Georgetown Lake is a reservoir in Deer Lodge and Granite Counties,

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

. The reservoir impounds the North Fork of Flint Creek and lies at an elevation of just west of the

Anaconda Range The Anaconda Range, informally known as the "Pintlers", is a group of high mountains located in southwestern Montana, in the northwestern United States. The mountain range takes its name from the nearby town of Anaconda, founded by Marcus Daly ...

. The reservoir is a popular recreational area with campgrounds, resorts and picnic areas along its shoreline.

History

The reservoir was created in 1885 to produce power for the town of Phillipsburg and area mining operations. Granite-Bimetallic Mining Company of Philipsburg completed construction of the Georgetown Dam and powerhouse in 1900. By 1906, the powerhouse was supplying electricity to the smelter in Anaconda. In 1909 the

Anaconda Copper Mining Company The Anaconda Company, also known historically as the Anaconda Gold and Silver Mining Company (1881–1891), Anaconda Mining Company (1891–1895), Anaconda Copper Mining Company (1895–1899), Amalgamated Copper Company (1899–1915), and Anacon ...

bought the dam and powerhouse. The Montana Power Company assumed control of power generation in 1912. The powerhouse operated until 1990, when Montana Power mothballed the facility and sold the dam and generation facilities to Granite County. The lake assumed the name of Georgetown when the dam flooded the area known as Georgetown Flats. Georgetown Flats was the location of a

placer mining Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit mining or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment. Placer mining is frequently used for precious metal deposits (particularly ...

camp operated by George Cameron from 1867. By 1886, most of the residents of the Georgetown camp had abandoned the flats.

Angling

Georgetown Lake is considered a

Blue Ribbon fishery A Blue Ribbon fishery is a designation made in the United States by government and other authorities to identify recreational fisheries of extremely high quality. Official ''Blue Ribbon'' status is generally based on a set of established criteria ...

and holds trophy-sized

rainbow A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular ...

and

brook trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada. Two ecological forms of brook trout h ...

References

External links

Georgetown Lake Bathymetric Map
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks {{authority control Bodies of water of Deer Lodge County, Montana Bodies of water of Granite County, Montana Reservoirs in Montana