Veterans Lake: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Chickasaw National Recreation Area

Regions 6, 7, & 8 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

Veterans Lake is part of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area (CNRA) in Murray County, OK. The 344.5-acre site is situated south-southwest of Sulphur and lies adjacent to the southern boundary of Platt Historic District. The landscape is defined by the artificial lake created by the 47-foot high Veteran’s Lake dam and its adjoining spillway-weir structure, built to impound the waters of Wilson Creek. The surface area of the resulting lake is approximately 67 acres. The surrounding landscape of the Wilson Creek watershed is comprised of gently rolling hills incised by forested stream valleys and ravines. The uplands support a vegetative cover of western steppe-type grasses and xerophytes—with some species unique to this area. Most notably, these include Lace Cactus (Echinacereus reichenbachii) and Pincushion Cactus (Corypantha vivpara) as well the somewhat rare but more common yucca (Yucca arkansana) and prickly pear cactus (Opuntia engelmannii). The stream valley vegetation consists of eastern-type, native broad-leaf hardwoods as well as Eastern red cedars. Vehicular access to the area is provided by a short, paved road that branches off of the Platt Historic District’s Perimeter Drive and terminates in a parking lot near the dam. Northshore Road provides further vehicular access to a pavilion and parking area to the east. Pedestrian access is facilitated by the North- and Southshore Trails that encircle the lake and connect to the trails of the Platt Historic District and the rest of the CNRA parklands to the south. The Veterans Lake landscape is potentially historically significant under Criterion A for its association with the policies and programs of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” response to the Great Depression. Built in the mid-1930s, the Veterans Lake dam and lake were ostensibly meant to support the supply of drinking water in the area, though its designated uses also included recreation, fire prevention, and sanitation. The Civil Works Administration (CWA)—and then later the Works Progress Administration (WPA)—funded the labor, materials, and equipment used to construct the dam and create the lake. The dam was designed and built by local Oklahoma civil engineers and laborers as “a typical earth-fill embankment storage dam representing standard construction practices of its day,” and was completed in 1939. Besides the dam and lake, other features of the landscape at the time of completion included the area’s rolling topography, informal road and trail system, fishing docks, and caretaker house and garage on the lake’s promontory. If deemed significant, the period of significance of Veteran’s Lake would thus likely be its construction period, 1934-39, at the local and possibly state level.

Veterans Lake: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Chickasaw National Recreation Area

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