Fort Randall Dam is part of a large-scale federal program for the development of the Missouri River basin. The dam lies in south-central South Dakota near Lake Andes above old Fort Randall. United States Army engineers began building this electric-power and navigation project in 1946. They completed it in 1956. The dam is 165 feet (50 meters) high and 10,700 feet (3,260 meters) long. The earth-fill dam contains 50 million cubic yards (38 million cubic meters) of earth. Its reservoir, Lake Francis Case, holds 3.8 million acre-feet (4.7 billion cubic meters) of water. The power plant has a capacity of 320,000 kilowatts, and began operating in 1954.
