Lake Size: 98,520 Acres Deepest Depth: 55 feet Latitude: 34.408889 Longitude: -89.795833 Lake Level Above Sea Level: 286 feet Counties: Panola County Cities: Sardis, Oxford Lake Management: US Army Corps of Engineers
Information: Located on the Little Tallahatchie River, Sardis Lake is a 98,520-acre (398.7 km2) water resource development project occupying parts of three North Mississippi counties. The dam site is nine miles (14 km) southeast of the town of Sardis, and is only an hour drive from Memphis, Tennessee.
Sardis Dam was the first of the Yazoo Headwaters Projects to be built. Authorization for the project came when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Flood Control Act of 1936. Shortly after congressional approval, work on Sardis Dam proceeded at a feverish pace. Twelve-hour days, seven days a week were the rule not the exception while Sardis Dam lay strewn on the drawing boards. Out in the dusty fields however, it was a different story. Thousands of men toiled, doing backbreaking work using mules, brush hooks, crosscut saws and axes to clear fourteen miles (21 km) along the Little Tallahatchie River, characterized by cutover hardwood, dense undergrowth and meandering sloughs.
Sardis Lake has a maximum storage capacity of 1,512,000 acre feet (1.865×109 m3) of water. During the fall and winter months the lake is gradually drawn down to a "conservation pool" of 9,800 acres (40 km2). This allows for storage of spring rains from the 1,545-square-mile (4,000 km2) drainage area above the dam. Sardis Lake has performed its flood control mission admirably well. Since it became operational, the dam's emergency spillway has only been overtopped three times by unprecedented high water in 1973, 1983 and 1991. The lake's normal "recreation pool" is 32,500 acres (132 km2). Many visitors to Sardis Lake do not know of the project's role in flood control. To them, Sardis Lake is a place to play. Annual visitation tops 5 million people.
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