DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to do it justice. In 1931, the Central Texas Hydro-Electric Company had themselves a plan — build a dam on the Colorado River, right there on the county line between Burnet and Llano counties. Now that sounds straightforward enough, until April of 1932, when the whole project went bankrupt and just sat there, half-finished, like a promise nobody kept.
Enter State Senator Alvin Wirtz. Wirtz picked up that broken project, looked around for private funding, and came up empty. So he did what a man does when private money won't come calling — he turned to government.
And to get the government on board, he needed the right friend in the right chair. That friend was J.P. Buchanan, U.S.
Representative and Chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee. Now, Wirtz was a persuasive man.
He secured Buchanan's support by promising to name the dam after him. You want your name on it, Congressman? Well, then let's talk.
Then came 1934, and House Bill No. 1 of the 43rd Texas Legislature brought the Lower Colorado River Authority into being — the LCRA — a conservation and reclamation district with a mandate spelled out right there in the law: to control, store, preserve, use, distribute, and sell the waters of the Colorado River. That's a lot of verbs for one river, but the Colorado had earned every one of them. Now here's where you have to remember what was happening in the world outside these county lines.
The Great Depression had its boot on the neck of just about everything. And into that hardship came Buchanan Dam — often called the Hamilton Dam in those days — and Inks Dam further downriver, and together they did something the times desperately needed. They put people to work.
Locals lined up for one of eighteen hundred new positions, mostly construction jobs. The pay was forty cents an hour. Doesn't sound like much until you understand what forty cents an hour meant to a family that had been scratching at dry ground with nothing coming in.
Those salaries helped families hold on, maintain a better standard of living, and supplement whatever farming income they could still manage. October of 1937 — the LCRA celebrated the dam's completion with a ceremony. And then the water came.
The flooding upstream behind Buchanan Dam created Lake Buchanan, and that lake changed everything it touched. Long-term residents had to move out of the path of the rising water. Around sixty graves from the Old Bluffton Cemetery were re-interred over in New Bluffton, in Llano County.
The dead themselves were relocated for this river. That's not a small thing, and it deserves a moment of quiet. But the lake also brought something new.
Its recreational potential drew fresh business and fresh residents to Burnet and Llano counties alike. Fishing camps went up. Vacation rentals found their places along the shore.
A community that had flooded one life out began building another one in. Since its inception, Buchanan Dam has brought numerous advantages to Burnet County — that's what the marker says, and the story behind it earns every word of that understated conclusion.
What the marker says
In 1931, the Central Texas Hydro-Electric Company planned to build a dam on the Colorado River on the county line of Burnet and Llano counties. However, in April 1932, the project went bankrupt and lay unfinished. State Senator Alvin Wirtz took the project, and, unable to secure private funding, turned to government. Wirtz secured the support of U.S. Representative and Chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee J.P. Buchanan by promising to name the dam after him. In 1934, House Bill No 1. of the 43rd Texas Legislature created the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), a conservation and reclamation district, in order to “control, store, preserve, use, distribute, and sell” the waters of the Colorado River. In the midst of the Great Depression, Buchanan Dam, often called the Hamilton Dam, and Inks Dam further downriver provided badly needed jobs to Burnet County residents. Locals lined up to receive one of the 1,800 new positions, mostly construction jobs paying 40 cents an hour. The salaries allowed families to maintain a better standard of living as well as supplement their farming income. In October 1937, the LCRA celebrated completion of the dam with a ceremony. Upstream flooding behind the Buchanan Dam, creating Lake Buchanan, had immediate effects on the community. Many long-term residents moved out of the path of the new lake. Around sixty graves interred in Old Bluffton Cemetery were re-interred in New Bluffton in Llano County. The lake’s recreational potential brought new business and residents to Burnet and Llano, and fishing camps and vacation rentals were built near its shore. Since its inception, Buchanan Dam has brought numerous advantages to Burnet County. (2023)