40 Nebraskaland • April 2021
Commission had established 26 state recreation areas.
1935 - Rock Creek Lake State Recreation Area opened in
Dundy County a few miles downstream from the Rock Creek
Fish Hatchery, which opened in 1926.
1935 - Niobrara State Park at the mouth of the Niobrara
River opened to the public after work by the Civilian
Conservation Corps in 1934 and 1935.
1936 - Ponca State Park opened along the Missouri River in
Dixon County. It was created with the donation of 200 acres
from area residents in 1934 and developed almost entirely
with federal funds through the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Additions to the park in the 1950s, '60s, '70s and 2000s grew
the park to more than 2,000 acres.
1937 - State parks began receiving an appropriation from
the state general tax fund.
1945 - The Commission was granted a 99-year lease by
Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District to
manage recreation grounds on portions of the newly created
Lake McConaughy and other reservoirs in the system,
including Lake Ogallala, Johnson Lake and Gallagher Canyon.
1945 - Box Butte Dam was completed. The Commission
later would lease the property from the U.S. Bureau or
Reclamation as a state recreation area.
1950 - The Dingell-Johnson Act created the Sport Fish
Restoration Program by establishing an excise tax on fi shing
equipment. The tax helps fund rehabilitation of lakes and,
more recently, the construction of boat ramps, docks and
other access projects, at parks.
1952 - Enders and Medicine Creek reservoirs opened to
the public, the fi rst of four large fl ood-control and irrigation
reservoirs built in southwestern Nebraska by the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation.
1954 - Swanson Reservoir opened to the public as the third
large U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reservoir in the region.
1957 - The Commission opened Fort Robinson State Park
on the site of what had been an active military fort from 1874
to 1948.
1958 - The Commission began requiring a $1 State
Recreation Areas stamp for vehicles entering the parks, its
fi rst foray into a user-pay system similar to that required of
hunters and anglers.
1958 - Lewis and Clark Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
reservoir on the Missouri River, opened. It became a Nebraska
J.W. Dears Trading Post at the Red Cloud Agency in the area of Fort Robinson, 1876. HISTORY NEBRASKA, #1392-75
Launching a boat at Bluestem State Recreation Area, 1960s.
NGPC PHOTO LIBRARY
