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Construction of this dam on the Colorado River, upstream from the Grand Canyon, started in 1956 and created Lake Powell when it was finished, in 1963. The lake flooded a 186-mile long valley, forming the second largest man-made lake in the country (after Lake Mead, 200 miles downstream), a water storage reservoir meant to, among other things, control flooding downstream. The dam is 710 feet high, above bedrock, and 1,560 feet across.
