Grayson County Texas

The Denison Press
October 7, 1945

TEXAS CHIEF POINT INTEREST VACATION HUNTERS, IS SHOWN
According to a recent survey covering the points of interest for vacationists in the post-war days, it is shown that Texas is the chief point of interest by greater percentage than any other section of the country.
Denison as the Gate City to Texas, which is so logically located as a place of entry, will receive many thousands of these it is believed, since the attractions offered here are already on the lips of many thousands. With the large amount of publicity given the Denison dam and lake over a wide area of the United States, and with the constant inquiries being made about this city, it is believed that at least near a million tourists will make this part of the state each twelve months.
The poll just released indicates that of the prospective vacationers polled by 640 organizations affiliated with the American Automobile Association, 43 per cent to those canvassed expressed a preference for Texas, the Southwest and the Far West.
Also a total of 84 per cent of tomorrow's tourists prefer the family car as a means of getting about rather than airplane, steamship or railroad or bus, the report shows.
Also another interesting angle is the preference for Mexico as a foreign country to be visited above other foreign countries. This, also, will bring such traffic through Texas in the main, it is believed.
Denison, through its reception committee, and its park improvement board is expected to be on the job to make what use of the situation that may be possible.

Dallas Morning News
September 27, 1945

TEXOMA RESORT BUILDS
Special to The News
Denison, Texas, Sept. 24 - Construction work has started on the construction of boat houses, a marine railway and a general store at Highport on Lake Texoma, James V. Lloyd, National Park Service supervisor, announced Wednesday.
Six cabins will be built later by the concession owner, C.D. Loe of Sherman.

Dallas Morning News
Denison, Texas (Sp) - House Speaker Sam Rayburn will be joined by Oklahoma Gov.- Elect Richard J. Edmondson for the ground-breaking ceremonies at 2 p.m. Saturday for Lake Texoma's newest resort, Tangle-on-the-Lake.
The site is seven miles northwest of Pottsboro, which is seven miles west of Denison. The ground-breaking is on the hill overlooking the lake behind the south side of Loe's Point Resort. The new lodge will overlook the marina at Loe's.
Denison and Sherman Mayors Albert Martin and Dr. Vernon L. Tuck, along with Charles B. Stringer, president of the Lake Texoma Assoc., will join Edmondson and Rayburn on the program.
Rayburn will be flown from his Bonham ranch to the lodge site in a Bell helicopter; Edmondson is expected to fly in from Oklahoma, sitting his plane down the the Loe's Highport airstrip.
Tanglewood-on-the-Lake is located on a 130-acre site that is the closest major resort sport to Dallas and Ft. Worth.
The lodge was designed by George Dahl, and J. Press Maxwell, one of the top golf course designers in the nation, laid out the 18-hole golf links. There will be two types of accommodations, rooms in the main buildings and those in the 13-type cabana buildings, with six room each, which will surround the main structure.
The resort will have a swimming pool, an island beach, tennis courts, skeet range, bridal path, and boating facilities keyed to the expanding marina of C. Dewitte Loe at Loe's Highport.

Henry Clountz standing along side boats on the sandy shores of Lake Texoma

The club's organization committee includes S.B. (Bing) Bongham, J.E. Foster III and Web Walker, Jr., of Ft. Worth; Cloyce Box, James S. Hereford and Will Carruth of Dallas, and L.O. Gardner of Sherman.
The ground-breaking will be a brief program, highlighted by the actual turning of the first shovel of dirt in a simultaneous action by Rayburn, Edmondson, Martin, Dr. Tuck and Springer by the use of a multi-handled shovel, according to manager E.D. Bishop.

When the construction of the Denison Dam was authorized in 1939, "the recreational facilities at Lake Texoma were planned to border the normal level of the lake. This meant that in an abnormally dry spell picnic areas, concession stands, cabins and the like would be a good distance back from the water, but in more normal times they would be convenient to the beaches. But the weather began to ignore the norm in 1956. As drought settled over the upper reaches of the Red River, the water in the lake began to go down and down. Dry beaches widened and looked as though the loose sand had been scuffed up by milling cattle rather than bathers and holiday parties. As the lake subsided, swimmers were sometime surprised to run into stumps and barbed wire fences. People shook their head and said, "It's low."
Indeed it was low; on March 19. 1957, the water stood at 599.97 feet, more than 40 feet below the level of the spillway. The world's largest "earthen-filled, rolled" dam was still holding back a lot of water, but the lake looked puny and shrunken in its ugly brown borders. Then it began to rain; two weeks later the level of the water had climbed six feet. The rains kept on, and the water continued to collect behind the dam. Still it did not seem that the lake would even approach its normal level by the time summer came. In the third week of April, however, it became evident that general rains over the watershed were making a conspicuous difference in the lake. The level rose five inches on April 21. On April 23, it rose ten inches. On April 28, the level reached 617 feet, the top of the power pool. But the water continued to rise, and on May 1, the flood gates were opened. Very soon residents of the lower valley began to complain that they were already troubled by the flooding and that the addition water let out of Texoma through the flood gates would ruin them. Political pressure brought a decrease in the amount of water released.
When the flood gates were open, fishing below the dam proved to be sensational. The banks of the river were lined with anglers pulling the fish from the racing waters with a frequency which belied the sport of the thing.

Lake Characteristics

Predominant Fish Species