Gavins Point Dam was completed in 1957, and the rest of the upstream dams were all finished by the early 1960s. The unforgiving Missouri River, as if offended by the attempted taming of its flows, has been rising up ever since. There are 15 dams in total on the Missouri, and nearly 100 more on its tributaries.
Other benefits of the project include improved navigation, hydroelectric generation, recreational opportunities and irrigation. The dams: Fort Peck near Glasgow, Mont., Garrison in central North Dakota, and Oahe, Big Bend, Fort Randall, and Gavins Point, all in South Dakota, were installed as flood controls as authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944. Public outcry and political pressure following major floods in the 1940s led to the creation of the dam network. TORRENTIAL RAINS in the upper Missouri River Basin in May 2011 stressed all five main stream dams upriver of Yankton’s Gavins Point, leaving the hydroelectric structure that backs up Lewis and Clark Lake as the last line of defense against downstream deluges. (This story first appeared in the May/June 2012 issue of Nebraska Life Magazine.) Soon the nation’s longest river would attack Nebraska with one of the worst floods in its history. The roar of the Missouri flowing through the 14 floodgates spanning the shared Nebraska and South Dakota border was a hungry lion waiting to pounce.