Theodore Roosevelt Dam

Built between 1905 and 1911 while Arizona was still a territory, Theodore Roosevelt Dam was, at the time, the tallest masonry dam in the world. Its construction came at a steep human cost — 77 workers died building the dam and its original powerhouses, out of a workforce that included Western Apache laborers from the San Carlos and White Mountain communities alongside Italian stonemasons, Mexican laborers, and Black workers from Texas. Local stories describe an unsettled presence around the lake, which some attribute to Apache burial sites in the area displaced by the dam and reservoir, though none has been definitively documented.