam”

  1. Beautiful, John. Your photos remind me a lot of our area, which also has a dam and spillway. Thank you for this glimpse of your surroundings. 🙂

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  4. Thanks for the tour, John. That’s a pretty big dam. I wish you were allowed to walk across.

    Two questions, 1) does you drone know the places it can’t fly? I know some do. 2) Are the ducks allowed to jump from the bridge?

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    1. My drone is very inexpensive. The only thing it knows is to rush to meet the ground. Ducks are allowed to jump, dive, or fly from the bridge since there is no way to give them a citation. Thanks, Dan

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      1. I was watching a guy at Great River Park taking photos of the Hartford skyline via drone. He was pointing to all the places we could see from the dock, but that the drone wouldn’t fly. I really liked the drone, but I wonder if I could even practice in my own yard, since we’re so close to BDL.

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  8. Love the photo of the man fishing by the “No Fishing” sign. That’s civil disobedience at its finest — almost as good as the woman sitting beneath the “NO CELLPHONES” sign at my doctor’s office, talking on her cell phone.

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      1. Oh soz. When the white minority government of Southern Rhodesia as was, before it became Zimbabwe, sought independence from Britain in 1965 it issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence ..

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  17. Thanks for an interesting tour, John. I find the concept behind dams fascinating — to hole up all that water, then to release it at the right time. Man’s ingenuity, right?!

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  18. This was a surprise tour, John. Very cool. I remember being with my mother’s side of the family on my grandfather’s little fishing boat. He decided to show us what it was like to go through the locks on a dam on the Tennessee river. The water got really choppy (I can’t remember if another boat came speeding by or what) and the front half of our little boat tipped under water for a moment. The dam scared the hell out of me. LOL. But it was still cool to see from the inside! 😀
    Have a great new week. Hugs.

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  23. These are great photos of the dam, John. Last fall, my husband and I were able to tour the inner-workings of one of the dams on the Ohio River. It was amazing.

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  26. Great tour! I never knew there was a damn in TX.

    I’d love to have a drone, but fear I’d crash it and my camera, and now there are so many places you can’t fly one that it kinda sucks the joy out of wanting one.

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