Lake Kickapoo is a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

located on the North Fork

Little Wichita River The Little Wichita River is a river in Texas and a tributary of the Red River. See also *List of rivers of Texas The list of rivers of Texas is a list of all named waterways, including rivers and streams that partially pass through or are en ...

in the

Red River Basin The Red River Valley is a region in central North America that is drained by the Red River of the North; it is part of both Canada and the United States. Forming the border between Minnesota and North Dakota when these territories were admitted ...

Archer County, Texas Archer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 8,560. Its county seat is Archer City. It is part of the Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area. History In 1858, the Texas Leg ...

. It is neighbored by

Archer City, Texas Archer City is a city in and the county seat of Archer County, Texas, United States. The city lies at the junction of State Highway 79 and State Highway 25. It is located south of Wichita Falls, and is part of the Wichita Falls metropolita ...

(population of 1,834) and

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls metropolitan area, Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Archer County, Tex ...

(population of 104,553) which reside within the Central Great Plains ecoregion.

Hydrology

Lake Kickapoo reservoir was created by the impoundment of North Fork Little Wichita River, its only in-flow

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

, in 1946. The out-flow tributaries are Kickapoo Creek, Brier Creek, and Slippery Creek. It has a mean water level of , surface area of , and elevation of above sea level as of 2022. The storage capacity, as of October 29, 2022, is with a maximum capacity of . The reservoir storage has steadily dropped by 293 acre-feet/year since 1945 when it had a total capacity of , due to increasing drought events in the region.

Ecoregion

Lake Kickapoo resides within the Broken Red Plains subdivision of the Central Great Plains ecoregion. The Broken Red Plains ecoregion is defined by red clay and sandy soils, with irregular sandstone and shrub-covered surface of the even more specific Wichita Formation ecoregion. It is predominantly grass-/

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally o ...

s with plant species like Texas wintergrass,

blue grama ''Bouteloua gracilis'', the blue grama, is a long-lived, warm-season (C4 carbon fixation, C4) Perennial plant, perennial grass, native to North America. It is most commonly found from Alberta, Canada, east to Manitoba and south across the Rocky ...

, buffalograss, sand bluestem, etc. The

riparian vegetation A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. In some regions, the terms riparian woodland, riparian forest, riparian buffer zone, riparian corridor, and riparian strip are used to characterize a ripari ...

includes species such as

cedar elm ''Ulmus crassifolia'' Nutt., the Texas cedar elm or simply cedar elm, is a deciduous tree native to south-central North America, mainly in southern and eastern Texas, southern Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, with small populations in western M ...

trees,

pecan tree The pecan ( , , ; ''Carya illinoinensis'') is a species of hickory native to the Southern United States and northern Mexico in the region of the Mississippi River. The tree is cultivated for its seed primarily in the U.S. states of Georgia, ...

black willow ''Salix nigra'', or the black willow, is a species of willow native to a large portion of North America, from New Brunswick and southern Ontario west to Arizona and California, and south to northern Florida and Texas. Description ''Salix nigr ...

trees, and

tobosa grass ''Hilaria mutica'', synonym ''Pleuraphis mutica'', is a species of grass known by the common name tobosa, or tobosa grass. It is native to Northern Mexico, and the Southwestern United States, in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.Uchytil, R ...

. This region has an annual precipitation of 30 inches and mean air temperature of 41 degrees Fahrenheit in January and 84 degrees Fahrenheit in July.

Uses

Water supply

The construction of Lake Kickapoo Dam began in January 1945 and was completed on December 15, 1945. However, the deliberate impoundment of the North Fork Little Wichita River, a

of the Red River, did not occur until February 1, 1946. Lake Kickapoo Dam is classified as earth-fill embankment dam with a length of (including

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure tha ...

) and height of . This dam's maximum design water surface has the capability to reach above sea level but has been experiencing much lower levels due to recent droughts in the area. The dam's uncontrolled spillway is classified as

ogee An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...

concrete and has a crest elevation of above sea level. Lake Kickapoo reservoir is owned by the city of Wichita Falls and operated for the continued use as a water supply. Although it is owned by the city of Wichita Falls, the dam is regulated by the government entity

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is the environmental agency for the state of Texas. The commission's headquarters are located at 12100 Park 35 Circle in Austin. The fourth-largest environmental agency in the United States ...

U.S. Naval Space Surveillance

One of the nine

Air Force Space Surveillance System The AN/FPS-133 Air Force Space Surveillance System, colloquially known as the Space Fence, was a U.S. government multistatic radar system built to detect orbital objects passing over America. It is a component of the U.S. space surveillance ...

(formerly NAVSPASUR) sites is located at Lake Kickapoo (33°32.764′N 98°45.763′W)
Lake Kickapoo Field Station
is one of three transmitter sites of the southern surveillance network, which is operated by the U.S. Naval Command. The purpose of these stations is to maintain an electromagnetic fence that has the capability to identify objects as far as . The Lake Kickapoo field station was constructed in 1951 to fill a gap in the surveillance fence. It is considered unique due to its transmitting power of 560

kilowatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor of ...

via the combination of commercial FM and TV power unit frequencies.

Recreation

Sports fishing

The main source of recreation for Lake Kickapoo is sports fishing. The reservoir contains sports fish species, such as

Blue catfish The blue catfish (''Ictalurus furcatus'') is a large species of North American catfish, reaching a length of and a weight of . The continent's largest catfish, it can live to 20 years, with a typical fish being between and . Native distribution ...

(abundant),

Channel catfish The channel catfish (''Ictalurus punctatus''), known informally as the "channel cat", is a species of catfish native to North America. They are North America's most abundant catfish species, and the official state fish of Kansas, Missouri, Nebra ...

Flathead catfish The flathead catfish (''Pylodictis olivaris''), also called by several common names including mudcat or shovelhead cat, is a large species of North American freshwater catfish in the family Ictaluridae. It is the only species of the genus ''Py ...

White Bass The white bass, silver bass, or sand bass (''Morone chrysops'') is a freshwater fish of the temperate bass family Moronidae. commonly around 12–15 inches long. The species' main color is silver-white to pale green. Its back is dark, with whit ...

(abundant),

Largemouth Bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus nigricans'') is a carnivorous, freshwater fish, freshwater, ray-finned fish in the Centrarchidae (sunfish) family, native to the eastern United States, eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada an ...

, and

White Crappie The white crappie (''Pomoxis annularis'') is a freshwater fish found in North America, one of the two species of crappies. Alternate common names for the species include goldring, silver perch, white perch and sac-a-lait. is named for the fish ...

(declining in abundance). These fish species are supported by

prey fish Forage fish, also called prey fish or bait fish, are small pelagic fish that feed on planktons (i.e. planktivores) and other small aquatic organisms (e.g. krill). They are in turn preyed upon by various predators including larger fish, seabird ...

, such as

Gizzard shad The gizzard, also referred to as the ventriculus, gastric mill, and gigerium, is an organ found in the digestive tract of some animals, including archosaurs (birds and other dinosaurs, crocodiles, alligators, pterosaurs), earthworms, some gastro ...

(abundant) and

Bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or, in Texas, "copper nose", is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands ea ...

(decreased abundance). Management plans have been enacted to support the

genetic diversity Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It ranges widely, from the number of species to differences within species, and can be correlated to the span of survival for a species. It is d ...

of Largemouth Bass due to this species designation as a source for

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) is a Texas state agency that oversees and protects wildlife and their habitat (ecology), habitats. In addition, the agency is responsible for managing the state park, state's parks and historical ar ...

hatchery brood stock program. This is due to the decline in habitat for

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

and nursery areas via decreased water elevation.

History

Namesake

The name was derived from the Native American

Kickapoo tribe The Kickapoo people (; Kickapoo: Kiikaapoa or Kiikaapoi; ) are an Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe and Indigenous people in Mexico, originating in the region south of the Great Lakes. There are three federally recognized Kickapoo tr ...

that was native to that area along with the nearby inflow stream, Kickapoo Creek.

Land use

There is an elevated abundance of

honey mesquite ''Neltuma glandulosa'', formerly ''Prosopis glandulosa'', commonly known as honey mesquite, is a species of small to medium-sized, thorny shrub or tree in the legume family (Fabaceae). Distribution The plant is primarily native to the Southwes ...

in the Broken Red Plains that has been associated with the 19th century

cattle drive Droving is the practice of walking livestock over long distances. It is a type of herding, often associated with cattle, in which case it is a cattle drive (particularly in the US). Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the ...

s and subsequent

grazing pressure Grazing pressure is defined as the number of grazing animals of a specified class (age, species, physiological status like pregnant) per unit weight of herbage (herbage biomass). It is well established in general usage. Definition Grazing pre ...

via land use.

Dam

Lake Kickapoo Dam was designed by F. M. Rugeley and A. J. Gates.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Protected areas of Archer County, Texas

Kickapoo The Kickapoo people (; Kickapoo: Kiikaapoa or Kiikaapoi; ) are an Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe and Indigenous people in Mexico, originating in the region south of the Great Lakes. There are three federally recognized Kickapoo trib ...

1947 establishments in Texas Protected areas established in 1947 Bodies of water of Archer County, Texas