A tale of two lakes: Did Wichita Falls miss the boat? - Times Record News

A tale of two lakes: Did Wichita Falls miss the boat?
Lynn Walker

“It’s like Déjà vu all over again!” Yogi Berra, baseball legend

Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1958, was a historic day for Wichita Falls.

The City Council held a public hearing to discuss the water needs of a growing city.

The town had faced water challenges from the beginning. Lake Wichita, a brainchild of Joseph A. Kemp, was far too small to serve the growing demand for water. Lake Kemp, another brainchild of its namesake, was too salty to use for drinking water without the filtration systems that exist today.

By the end of World War II, Wichita Falls had grown to 55,000 souls. Those who owned property and could afford poll taxes voted in favor of using $3.5 million in revenue bonds to create a lake in Archer County on the Little Wichita River, which was long known to offer the best quantity and quality of water in the region. Once the landowner was ejected and the dam was built, the lake began impounding water in early 1946.

Within just a few years it became obvious that tiny Lake Kickapoo with its miniscule watershed was insufficient for a city that had surged past 68,000 people.

The Little Wichita River was still the only viable water source, so it would have to feed any new reservoir that was created.

Wichita Falls was under pressure to act. As early as 1949, the city had applied to the state water board to create another lake on the river. But the city then did nothing except ask for extensions until 1956 when the board declared Wichita Falls had six months to do something or lose the water rights to the river. The chairman of the board gave the city until March 1, 1957, to “show serious intent” because Fort Worth and other cities to the south were lining up for Little Wichita water rights if Wichita Falls wasn’t going to use them.

All that led to the big hearing that hot day in August 1958. More than 200 people poured into Memorial Auditorium to hear plans for a new lake to be created farther east along the river in Clay County. That very same afternoon, the City Council voted to put the $15 million reservoir ($158 million in 2023 dollars) to voters in September.

The new reservoir would have a watershed nearly five times larger than Lake Kickapoo’s. It would have 90,000 acre-feet of water available for annual municipal use and would be capable of delivering 70 million gallons of water per day.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation jumped on board, as did the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the State Board of Water Engineers and the city’s own engineering consultant firm, Freese and Nichols of Fort Worth. Freese and Nichols said the proposed lake was “the only project adequate to meet the area’s needs for a reasonable period in the future.”

“If Wichita Falls does not get the lake and the filter plant, the city isn’t going to grow,” City Manager H.A. Thomason proclaimed.

The yet-to-exist lake had even acquired a name over the decades:

Lake Ringgold.

Although the reservoir got widespread approval from civic and business groups, it also had opponents who claimed it was too expensive and the cost would not be equitably distributed across all Wichita Falls neighborhoods. Many Clay County residents trooped to Austin to protest the taking of their land for the project.

On Sept. 6, 1958, Wichita Falls voters turned down Lake Ringgold by a two to one margin.

Lake Ringgold was off the table but the issue of adequate water did not go away.

City leaders had poked around at another site on the little Wichita River that was smaller and cheaper than Lake Ringgold. It was called the “Scotland dam site.” The cost of building the lake would be $12.5 million. By sacrificing 45,000 acre-feet of water per year the city could have had from Lake Ringgold, Wichitans would save $2.5 million.

Serious plans began as city leaders celebrated Wichita Falls breaking the 100,000 mark in the 1960 census. Construction of this lake would be complicated by the presence of utilities, 23 oil wells and a town called Halsell in the lakebed, but the Bureau of Reclamation, Freese and Nichols, the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce signed off on it, as did a citizens’ support group called “United Wichita Falls.” The group declared the new lake would meet water needs until Wichita Falls achieved a population of 200,000.

On Dec. 9, 1960, Wichitans voted in favor of revenue and general obligation bonds to fund what was then called the Halsell reservoir, named for the tiny town it would swallow. The City Council changed the name to Lake Arrowhead. By the time of the public vote, the cost had risen to $15 million, the same the larger Lake Ringgold would have cost. By 1966 landowners and the few remaining residents of Halsell were evicted and the lake began impounding water.

The water levels of the city's two reservoirs ebbed and flowed with the comings and goings of periods of drought.

But the one that began in late 2010 was different.

Over the next four years, lakes Arrowhead and Kickapoo dipped to record levels of 20 percent of capacity in a historic drought of record. A reverse osmosis plant to filter Lake Kemp water, draconian water use restrictions and the frantic and heroic construction of a direct potable reuse system to recycle sewer water saved the city and surrounding communities from disaster.

Just as the receding lake waters revealed the skeleton of Halsell, Texas, the ghost of Lake Ringgold also rose. In 2017 the city again applied to the state to build the larger reservoir. Freese and Nichols, still working for the city these many years later, said demand would outstrip supply without Lake Ringgold.

Eight years after the end of the historic drought, lakes Arrowhead and Kickapoo are drying up again. Wichitans are again under water usage restrictions. Many minds wonder if the heavens will open and deliver salvation, as happened in 2015.

Or not.

The city warns if Lake Ringgold isn't created, people and businesses will leave town and Sheppard Air Force Base might pull up stakes. Residents of Clay County have trooped to Austin to protest the taking of their land – again. Wichita Falls has other resources available and doesn't need Lake Ringgold, they claim. Among them are descendants of those who complained 65 years ago.

Compared to the $15 million Lake Ringgold would have cost in 1958 ($158 million in 2023 dollars), the city estimates the price tag is now $544 million ($544 million in 2023 dollars.)

Whether Wichita Falls’ water situation and its residents' pocketbooks would be better if Lake Ringgold had been created in 1958 is left to conjecture and opinion. That ship has already sailed across the lake.

If Lake Ringgold makes it through all the challenges this time around, the city estimates it will take 25 years to complete.

That would be 90 years after the City Council first approved it.

“And now you know the rest of the story!” Paul Harvey, radio commentator