Wright Patman Lake Construction Cache — Bowie County

Wright Patman Lake is on the Sulphur River eleven miles southwest of Texarkana in Bowie and Cass counties. Originally Texarkana Reservoir, it was renamed for Congressman Wright Patman in the late 1970s. Construction on the dam began September 1948 and was completed December 1957 at a cost of $34,200,000. Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas, are authorized to divert 14,572 acre-feet annually for municipal use. Dam-construction folklore imagines contractor payroll chests buried when camps moved or when the reservoir inundated Sulphur River farms. Coordinates mark the dam area southwest of Texarkana. Respect Corps of Engineers property.