Kortes Dam (National ID # WY01294) is a dam in

Carbon County, Wyoming Carbon County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 14,537. Its county seat is Rawlins, Wyoming, Rawlins. Its south border abuts the north line of Colorado. ...

. The concrete gravity dam was constructed between 1946 and 1951 by the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

, with a height of 244 feet, and a length of 440 feet at its crest. It impounds the

North Platte River The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately long, counting its many curves.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 21, 2011 In a ...

for hydroelectric power. Owned and operated by the Bureau, it stands as part of the Kortes Unit of the vast

Pick–Sloan Missouri Basin Program The Pick–Sloan Missouri Basin Program, formerly called the Missouri River Basin Project, was initially authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944, which approved the plan for the conservation, control, and use of water resources in the ...

less than two miles downstream from the Bureau's larger

Seminoe Dam Seminoe Dam is a concrete thick-arch dam on the North Platte River in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The dam stores water for irrigation and hydroelectricity generation, and is owned and operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It is the uppermost ...

. The riverine reservoir it creates, Kortes Reservoir, has a water surface of 83 acres and a volume of 4,765

acre-feet The acre-foot is a non- SI unit of volume equal to about commonly used in the United States in reference to large-scale water resources, such as reservoirs, aqueducts, canals, sewer flow capacity, irrigation water, and river flows. An acre-f ...

confined to the narrow Black Canyon, which is not stocked with fish and has no boat ramp facilities. However, the five and a half river miles from the base of Kortes Dam downstream to the

Pathfinder Reservoir Pathfinder Reservoir is located in the U.S. state of Wyoming on the North Platte River between Casper and Rawlins. It sits 47 miles (76 km) southwest of Casper, in Carbon County and Natrona County. The reservoir was created by Pathfinder Da ...

, the Miracle Mile Area, has eleven primitive camping areas and fishing for brown trout, cutthroat trout, rainbow trout, and walleye.

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* {{Authority control Dams in Wyoming Reservoirs in Wyoming United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Dams completed in 1951 Buildings and structures in Carbon County, Wyoming Dams on the North Platte River Landforms of Carbon County, Wyoming Hydroelectric power plants in Wyoming 1951 establishments in Wyoming