12 Dams to Explore in California

4,163 acres (17 km²) park that includes the grounds of former mercury ("quicksilver") mines. The park is named after the New Almaden Quicksilver Mines, which were named after the mercury mine in (old) Almadén, Spain, and produced mercury that was used to process ore during the Gold Rush.

A water storage facility constructed by early cattlemen, including CO Barker, in 1900. It is a gathering place for desert wildlife, including many species of birds and Desert Bighorn Sheep. Native American petroglyphs can be seen on the rocks present in the trail to the dam.

A majestic gravity dam on the San Joaquin River in central California in the United States, on the boundary of Fresno and Madera Counties. Friant Dam was originally proposed in the 1930s as a main feature of the Central Valley Project, a federal water project that would involve building an expansive system of dams and canals on the rivers of the Central Valley to provide water for agriculture, with secondary purposes of flood control, municipal supply, and hydroelectric power generation.

Hidden Dam is an earthen dam on the Fresno River in Madera County, California. It creates a reservoir known as Hensley Lake.It was built in 1975 .The dam is under federal ownership and is owned by the Cespk. It is also known as Hensley Lake. The reservoir it creates, Hensley Lake, has a water surface of two and a half square miles, over twenty miles of shoreline, and has a maximum storage capacity of 90,000 acre-feet.

A concrete arch dam, built in 1947. Designed for water storage and flood control, , it impounds Matilija Creek to create the Matilija Reservoir in the Los Padres National Forest, south of the Matilija Wilderness and north of Ojai.

New Hogan Dam is an embankment dam on the Calaveras River, a tributary of the San Joaquin River in central California. The dam lies east of Rancho Calaveras and impounds New Hogan Lake in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

New Melones Dam is an earth and rock filled embankment dam on the Stanislaus River, about 5 miles west of Jamestown, California, United States, on the border of Calaveras County and Tuolumne County. The water impounded by the 625-foot-tall dam forms New Melones Lake, California's fourth largest reservoir, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada east of the San Joaquin Valley.

Oroville Dam is an earthfill embankment dam on the Feather River east of the city of Oroville. it is the tallest dam in the U.S. and serves mainly for water supply, hydroelectricity generation and flood control. The dam impounds Lake Oroville, the second largest man-made lake in the state of California,

Pardee Dam is a 345-foot -high structure across the Mokelumne River which marks the boundary between Amador and Calaveras Counties. Popular recreational activities include fishing, boating and hiking. Swimming pools located next to the café are available for your enjoyment seven days a week.

Parker Dam is a concrete arch structure commonly called the 'deepest dam in the world'. Built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation, it is 320 feet high, 235 feet of which are below the riverbed. The dam's primary functions are to create a reservoir, and to generate hydroelectric power. The dam straddles the Arizona-California state border at the narrows the river passes through between the Whipple Mountains in San Bernardino County.

Poe Dam is a concrete gravity diversion dam on the North Fork Feather River, about 5 miles north of Lake Oroville in Butte County, California in the United States. The dam diverts water through an 6.3-mile tunnel to the 120 megawatt Poe Powerhouse, located on the upper reaches of Lake Oroville. The powerhouse has a rated hydraulic head of 477 ft , generating about 500 million kilowatt hours annually.

Tulloch Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Stanislaus River in central California. The dam is part of the Stanislaus River Tri-Dam project cooperatively owned by the Oakdale and South San Joaquin Irrigation Districts, and was completed in 1958. It serves mainly for irrigation purposes but also has a power station with a capacity of 18 megawatts. The dam is located just downstream of the New Melones Dam and upstream of the Goodwin Dam.