39.463333, -119.066667

For years, the Carson River meandered through the desert only to vanish into the Carson Sink. Then someone got the bright idea to throw up a dam in and see what would happen. The Truckee-Carson project (renamed the Newlands Project) was authorized by the Secretary of the Interior March 14, 1903. Completed in 1915- with some Truckee River water added for good measure- the newly-formed Lake Lahontan did more for Fallon and Churchill County than all the gold and silver ever dug out of the hills.

First came the Derby Diversion Dam, which was built in 1905 to divert water from the Truckee River, northwest of Fallon. The water was diverted 32 miles through the Truckee Canal to the Carson River, which rises in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and flows east into Nevada’s Lahontan Valley. The increased water flow in the Carson River was for the benefit of homesteaders in the Lahontan Valley. But the going was tough; stream flows were highly variable, drainage was a problem, and water shortages were such that many would-be settlers avoided the area. To better regulate water available to Lahontan Valley farmlands, the Reclamation Service, in January 1911, began building Lahontan Dam on the Carson River. Electric power to construct the dam came from the more than 100-foot fall of the Truckee Canal. Electric motors powered the dragline excavator, as well as a conveyor belt to transport gravel and soil, a 1,600-foot cableway to carry concrete and an electric shovel. According to project manager D. W. Cole, the shovel may have been the first electric one ever in use, handling the dam’s 500,000 cubic yards of gravel less expensively than any coal-powered steam shovel could. The electric machinery proved highly effective and Lahontan Dam, a 162-foot-tall earth and gravel fill structure, was completed in June 1915, its massive outlet tower boasting 12 gates at two different elevations. Its powerplant, immediately below the dam, still supplies hydroelectric power through transmission lines to the communities of Fallon, Fernley, Wadsworth, Hazen and Stillwater, as well as Indian reservations and rural areas. (In 1988, a second power house was constructed at Lahontan Dam.) 
-https://www.nps.gov/articles/nevada-lahontan-dam-and-power-station.htm

Not sure what they're going to call it yet.

It is worthy of mention that the railroad company, upon reccommendation of project Engineer D. W. Cole will designate the station to be established at the Carson dam as Lahontan. It is not unlikely that the same term will be used in designating the dam upon its completion, although it is officially known at this time as the proposed Carson dam.
-Churchill County Standard, February 8, 1911

Work progresses.

PROGRESS ON LAHONTAN DAM
Work Will Be Complete In a Little More Than One Year.
Although the Lahontan dam embankment is but 12 per cent completed and the concreate work but 30 per cent in its stage of advancement, the plan has been so altogether condensed and the preparatory work has been so thorough under the immediate direction of Superintendant L. G. Maney that less time will be required to complete the dam from this time on than was consumed in bringing affairs to their present stage.
-Churchill County Standard, December 25, 1912

Getting near the end.

AT THE LAHONTAN DAM WORKS
Minimum Force is Employed And Concrete Work Continues.
The progress of work at Lahontan dam is given as being entirely satisfactory. The smallest force on the payroll for a long time is now at work In the government camp. Something like 190 men are now busied with the concrete work and other tasks incumbent upon the great undertaking. The left spillway concrete wall was entirely connected with the pool during the past week, while the right spillway wall is nearing completion. The mild winter has been altogether propitious for structural work and the excavation for the embankment will be resumed along about June 1st. In anticipation of the completion of the Lahontan dam during the season of 1914 the vacant land within the project that is tributary to ditches already in operation will be thrown open to settlement this fall and included will be much that is desirable and easy of cultivation. People from abroad who have been watching the trend of project affairs will take advantage of the restoring of land to entry In large numbers. A carload shipment of big gates for the Lahontan dam Is on the way from Pittsburg, thus insuring these necessary utilities at an early date. Conditions generally, so far as the construction of the great earthen dam is concerned, are satisfactory and fully up to the original schedule.
-Churchill County Standard, March 19, 1913

We got ourselves a lake!

LAHONTAN DAM NOW IMPOUNDS LAKE OF WATER
After four years of work the great Lahontan dam on the Carson River for the Truckee-Carson Government Irrigation Project is completed at a cost of $1,500,000, which is slightly under the first estimates. It is believed that shortages of water, which harrassed homesteaders during the early years of the reclamation work on the desert, are now at an end for all time. The dam will back water up for a distance of nearly eighteen miles in the Carson River, forming an immense artificial lake. The flow of the Carson may be augmented by part of the flow of the Truckee River, conveyed in an immense open canal from the Derby dam to the Lahontan Reservoir. The storage capacity at Lahontan is 290,000 acre feet, and the shore line of the artificial lake, when full, will be fifty miles. The lake's greatest depth will be 120 feet and its greatest width two and a quarter miles, To protect the dam during periods of great flood, spillways have been provided at each side of sufficient capacity to easily take care of any excess water. The water for irrigating project lands is drawn off through conduits in the base of the dam into a spillway pool. The gates are controlled from a tower in the lake, just above the dam. The total length of the dam at the top is 1,700 feet and the length at the base is 200 feet. while the greatest thickness is 600 feet. Eight hundred thousand yards of earth and 70,000 yards of concrete were used in the construction of the dam. The cost of storage is figured at about $5 per acre foot of capacity, everything considered. The project now has about 45.000 acres in cultivation and facilities have been provided for opening new lands as fast as required for settlement.
-Yerington Times, February 13, 1915

And the lake is getting bigger!

WATER AT LAHONTAN DAM NEARING 100 FOOT MARK
Next Month When Maximum Depth Will Be Attained
The volume of water now in the Lahontan reservoir is the greatest since the completion of the work, having reached a depth at the face of the dam of 93 1/2 feet, representing a storage of 138,000 feet at this writing. This is being augmented by a daily flow of 800 acre feet from the Truckee canal and about 3200 acre feet from the Carson River.
-Churchill County Standard, June 21, 1916

We can sure use a little extra electricity...

Truckee Canal Power Plant Building Urged
FALLON. — "Immediate steps should he taken to bring into existence" the 26-foot drop power plant, the board of directors of Truckee-Carson irrigation district decided at the November monthly meeting. The increasing demand for more power prompted the board to authorize its officers to compile data for presentation at the next meeting so that the "proposed construction could be definitely approved or disapproved." The proposed site of the plant is on the main canal below diversion dam west of Fallon. A hydro generation unit capable of producing 900 k.w. all during the irrigation season of about eight months and about half as much during the four winter months has been planned in 1 earlier proposals. The plant would operate at capacity while a full head of irrigation water is in the main canal. Any water run through the hydro generators at Lahontan during the winter could be re-used at the 26-foot drop to produce about 400 to 500 kilowatts. Project Manager Phil Hiibel told the board that construction and cost data had been compiled on the proposed project in 1947, and that officers would need only to bring the costs up to date. The board unanimously authorized the re-study and presentation of necessary data at the December meeting. In 1947 the proposed plant would have cost about $200,000. Rough estimates are that it would cost a minimum of 20 per cent more today. Although the drop originally was constructed for a then un-needed power plant, it would call for an approving vote of the water users before construction could take place.
-Reno Evening Gazette, November 20, 1952

None

We tried to get over to the dam for some "official" vists to some of the more interesting and inaccessible places around the dam (inside the power house, as an example) but unfortunately, this was after September 11th and they weren't letting anyone take any pictures. I kinda doubt Lahontan Dam is high on Osama's list of targets, but you never know. We'll have to try again some day. With the recent low water, you're able to poke around in places you wouldn't normally be able to go- walking out to one of the islands, for instance, or around the growing beaches and finding all the cool stuff people dropped off their boats.