Did you know Lewisville Lake used to have a different name?
Fred Brewer vividly remembers a time, back in the 1960s, when the lake was known as Lake Dallas.
This prompted Brewer to ask Curious Texas, “When and why did the name change from Lake Dallas to Lake Lewisville?”
Curious Texas asked the experts and took a deep dive into the story behind the name.
Curious Texas
The complex history of the lake dates back to the 1920s in a city then called Garza but now known as Lake Dallas, editor and manager of Carrollton City Limits Liz Castaneda, 54, said.
“Dallas needed another lake for water, so they bought land from Garza, and that’s where they made Lake Dallas,” Castaneda said. “It was finished in 1927.”
The construction of Lake Dallas lasted about three years, from 1924 to 1927.
Denton County Office of History and Culture
About 20 years later, the construction of four more reservoirs and dams started on the Trinity River in Denton County.
The one next to Lake Dallas was Garza-Little Elm Dam and Reservoir, named for its proximity to Garza and Little Elm, according to the Denton County Office of History and Culture.
In 1955, construction finished, and U.S. Rep Frank Ikard, who represented the area at the time, passed a bill to rename Garza-Little Elm Dam to Lewisville Dam.
As Dallas grew, so did its need for a larger water supply, resulting in the deconstruction of the dam separating Lake Dallas and Garza Little-Elm Reservoir in 1957.
Once the dam was torn down, combining the two adjacent bodies of water, the name Lake Dallas was no longer used.
“The city of Lake Dallas kept the name even after they joined the two lakes together,” Castaneda said.
Now, remember how the dam was renamed to Lewisville Dam? Keep that in mind.
In 1971, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers policy determined “lake” would be used instead of dam and the combined body of water would take on the name of the previous dam.
Thus, Lewisville Lake was born.
It was not until 1976 that the funds became available for the city to change lake signage to read “Lewisville Lake,” which is where the majority of the name confusion came from.
Residents commonly use the name Lake Lewisville, although it is labeled Lewisville Lake on maps.
Here’s a more extensive version of the lake’s history.