Coralville Lake is an

artificial lake A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

in Johnson County, Iowa, United States, formed by the Coralville Dam, a dam built from 1949 to 1958 on the

Iowa River The Iowa River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the state of Iowa in the United States. It is about longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 and ...

upstream from the city of

Coralville, Iowa Coralville is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is a suburb of Iowa City and part of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 22,318 at the 2020 census. History Coralville is the location of the Edgewat ...

History

After widespread flooding in the United States during the early 1930s,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

passed the

Flood Control Act of 1938 The Flood Control Act of 1938 was an Act of the United States Congress signed into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that authorized civil engineering projects such as dams, levees, dikes, and other flood control measures through the Un ...

. The

United States Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

built the 100-foot-high earthen dam primarily as a flood control project for the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

. Construction started in 1949, was delayed by the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

, and was completed in 1958.History
US Army Corps of Engineers, n.d., retrieved March 22, 2015 The lake has a capacity of of water, equal to 137.18 billion gallons at its "100 year flood" level of .

Floods

Water first flowed over the emergency spillway on July 5, 1993 (''see''

Great Flood of 1993 The Great Flood of 1993 (or Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993) was a flood that occurred in the Midwestern United States, along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries, from April to October 1993. The flood wa ...

), reaching a then-record crest. This flood uncovered what is now the Devonian Fossil Gorge. The 1993 record was surpassed by the

June 2008 Midwest floods The June 2008 Midwestern United States floods were flooding events which affected portions of the Midwestern United States. After months of heavy precipitation, a number of rivers overflowed their banks for several weeks at a time and broke thro ...

, when water again flowed over the emergency spillway on June 12, 2008, and the reservoir crested at early in the morning on June 15, 2008. Lake Macbride is formed by another dam just up from the Coralville reservoir. This dam was overtopped by floodwaters in the flood of 2008, and the lake effectively became part of Coralville Lake.

Recreation and public use

The lake and surrounding shoreline have been extensively developed for public recreational use, including hiking, biking, camping, fishing and boating. There are 11 recreation areas, 4 swimming beaches, 3 Marinas, 18 boat ramps, 3 campgrounds (total of 620 campsites), 7 large picnic shelters, 2 Disc golf courses, and 7 trails (total of 29 miles).http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Portals/48/docs/CC/FactSheets/ODC/Coralville%20Lake%20-%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

Photos

Image:USACE Coralville Reservoir Iowa.jpg, Coralville Dam and Reservoir near Coralville, Iowa. Image:Funcrest.jpg, A tackle shop near Coralville Dam. File:Coralville Lake from airplane.JPG, Coralville Lake as seen from the airplane during winter

References

External links