Joe Pool Lake

Joe Pool Lake is a freshwater impoundment (reservoir) located in the southern part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in North Texas. The lake encompasses parts of Tarrant, Dallas and Ellis counties. The lake measures 7,740 acres (31.3 km2) with a conservation storage capacity of 176,900 acre feet (218,200,000 m3). With a maximum depth of 75 feet (23 m) the lake drains an area of 232 square miles (601 km2).

Joe Pool Lake was named after Joe Pool, a congressman from the Oak Cliff area of Dallas who represented this district from 1967 until his death in 1968. Prior to 1967, Pool represented all of the state of Texas as its last U.S. Congressman-At-Large from 1963 through 1966. Joe Pool was highly influential in the passage of legislation and funding of his idea of a flood control and water conservation lake that he submitted in a report to President-Elect John F. Kennedy and Vice President-Elect Lyndon B. Johnsons’ Kennedy-Johnson Natural Resources Advisory Committee on December 15, 1960