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The dam that created Bull Shoals Lake and reshaped life across the Twin Lakes area turns 75 this month, and the Baxter County Historical and Genealogical Society is marking the milestone with a free program the public is invited to attend.
The event is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, at the Donald W. Reynolds Library Serving Baxter County in Mountain Home. It falls on the society’s regular fourth-Tuesday meeting, but this month’s guests give it extra weight. A colonel and a public affairs officer from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Little Rock District are traveling up for the occasion.
Jennifer Baker, who serves both on the Mountain Home City Council and as secretary of the historical society, made the pitch at the council’s July 16 meeting. She handed out flyers to fellow council members and encouraged residents to come. The program is free and open to everybody.
The event came together almost by accident. According to Baker, society president Kevin Bodenhamer, who once worked for the Corps of Engineers, reached out to the Corps’ Little Rock office about the anniversary and found that staff there had not connected the date. His call got the ball rolling, and Corps representatives agreed to travel up for the meeting, along with other daytime events that are not open to the public.
The history behind the anniversary is worth the trip. Work on Bull Shoals Dam began in 1947, and the structure was completed in July 1951, which makes this month its 75th anniversary. When it was finished, it ranked among the largest concrete dams in the country.
Building it was a feat in itself. Crews poured more than 2 million cubic yards of concrete, carried to the site on a conveyor belt that ran about seven and a half miles from a quarry. The finished dam stands 256 feet high and stretches more than 2,200 feet across the White River.
The payoff reached far beyond flood control and hydroelectric power. The dam created Bull Shoals Lake, opened the area to fishing and tourism, and helped turn a quiet stretch of the Ozarks into a destination. Business and population growth followed in the years after the water rose.
The project also drew a president. Harry Truman dedicated Bull Shoals and Norfork dams together on July 2, 1952, speaking to a crowd of more than 6,000 people. That means next year will mark 75 years since the dedication, an anniversary the society plans to note as well.
Visitors who want more can stop by the society’s museum. The Baxter County Historical Museum, at 300 Bomber Boulevard, has photographs on loan from the Corps of Engineers showing the dam under construction.
The society has preserved local history since 1973, when it formed during Baxter County’s centennial, and it has published a quarterly journal, Baxter County History, since 1975. It moved its museum to the Bomber Boulevard location in late 2025, giving its collection and research archives a larger home.
