Why Lake Travis?

Yes, why indeed.  Before I can explain to you the why I love Lake Travis, and why you should too, I must first describe a little about the what of Lake Travis.  Now before I get too far, I'm not going to disparage the other lakes around central Texas, many of which have fine points indeed, however I will admit, out loud, that I am unabashedly partial to Lake Travis.  As I have stated in previous post, my little blog will serve to outline many of the reasons why I feel that way.

First I will ask you to please open up your history books to chapter 1 of Lake Travis, where we will learn that Lake Travis begins it's life as the Colorado River and in many respects in it's current state, is actually just a wide spot in the Colorado River.  The Colorado River winds it's way through the Texas hill country several hundred miles from the West and Northwest of Austin ending it's journey at the gulf coast near Bay City Texas.  Through the late 1800's and early 1900's there were several devastating floods that wreaked havoc on the growing town of Austin.  Each time the flood waters came through, buildings were destroyed, dams were burst and the cities growth was set back for years.  In the 1930's the project was begun to tame the Colorado River by constructing a series of lakes formed by dams along the Colorado River watershed and calling it the Highland Lakes Chain. This was a massive undertaking and even took the creation of a quasi governmental organization to oversee and manage the system of reservoirs formed by these dams called the LCRA, The Lower Colorado River Authority.  During the 1930'3 and 40's six dams were built, all of which have hydroelectric generators built into them so the LCRA could sell electricity to the surrounding area.  In 1942 the Mansfield Dam was completed which formed the longest and deepest lake in the chain of 7 lakes.  Lake Travis and Mansfield Dam are the only structures in the Highland Lakes chain specifically designed to contain flood waters and is the main flood control lake for the city of Austin.  Lake Travis is about 60 miles long and has about 360 Miles of shoreline.  As seen from above, the lake may remind one of a serpent-like creature with many appendages.



Google Earth picture of Lake Travis which lies 20 miles west of Austin Texas

i love lake travis.com

Bryan Anderson