Joe Pool Lake

Joe Pool Lake is a fresh water impoundment (reservoir) located in the southern part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in North Texas. The lake encompasses parts of Tarrant, Dallas and Ellis counties. The lake measures 7740acre with a conservation storage capacity of 176,900acre.ft. With a maximum depth of 75ft the lake drains an area of 232sqmi.Joe Pool Lake was named after Joe Pool, a congressman from the Oak Cliff area of Dallas who represented this district from 1963 until his death in 1968. Pool was highly influential in passage of legislation and funding of the lake.BeginningsThe project to build Joe Pool Lake started of a promise made in 1961 by the late U.S. Rep. Joe Pool and was carried out by a citizens committee called the Lakeview Planning Council. The oft-stalled lake project - approved by Congress in 1965 and known as Lakeview Lake until 1982 - had been the subject of name squabbles and delays caused by lawsuits and lack of funding.As a result, when construction began in 1977 - nine years after Joe Pool died - it became one of the first projects in the nation to pay its own way because of federal cuts in recreational park projects.Construction of the lake dam was completed in December 1985. Impoundment of water began in January 1986 and the lake was filled by June 1989.